Review by Ilian ZHU -- We are Voulhire: The Fires of Virko

Ilian ZHU · Post by **Ilian ZHU** » 10 Mar 2021, 13:02

[Following is a volunteer review of "We are Voulhire: The Fires of Virko" by Matthew Tysz.]

4 out of 4 stars

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In We are Voulhire: The Fires of Virko, Matthew Tysz continues to tell the story of the kingdom of Voulhire. Here, the author narrates the lives of the characters from the previous book. Along with the story of one of the cities, the city of Virko.

Galen and his companions make a trip to Virko to look for someone who can supply them with material for the smithy. In their search they meet the lord of Virko, Lord Venden. They make a deal with him in exchange for helping him get his son out of the dark things he was getting into. Folcro the son of the lord Valden, is the new character. He appears from the first page, and from there you can tell that his story will have some mysteries that the reader will find throughout the book.

One more character also appears, An Eodi named Alitheia Gadesh, to whom someone brings a sample of a strange virus made of magic. In the last book, the author wrote a mention of that virus when the Lord of Hillport reads Meldorath's diary. Now the Eodi is the one who investigates what the virus can do and who is the person who created it. But of course Meldorath is aware of everything.

This time the story is a slow starter. The last few chapters of the story were the most exciting, while the first few had some mystery to keep the reader interested. Also, throughout the plot I could see the growth of some characters and the development of Voulhire and its cities.

The book seems to be professionally edited, especially because of the map at the beginning. But one thing I was disappointed to find was a grammatical error, since the last book didn’t have any. Also, one thing that confused me was the use of several names or titles for a single character. Sometimes, the way of referring to a character could vary 3 or 4 times in a single page. At the beginning, it became confusing to know if the characters were talking about the same person.

But minor errors aside. It was a pleasure to read The Fires of Virko, and I'm looking forward to read the next volume of the saga. I rate this book four out of four stars. The development of the story was really interesting. The growth of the characters and the way the author plays with the points of view and changes narratives between the various characters is quite attractive. The only aspect I didn't like was that the book was too short and had a very abrupt ending.

The saga contains a lot of information specific to the book, such as magical terms or names of cities which can make the reading quite dense. It contains violence so I would not recommend this book to young minds, and I would also not recommend it to those looking for lighter reading. Instead, I think young adults and lovers of dark fantasy would really enjoy it.

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We are Voulhire: The Fires of Virko
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