I came across We Hunt the Flame in the young adult section of Barnes and Noble a few years ago. The cover was beautiful and the summary, promising a Middle Eastern inspired fantasy story, seemed interesting enough. I decided to buy it, but didn't end up reading it right away. Eventually, the sequel to this novel came out, and I bought that too. Since I'm making my way through as many unread series as I can this year, I decided that now was the perfect time to give this duology a try.
The novel is set in the world of Arawiya, a place that has lost its magic and fallen on hard times. It follow two characters and alternates between their points of view throughout the chapters. The first is Zafira, a teenage girl who must take on the role of provider for her family after her father passes away and her mother becomes mentally unstable. She is good with a bow and disguises herself as a man to hunt in the Arz, a dangerous magical forest that encircles her caliphate. The Arz is deadly for most people, but Zafira is somehow able to navigate it with ease, and this uncanny ability has earned her a fearsome reputation. She is known as "The Hunter," and believed to be some sort of super-tough man. Only her family and closest friend know the truth though--she is a determined young woman trying to help her family and the people in her town survive.
The second character is Prince Nasir, a young man that is set to inherit the throne of Arawiya one day. He's been trained since birth to be a deadly assassin and travels around the kingdom on his father's orders, taking out his enemies. His father treats him terribly, and Nasir is caught in an abusive pattern of trying to earn his approval only to be continually met with cruelty. He's earned a dark reputation for himself as well, he's a very good assassin and is known as the Prince of Darkness amongst the people.
Zafira and Nasir are unexpectedly brought together when they are both sent on a mysterious quest. There is a possibility of restoring magic to Arawiya, but it requires a journey to a deadly island to retrieve a magical artifact. Zafira is sent to try and find it; Nasir is sent to kill Zafira and claim it for his father. Once they meet, however, Nasir realizes that the legendary Hunter is actually a woman, and an attraction blossoms between them that they can't deny. Suddenly, Nasir is questioning his orders and reconsidering his allegiances and Zafira is feeling emotions she hasn't experienced before. Together, they start working to make a new future for Arawiya, one that will restore the magic they lost and bring peace to their people. There is a dark force working against them, however, and it threatens to undo everything they are striving for and bring destruction to the kingdom they love.
We Hunt the Flame was a pretty solid read. The cover design was stunning. I liked the Middle-Eastern inspired setting and Hafsah Faizal's writing was undeniably beautiful. The world-building was rich and interesting and the story was pretty engaging. The slow burn romance between Zafira and Nasir was well-written too. It was obvious that this was a story crafted with love, and I appreciated that. I can see how this story would really click with a lot of readers.
For me personally though, it was was good, but not great. I'm not really sure why, because I did like it and I can't think of a lot that was specifically wrong with it. I think the pacing was a little bit slow. There were definitely boring parts and I found myself struggling to stay awake a lot while reading. I didn't exactly look forward to picking this book up each day either. One thing that was consistently an issue was the vocabulary. The story included a lot of cultural words that I didn't know and there was no glossary. You could figure most of them out through context, but I really found myself wishing there was an easy way to look them up and see a pronunciation guide. I noticed on Goodreads that the author created a glossary on their website after the book was published, but I didn't know that as I was reading. I think it was a misstep to not include a resource like that in the book itself. Neither of these things are were enough for me to say I didn't like the book because of them though. I think it just comes down to personal preference.
So ultimately, I liked We Hunt the Flame, but it wasn't a favorite for me. The setting was great and the story was interesting enough, but I found parts of it to be slow and it just didn't fully click with me. I still plan to read the sequel though, because I am interested to see how Zafira and Nasir's story ends up. I think many readers will fall in love with this novel. It wasn't my perfect read, but it was still worth the time.
Challenge Tally
Finally in 2022 - Series Edition: 29/28 - Finished!
Total Books Read in 2022: 67
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