For A Muse Of Fire
by Heidi Heilig
Young Adult/Fantasy
494 pages
Published September 2018

I’m starting to realize I might have a thing for lady necromancers. They’re the right kind of dark, badass, I’m-going-to-do-the-right-thing-even-if-you-don’t-understand-it amazing women that I love. From Tea in The Bone Witch trilogy to Odessa in Reign of the Fallen to Jetta in this book, these women are amazing. I have one more lady necromancer book out from the library right now, Give The Dark My Love, and I hope it lives up to the rest of these women!

So in For A Muse of Fire, we have Jetta, with amazing powers but also with what she refers to as her malheur – she’s bipolar. She and her parents are traveling to another country to seek a cure for it, but in their journeys they wind up in the middle of a rebellion. Her powers let her see wandering spirits, bind them to physical objects, and command them. In this way, she’s made shadow puppets that don’t require strings or sticks, and her family has a small amount of fame as the best shadow puppeteers in the region.

We learn secrets about Jetta’s family, ancestry, and just how far her powers can go, while she fights off army deserters, generals, smugglers, and ghosts. She imbues unexpected objects with unexpected spirits (one such instance being the best scene in the book, in my opinion).

I can’t wait for the next book. Jetta is maturing into her powers and deciding what to do with them, and once she makes up her mind the world is going to shudder at her feet.

From the cover of For A Muse Of Fire:

Never show. Never tell.

Jetta’s secret has kept her family from starving. It has made them the most famed troupe of shadow players in Chakrana. With Jetta behind the scrim, their puppets move without stick or string.

Never show. Never tell.

With a drop of blood, Jetta can bind wandering spirits to the silk or wood or leather of the puppets and bring them to life. But the old ways are forbidden. If anyone discovered her ability, Jetta could be thrown in prison and left to rot – or worse.

Never show. Never tell.

As rebellion swells and desperation builds, Jetta’s power becomes harder and harder to hide. Especially from Leo, the young smuggler with sharp eyes and secrets of his own. When he and Jetta capture the notice of both the army and the rebels, she may be the spark that lights the rebellion . . . if she isn’t consumed by the flame first.