Incendiary
Zoraida Cordova
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I am Renata Convida.
I have lived a hundred stolen lives.
Now I live my own.Renata Convida was only a child when she was kidnapped by the King’s Justice and brought to the luxurious palace of Andalucia. As a Robari, the rarest and most feared of the magical Moria, Renata’s ability to steal memories from royal enemies enabled the King’s Wrath, a siege that resulted in the deaths of thousands of her own people.
Now Renata is one of the Whispers, rebel spies working against the crown and helping the remaining Moria escape the kingdom bent on their destruction. The Whispers may have rescued Renata from the palace years ago, but she cannot escape their mistrust and hatred–or the overpowering memories of the hundreds of souls she turned “hollow” during her time in the palace.
When Dez, the commander of her unit, is taken captive by the notorious Sangrado Prince, Renata will do anything to save the boy whose love makes her place among the Whispers bearable. But a disastrous rescue attempt means Renata must return to the palace under cover and complete Dez’s top secret mission. Can Renata convince her former captors that she remains loyal, even as she burns for vengeance against the brutal, enigmatic prince? Her life and the fate of the Moria depend on it.
But returning to the palace stirs childhood memories long locked away. As Renata grows more deeply embedded in the politics of the royal court, she uncovers a secret in her past that could change the entire fate of the kingdom–and end the war that has cost her everything.
The first thing I’ve said to anyone who’s spoken to me about Incendiary is how much I loved the different types of Moira magic. In this world if you have magic you’re one of four types, Persuari, Illusionari, Ventari, or a Robari. Where some are more rare or more common magics than others. Persuari can persuade others, Illusionari can create illusions, Ventari can hear others thoughts and Robari can take memories. Each of these also has a connection with different metals, which help amplify their powers.
Our main character, Renata, is a Robari and has the rarest kind of magic. Robari are also highly distrusted, but Renata even more so as she grew up in the palace under Mendez’s control. Throughout the book a lot of her decisions are based on the distrust from everyone else, and her self-hate because of her powers. Her development to overcome these issues was really well written though – I enjoyed her character arc and the possibility in the next book.
This book seems to hint a lot about politics and manipulation, but as our POV is Renata we don’t see enough of this. As she’s not in the know in either faction, the depth of these tensions isn’t brought forward until she steps out of line. Particularly when Alessandro and Nuria come into the book, we see a lot of scheming happening as they try to get themselves or others into higher positions of power.
Dez, Sayida, Margo and Esteban are all part of Renata’s unit and have… varying levels of whether they like her. They’re all Moira too, but have other powers which makes them more liked in the community where Dez is the son of the person in charge. I liked the relationship development throughout the book especially as Renata sometimes doesn’t think. She’ll run off to do a thing, and these people run after her to help or clean up. Each of these relationships also dictates how the story is pushed forward, and how Renata reacts to things which gave a lot of depth to the decisions made.
Incendiary doesn’t have a specific antagonist in the entire book. Mendez, Alessandro and Castien all go up against our main character at different points, but they also conflict with one another so it’s not a singular unit of “bad guys”. Castien especially is a character you can’t quite get to know because Renata has already made up her mind about him. He defintely has information that would help Renata, but her bias removes our ability to get to it. This was frustrating but I’m intrigued to see how this resolves itself in the next book. But all three “villains” defintely had an element of “is this person really important and bad?” and it kept a level of interest to find out more.
Whilst Renata is back into the castle she is helped by Leo to keep an eye on her. I loved Leo as a character, he really was just a good person who wanted to help. There were a few other helpful faces too, but I don’t want to spoil anything. I really enjoyed how certain people were placed throughout the book that helped increase Renata’s ability to trust in others and rely on people besides herself.
Overall, the plotline isn’t unique at all. There’s a magic community that is in hiding/fighting against the monarchy. The monarchy has it’s own magic wielders to help fight, and has a weapon. The main character needs to find and destroy the weapon, by going undercover. But all the little misdirects give it something a little different to what I’ve read before. By the end of the book there’s quite a few surprises which help keep you hooked, and there’s enough hints in hindsight to guess these surprises too.
Positives of Incendiary
- Character and relationship development
- Moira magic system
Negatives of Incendiary
- Common plotline
I received Incendiary by Zoraida Cordova from the publisher. This is an unbiased and honest review
