Chronicles of Fire: Rise of the Elementals

by J.P. McNeill

Jake Wadsworth had never heard of The Elementals. He appeared to be an ordinary seventeen-year-old who attended Greenville High School, had a girlfriend, and was captain of the fencing team, but what Jake didn't know was that he himself is an Elemental. He is able to create and control fire. The only person who knows the truth is his mother, but Jake has never met her. Jake learns the startling truth on his eighteenth birthday when he is given a scroll, which was discovered with him when he was found abandoned as an infant. The scroll warns of an ancient cult, known as the Order. Eighteen years previous, the Order had successfully murdered all of the Elementals... or so they thought. Jake, is the only one that remains. Now Jake is all that stands in the way of the Order's evil scheme to resurrect their dark mistress from her ancient prison.

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2011

About the author

I believe in making everyday as enjoyable as possible on this earth.
Books bring me that joy, both writing and reading them. I am currently a student. Working towards a Masters of the Arts in Teaching. (Integrated Language Arts)

Fun Facts about Me...

*I was adopted at birth by two wonderful parents who hate to read... weird right?

*I am terrified of Clowns (Thanks to Stephen King and his novel "It")

*"The Hobbit" is my favorite novel of all time

*If I could have any pet, it would be a Siberian Husky named “Spirit”

*When I was a little kid, I used to leave my window open in case a vampire wanted drop in for a bite and make me a vampire also (Not the "Twilight" kind)

*I have four wonderful/impossibly annoying, younger siblings and I have nicknamed all of them and I only refer to them by their nicknames... "The Barbarian," "Squirrel", "Little Cheetah," and "Egg Roll."

*I have several nicknames including, but not limited to...

"Snake"
"Scooter"
"The Littlest Leprechaun"
"LT"
"Danger"
and
"The Boy with the Shortest Attention Span on Earth" (My 6th grade teacher gave me that one)

Reviews

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full Disclosure: I received a free copy from the author for review

Sticking with just the story first:

I admit that when I first read the blurb for the book my initial thought was "seems a bit cliché, but could have promise". After reading the book my general summation is "is a bit cliché, but is definitely readable".

Especially for the first 3/4 of the book, getting past the various typos and things (of which there were a fair few), I thought the writing was well-done. (Ok, after the prologue because there were some awkward lines in there.)

The thing I liked the most was the way the author took his time to develop the characters, and slowly let the world and the story unfold. After the first 30 pages or so I'd almost forgotten I was reading a "young boy saves the world" book because I was sort of wrapped up in the characters and the various school things.

For me, it's very important to care about the characters for me to get into a story, so, on that level, it succeeded for the most part.

Also, I liked the touch with them being fencers. Fencing is a seriously under appreciated sport.

Cons about the characters: Everyone is a little bit too perfect, and I felt like I've almost seen a variation of this trio before.

I was ready to give the book 3 1/2 stars, and maybe even bump it up into 4 stars depending on the ending.

Ok, so then we get to the part where the kid starts discovering who he is, and things sort of started going downhill from this point. Instead of the slow build from the beginning we seem to be on all cylinders go - and I don't mean the climax, which should be full throttle, but the training with Eve. Despite how annoying Eve was (and she was annoying), I would've liked more of that development from the first 3/4 of the book, instead of what felt more like a training montage (though I exaggerate slightly).

(Speaking of Eve and being annoying - the first comparison that popped into my head when I read the blurb, and which stayed with me while reading, was The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. Eve sort of clinched this comparison as she reminded me a lot of Merriman - at least the Merriman from the movie, anyway.)

Then we get to the final turmoil and the climax, all of which seemed to be a bit too easy and more than a bit predictable. All of the reveals and twists were fairly obvious, and I never felt any real concern because I never really believed anyone was in danger.

Also, I was a bit disappointed that while some time was devoted to the various characters, and even into the secondary characters, the villains ended up being rather cartoonish. Even their dialogue bordered on Snidely Whiplash territory.

Now, granted, part of that is because of the style of the story, but I think great stories can get past that. Unfortunately, while this is a good story, it never quite reaches great status.

Now, all that said, a younger, less jaded person might've been taken by surprised by some of the happenings and enjoyed the ending more, but it sort of fizzled for me. And then it was saccharine. Not a good combination.

So really good beginning, but kind of less than satisfying ending.

Also, Clementia sort of sounds like a disease. I imagine it's meant to be said Cleh-men-tee-ah and not Cleh-men-sha, but I couldn't help thinking of it as the latter, and it was just an odd name. (I just looked it up and, apparently, it's the name of the Roman goddess of forigveness and mercy but, to my mind, it still sounds like a disease. Sorry.)

[Beckie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Thoughts: ( I give this book 4 Stars )


Okay, so let me first start out and say I did not think this book would be this awesome of a read. I was not sure what to except when I started to read Chronicles of Fire. I was blown away by how much I really enjoyed this book. The story-line was exciting and the flow of the story was so perfect. I sometimes feel like a author can rush different parts of the book to hurry along the plot, but not this book. It was flawless and always keep me wondering what would happen next. I so enjoyed all of the idea's and the characters were so down to earth and real. Chronicles of Fire gives the reader a magical, fun, and tearful ride into a world where you never know what will happen next. This is the story of Jake who was left on a church's doorstep by his Mother. She felt she needed to keep him safe from the evil in her world. As Jake grows up now living with his adopted Grandparents he leads a normal live with his two Best Friends, Ben and Ellen. They are all on the fencing team at there school and Jake has hopes to become the state champion but little does he know that one day very soon his fighting skills will come in real handy. Later odd things start happening to Jake and will lead to one accident after another. But is Jake responsible for these weird accidents? Well, on his 18th Birthday he will soon find that out and who he really is and why Jake can produce fire with his mind. Jake has now only begun to understand his powers and learn there is a different kind of power out there, a very dark power, "The Order"....


I did not want to go more into depth about the book because I would be giving to much away. I highly recommend this book to any YA-Adult readers. Chronicles of Fire was such a pure delight to read and I loved the Author's style of writing, very smooth and creative. J.P McNeil has shown to be a brilliant writer and I so look forward to reading more of his work. If you are looking for a light, fun and magical read, try this book out. You will not be disappointed.


Thank you J.P. for asking me to read your book. I <3 It!

[Anna (Literary Exploration) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well... where do I start. After reading the synopsis of this book I was pretty intrigued, I mean you don't read many books where the popular guy is the captain of the fencing team and not the football team. Also, the addition of some sci fi elements sounded cool, a kid who can control fire?! This sounded awesome!

After getting about 50 pages in I started to become wary of the story. There are a lot of grammatical errors. Now, I'm pretty biased when it comes to grammar, because I'm a total grammar/punctuation Nazi. Usually I can overlook issues enough to enjoy the plot and the characters and what not, but I started becoming too distracted by the constant commas and grammatical errors. I felt like this was more of an uncorrected proof rather than a fully published book. The writing style was a bit off for me as well. The three main characters, Jake, Ellen, and Ben, are supposed to be high school students, but their language is a weird combination of teen slang and formal writing. Also, the book is written from Jake's perspective, in first person, and he uses so many big words and his speech is so formal it just felt off.

As for the characters, they're okay. I didn't really like or dislike any of them. I did have some issues with the "foreign" characters because they were so stereotypical. You have Joe the Italian guy who owns a pizza store and instead of saying "my" says "me" because of his thick Italian accent. You have Maria, the Mexican housekeeper who calls her boss "senor" when speaking to him. Then there's the Dr., who you know is a shady guy but for some reason no one else can see this. Jake, Ben, and Ellen are alright characters, but there's nothing special about them. The romance between Jake and Ellen is pretty cute and somewhat believable because they've been friends for like, four years, but have also had huge crushes on each other forever. It wasn't just some love at first sight crap like so many Young Adult novels nowadays.

And another thing about the Dr., where did he come from? He appears in the beginning out of nowhere and starts trying to hang out with the "Three Musketeers" (as people refer to Jake, Ellen, and Ben as), and for some reason no one thinks this is odd. Maybe I missed it, but I'm pretty sure he comes out of no where. I was pretty confused about this situation and I would have liked more explanation about him.

The ending was actually pretty good, when we start finding out what's going on with Jake, I became a lot more interested. Everything seems to tie up nicely with a sort of fairy tale ending, but I would have liked a little more conflict. Overall this book didn't really do it for me. It was okay, I guess, but I just had too many issues with it to really enjoy the overall themes and plot. If you can get past the flaws, the story line isn't that bad, I just think the book overall needs some work. I skimmed a lot of pages which is never a good sign.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very good YA fantasy book. Jake was just an ordinary guy in high school with a girlfriend until he discovers he has a gift, he's an elemental. The characters were well thought out, and I liked the fact that he had adults in his life to care for him including one parent. I'm getting sick and tired of kids who's parents died some horrible way and the world is against them, sort of thing so this was refreshing. I enjoyed reading it and will continue with the series.

[Jackie Augur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved your book! I liked that that Ben and Jake were fencers - a sport often overlooked. I'm eager to read about their next adventure.