Child of the Flames cover art

Child of the Flames

A Sword and Sorcery Saga

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About this listen

The Red Swords came with the sunrise and took everything Shawna Llewan held dear. Her family massacred, her home destroyed, she escapes with nothing but her mother’s heirloom and the desire for vengeance. When she’s found by Dormael, a Warlock of the Conclave, she learns that her mother’s keepsake — the very reason her family was killed — holds the power to unleash boundless destruction. 

Dormael and Shawna must flee for their lives before a vengeful enemy and guard against the deadly secret it seeks to unearth. Some secrets are best left buried, and vengeance must be pulled from the fists of the gods. With danger closing in around them, Shawna and Dormael are left with little choice. Will they escape, or will they drown beneath a tide of blood?

©2016 Daniel Wesley Hawkins (P)2018 W.F. Howes Ltd Classics Dark Fantasy Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Revenge
All stars
Most relevant
Despite the cover, blurb, sample, and a potential reading of this books title, this book does not follow a female protagonist. Shawna is a point of view character but she has preciously few chapters from her viewpoint and little in the way of agency here.

Instead Dormael, an inoffensive but not deeply engaging character leads the charge and resolves just about every single conflict in the book with vaguely established soft magic.

Hawkins crafts a decently dynamic world that feels believable, but unfortunately the story this work chooses to focus on is rather middling.


The narrator is competent, delivers the lines well and makes the most of the dry humour on offer, but suffers from not distinguishing different characters voices (particularly male ones) too much.

Decent but deceptively presented.

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This story started off with a fairly cracking opening chapter. It slowed down over the remainder of the first half, but we learn a good bit about the main characters of the story in this section. The last half picked up speed and finished with a good battle. The closing epilogue goes a little way towards explaining the name of the series.

The narration was good and well paced, with reasonable characterization for the various characters. The American English of the story tended to intrude for me ("gotten", "off of", for example, are frequently used). Overall, though, I enjoyed the story a lot and have purchased the next one in this series.

A good start to an interesting series

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I wonder when the next ones out. I want to know what happens next to these engaging characters.

An enjoyable listen hopefully more to come

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