Poudelivre

We return to Salem yet again to meet Lily Proctor. Now she’s back from the parallel universe where her double, Lillian, kidnapped and brought her to months ago. It was here that Lily learned that she’s a witch, and a powerful one at that, and that the reason for all her allergies in her own world is because her body works differently because of her powers. In her own world, Lily was sick but in Lillian’s world, Lily thrives. She’s taught how to use her power by two of Lillian’s former mechanics, people that works as vessels for a witch’s magic, and soon Lily is almost as strong as Lillian. But Lillian brought Lily to her world to replace her since Lillian is very sick. However, Lily has a hard time accepting the choices and decisions Lillian has made and in an epic battle between the two witches Lily accidentally sends herself home to her own universe, along with one of her mechanics and also her love interest, Rowan.

Now Lily is back where she belongs but Rowan is not. Despite the fact that they love each other they both keep secrets from one another, secrets that can change not just their relationship and what they feel for each other but also a whole universe. While Rowan is certain that Lily never can, and never should, return to his world he knows that he can’t stay in hers. He plans to leave her in order to go back to his people and rejoin the war that he and Lily fought together, but left by accident when Lily worldjumped. Lily, on the other hand, has had secret conversations in mindspeak with Lillian ever since she returned to her own world were Lillian has showed Lily the reasons for everything she’s done. Lily knows that if Rowan ever found out that she was talking to Lillian, and at times even understood and agreed with her, he would never forgive Lily. But deep down Lily knows that understanding Lillian is understanding herself, something she has to do. For when it comes down to it, Lily and Lillian is the same person in different circumstances and if Lillian can make mistakes in one universe Lily is bound to repeat them, something neither of them wants. But to fully understand Lillian means to return to Rowan’s world again. But this time she isn’t alone.

I will say again that I really like this plot and that author Josephine Angelini has something interesting going on. However, I do see a difference between Firewalker and its predecessor Trial by Fire. Sometimes when you read a series, the sequels does not look back on the previous book or remind the reader about things like what that certain phrase means or who that person is. This can be really annoying but it’s not the case in Firewalker. Angelini takes her time to explain to the reader all the things that might have been forgotten, if you read each book right after it was published and thus is left with a year-long gap between two installments. I just reread the first book last week so it’s all fresh in my mind but I always appreciate when writers do this and when they make it sound natural and not give a summary of an entire book in the first few pages of the sequel.

What did bother me, however, was how much Lily repeated herself. It wasn’t just that she kept thinking and saying things she already thought and said in the first book but she did it with things that had already been mentioned in Firewalker as well, which bothered me most. For example, she is on the fence when it comes to talking to Lillian but does it nevertheless yet is always saying how much it would hurt Rowan if he found out. The constant repeating of this was so annoying and she kept doing it with a lot of other things as well. I can’t tell if Angelini lost her path in the beginning of the book or if she just thought it was a good idea to shove it down my throat to make sure I really understood. I did understand and I feel that much of Lily’s ramblings early in the book could’ve been cut out.

This is also the book when Lily not only has to confront the Tristan from her own world, whom she’s been friends with since she was little. Right before she was kidnapped by Lillian Tristan cheated on her and they had a big fight. Now she’s back with Rowan by her side and during the time she was gone Tristan went through a lot, not least an extensive police investigation since it was believed that Tristan, one of the last people of seeing her before she disappeared, might’ve hurt Lily and possible even killed her. Tristan is kept in the dark when it comes to Lily’s return and it angers him but eventually they make up and Lily is forced to tell Tristan about her being a witch. Rowan explains that the Tristan in her world has the same talent as the one in his own and that she should make Tristan one of her mechanics.

Along with Tristan Lily claims two other friends named Breakfast and Una after Rowan suggests it, all so that Lily will be surrounded by a coven and people capable enough to take care of her if she’s hurt, especially after he leaves her. Lily is reluctant at first but her three friends are excited and accept Lily being a witch, that she’s been in a parallel universe and that they all have magical talents extremely quickly. So fast, in fact, that I was truly surprised. Not one of these three people stopped for a single moment to question anything Rowan or Lily said and went along with everything without a second thought. Seeing how many people in Rowan’s world who had trouble accepting not only parallel universes but also that Lily was actually from one it felt strange that her friends accepted it straight away. It did not feel believable, especially not since it had been so hard for Rowan to come to terms with Lily’s existence. I almost got the feeling that Angelini was so eager to get the story to move forward that she just skipped the part of her characters having common sense.

This is still a good book but I don’t think it’s as good as the first novel in the trilogy. Maybe because the first one mainly took place in Rowan’s world and that it was exciting to see a place to vastly different from our own and meeting people that didn’t exist in Lily’s world. I did think it would be fun to see Rowan in Lily’s world and while it certainly was it wasn’t as great as I’d imagined. In comparison to the first novel this was just good, not great, but I am still very excited to see where Angelini is taking the story in the final part of the series, Witch’s Pyre.