**Features:**

- Main character dealing with Amnesia
- Examines themes of overcoming grief and trauma
- Small island town setting

**Summary:**

Abby’s past is crimson flame. Waking up on a tropical beach with no memory, she finds her way to the home of Kanoa. A talented pianist who lost everything, Kanoa sympathizes with Abby’s plight and invites her to stay with him. However, the more flashes of memory begin to return, the more Abby realizes it might be best to leave the past forgotten. To make matters worse, the dangerous fire that burns within her threatens to destroy the new life she is trying to build.

**Thoughts:**

This book has some good ideas in it, but it failed to fully come together into a truly cohesive story for me. Most of the story centers around Abby’s traumatic past and her struggle to contain the violent power within her. Though it makes sense in this situation, Abby acts much younger than her age and is hard to feel connected to. Between this and her suspicion of others, it never really feels like Abby makes authentic connections with anyone around her, even Kanoa. The story also seems to stay fixed on Abby’s suffering with most parts not about her past abuses featuring others treating her with cruelty beyond what feels realistic. This leaves little room for other elements of the story to shine and takes away the impact these moments have.

Throughout Abby’s journey, there are hints dropped about the wider world in which she exists and some of the conflict that the island finds itself on the edges of. It is somewhat awkwardly expressed, but there is a great deal of diversity hinted at as well that hints at a potentially intriguing and complex setting to explore. I wish we had seen a bit more of that world and its people on the page.

Overall interesting storyline. the writing style was not for me unfortunately. the illustrations were a cool addition and helped the story flow.

I personally didn’t really connect with this book. I don’t think it’s a bad book, it just wasn’t for me. I do think other people would definitely enjoy it. I really liked the concept of the book, however, it wasn’t executed how I would have liked. It’s definitely worth checking out though.

The Crimson Mirror by A. K. Bryce is an example of book. It has everything. It has a strong plot, fantastic characters, everytime I turned the page I would crave more of it.

Thank you to Netgalley for this free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this book. Overall, I found the writing to be a bit choppy, the main character frustrating, and the plot to be very dull.

The Crimson Mirror follows Abby, a young woman who washes up on an island beach with no memories. Abby discovers quickly that not only is her body covered with strange burn-like scars, she can wield fire magic, and has vague memories of a horrible life before she washed up on the beach. She is taken in by two locals, Kanoa and Mahina. She has a special connection with Kanoa, and they both help the other heal from traumatizing events in their pasts as Abby begins to put pieces of her previous life together.

The things I did enjoy were Abby developing her power and learning to control and refine it, as well as the development of the relationship between Abby and Mahina in particular. I also liked the glimpses into Abby's life before the beginning of the book. These made me much more interested in what had happened to her and what her past was. I found the darker edge to her previous life and use of her magic very interesting, and wanted to see more of it.

My first problem with this book is with the main character. She's 22, but frequently reads as someone 5-10 years younger. She's often petulant, naive, and has frequent swings between extreme anger and extreme self-hatred. Because there wasn't much of her back story to explain why she would respond this way, and not much growth in these aspects, I was left frustrated by her rather than connecting with her.

I feel also that the way people react to her scars was a bit over the top. I'd certainly expect that sort of thing from children, but when every single adult treats her like a diseased animal for what are very obviously burn scars, it got a little unbelievable for me. This made it feel like a bit of a shortcut to make the reader sympathize with Abby rather than feeling natural.

Second is the plot. This was definitely a book focused more on Abby's inner turmoil related to her power and her missing memories (though there was some external conflict surrounding her trying to hide her magic), but the story felt very one-note. I was annoyed that there were many hints of a broader, darker world that weren't touched at all. The climax of the book was extremely short and seemed to come from nowhere, though there was clear setup for a sequel.

I would be interested in reading a sequel if it dealt more with Abby's past, as I felt this was by far the most interesting part of the book. This book to me felt overall like a prologue to a larger story rather than a first book that stands more or less on its own.