The Ones We Burn

By: Rebecca Mix

Narrated by: Roisin Rankin

Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Love and duty collide in this richly imagined, atmospheric young adult debut about a witch whose dark powers put her at the center of a brewing war between the only family she’s ever known and the enemy who makes her question everything.

Monster. Butcher. Bloodwinn.

Ranka is tired of death. All she wants now is to be left alone, living out her days in Witchik’s wild north with the coven that raised her, attempting to forget the horrors of her past. But when she is named Bloodwinn, the next treaty bride to the human kingdom of Isodal, her coven sends her south with a single directive: kill him. Easy enough, for a blood-witch whose magic compels her to kill.

Except the prince is gentle, kind, and terrified of her. He doesn’t want to marry Ranka; he doesn’t want to be king at all. And it’s his sister—the wickedly smart, infuriatingly beautiful Princess Aramis—who seems to be the real threat.

But when witches start turning up dead, murdered by a mysterious, magical plague, Aramis makes Ranka an offer: help her develop a cure, and in return, she’ll help Ranka learn to contain her deadly magic. As the coup draws nearer and the plague spreads, Ranka is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her power, her past, and who she’s meant to fight for. Soon, she will have to decide between the coven that raised her and the princess who sees beyond the monster they shaped her to be.

But as the bodies pile up, a monster may be exactly what they need.

©2022 Rebecca Mix. All rights reserved. (P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited. All rights reserved.

Wonderful!

If you’re looking to jump back into reading this I’d the book for it! It’s pretty easy to follow along but is still wonderfully complex. The inclusion of non-binary people was amazing and we always love gay rep. It’s a wonderful story and I highly recommend it!

Easily one of my favs

I recently got back into reading/listening to books, and at first the story started off a bit slow but by the end i was IN LOVE. I've gotten very attached to the characters and definitely would've loved to see more about Percy and Garlans relationship (I saw a comment saying that they also would like to possibly see a 2nd book centered around the development of their relationship and I wholeheartedly agree)

Sweet but Dark Sapphic Tale

I loved it so much. I love all things witchy and this book did not disappoint. If you love queer stories about found family and fighting your inner demons this book is for you!

Captivating

I couldn't put this book down. I listened to it in two days. The world building was fantastic and the character development was even better. I particularly enjoyed the wlw/mlm solidarity and I wish we would get more of that in books. Definitely worth a credit.

Overall, enjoyed it

While the beginning of the book was slow to get into the story and a tad confusing, by the end, I quite enjoyed the tale. Afterward, I listened from the beginning, and it made more sense.
Regardless of other reviews, the character had a good development arc. By the last word of this stand-alone novel, everything fell into place nicely.
I am hoping for a Percy & Garlin book! I'd love to get a background story as well as an adventure in Percy's home land full of dragons!
Roisen Rankin did a fabulous job with narration.

A LGBTQIA+ coming of age story

A sweet tale of going up, overcoming trauma, learning how to use your own talents, being who you are, making up for the mistakes you’ve made, and choosing to fight for what you believe. All lessons for a perfect coming of age tale.

loved everything about it

I figured it would be okay but ended up absolutely loving it. Strong but diverse characters and doesn't take the easy way out at any part. character maturity is age appropriate but still enjoyable as an older reader

Underdeveloped Characters and World

I was really excited to read this book, the entire premise and the dark style are right up my alley, but the book fell flat. The reader was great, her performance was captivating but the story itself was underdeveloped. The characters were by design young, but ahead of their years but their maturity within the storyline was all over the place, the way they spoke was inconsistent. In addition, the world building was underdeveloped. Rebecca Mix created a new world with this book and there were peppered in locations and titles but nothing was explained well enough to create a good visual map, The country seemed small, but then was touted to be massive later on. The dark themes are real and things that are faced in real life so it should be noted this is for a more mature audience than most YA novels.

Overall, this book just missed the mark for me. I would love for more world building and development to happen and more exploration into the science and abuse within the novel, because those themes were important but they were not developed enough to properly immerse the reader.