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A review by lucyknitsandreads
Fire by C.A. Harland
4.0
I can vividly recall the summer when I had to read Dante's [b:Inferno|15645|Inferno (The Divine Comedy #1)|Dante Alighieri|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333579470s/15645.jpg|2377563]. I was 16 and I was staying with family friends for a few days. As it was on the required reading list for that year, I had to suffer my way through its archaic language and religious theme that I didn't know much about. And even though I struggled with it, the idea of Hell and its circles was fascinating.
[a:C.A. Harland|8434494|C.A. Harland|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1442982943p2/8434494.jpg]'s [b:The Ninth Circle, Book 1: Fire|34861977|The Ninth Circle, Book 1 Fire (The Ninth Circle #1)|C.A. Harland|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1492266805s/34861977.jpg|56104863] was a more youth-friendly re-imagination of the same story, mixing it with a bit of the Winchester brothers' trade. Even the structure of it reminded me of Supernatural, and that made this book even better.
See, the story -for the most part- is like that of Supernatural. We have the Morgenstern sisters, Tala, Aiva and Hartley who grew up in a Nighthunter family, chasing demons and other supernatural creatures. Tala and Hartley work as private investigators, specialising in the supernatural (and everything that "normal" people would simply call odd.) The third sister, Aiva, gave up the family trade when the sisters moved to Dublin after their mother's death and she works as a librarian. But her little sister, Hartley, goes missing while trying to find the father she never knew, and so Aiva has to join Tala to find her.
They have to track Hartley's every movement through Dublin's criminal network, the Circles. Every circle has a different function in the magical underworld which we get to know step by step. The first chapter is about the First Circle, where low-level demons operate as recruiters, finding humans who are willing to sell their souls to demons. The Second Circle that runs brothels and doesn't shy away from human trafficking. The Third Circle which revolves around drugs. The Fourth Circle that caters to gamblers whose debts land with the collectors of the Fifth Circle. The Sixth Circle does all the money laundering while the Seventh Circle provides all the weapons needed by demons in the Fifth, just as they are guns-for-hire. The Eighth Circle is home to demons dealing with document forgeries and scams and they are the guards of the Archive - where they keep all the records of Hell. The most powerful of them all is the Ninth Circle, which is the governing body of the underworld.
Apart from all the Circles that we get a glimpse of, we meet many creatures of Hell. Harpies, hellhounds, selkies, sirens and a lot more.
*~*
I can say I enjoyed this book a lot. For one, I really like Supernatural, so a version where women my age are the main protagonists is right up my valley. The world-building was very interesting and I loved Aiva. There even was a Bobby Singer like character named Owen, a guy who was like a father to the girls. And I think this resemblance was the reason why it took me this long to finish this book. Okay, I've been busy with work, but still. Most nights I could have read a few pages before bed but I just watched my TV shows instead. Because this felt a bit like another episode of Supernatural, and harsh as it is, if you watch 10 of those, you can pretty much say you've seen them all. I mean, it was written on Netgalley, "The Ninth Circle is made up of twelve sequential episodes. These episodes each detail a story or adventure of Tala and Aiva, which when combined, make up a complete novel". And it really was like that. Demon Hunting Sisters, Season 1, Episodes 1-12.
That being said, I would recommend this book to everyone who's a fan of Supernatural and stories about demons and Hell because it's a nice little read. But don't expect a closure because the story goes on with book #2, Strength! Let's hope we don't need to wait long.
I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
[a:C.A. Harland|8434494|C.A. Harland|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1442982943p2/8434494.jpg]'s [b:The Ninth Circle, Book 1: Fire|34861977|The Ninth Circle, Book 1 Fire (The Ninth Circle #1)|C.A. Harland|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1492266805s/34861977.jpg|56104863] was a more youth-friendly re-imagination of the same story, mixing it with a bit of the Winchester brothers' trade. Even the structure of it reminded me of Supernatural, and that made this book even better.
See, the story -for the most part- is like that of Supernatural. We have the Morgenstern sisters, Tala, Aiva and Hartley who grew up in a Nighthunter family, chasing demons and other supernatural creatures. Tala and Hartley work as private investigators, specialising in the supernatural (and everything that "normal" people would simply call odd.) The third sister, Aiva, gave up the family trade when the sisters moved to Dublin after their mother's death and she works as a librarian. But her little sister, Hartley, goes missing while trying to find the father she never knew, and so Aiva has to join Tala to find her.
They have to track Hartley's every movement through Dublin's criminal network, the Circles. Every circle has a different function in the magical underworld which we get to know step by step. The first chapter is about the First Circle, where low-level demons operate as recruiters, finding humans who are willing to sell their souls to demons. The Second Circle that runs brothels and doesn't shy away from human trafficking. The Third Circle which revolves around drugs. The Fourth Circle that caters to gamblers whose debts land with the collectors of the Fifth Circle. The Sixth Circle does all the money laundering while the Seventh Circle provides all the weapons needed by demons in the Fifth, just as they are guns-for-hire. The Eighth Circle is home to demons dealing with document forgeries and scams and they are the guards of the Archive - where they keep all the records of Hell. The most powerful of them all is the Ninth Circle, which is the governing body of the underworld.
Apart from all the Circles that we get a glimpse of, we meet many creatures of Hell. Harpies, hellhounds, selkies, sirens and a lot more.
*~*
I can say I enjoyed this book a lot. For one, I really like Supernatural, so a version where women my age are the main protagonists is right up my valley. The world-building was very interesting and I loved Aiva. There even was a Bobby Singer like character named Owen, a guy who was like a father to the girls. And I think this resemblance was the reason why it took me this long to finish this book. Okay, I've been busy with work, but still. Most nights I could have read a few pages before bed but I just watched my TV shows instead. Because this felt a bit like another episode of Supernatural, and harsh as it is, if you watch 10 of those, you can pretty much say you've seen them all. I mean, it was written on Netgalley, "The Ninth Circle is made up of twelve sequential episodes. These episodes each detail a story or adventure of Tala and Aiva, which when combined, make up a complete novel". And it really was like that. Demon Hunting Sisters, Season 1, Episodes 1-12.
That being said, I would recommend this book to everyone who's a fan of Supernatural and stories about demons and Hell because it's a nice little read. But don't expect a closure because the story goes on with book #2, Strength! Let's hope we don't need to wait long.
I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.