REVIEW: We are Voulhire: The Fires of Virko by Matthew Tysz

We Are Voulhire: The Fires of Virko by Matthew Tysz, is the second book in his We Are Voulhire series. I would personally give this book 2 out of 4 stars. I have read the first book, and I did rate that one higher, however for this book there are some factors influencing my rating. I noticed more spelling and grammar mishaps with this book versus the first one, and there were a few other things I wasn’t fond of, which I will go into later, but first I will tell you about this book. As I said, this is the second book in this series. We still have Galen Bray as the main character, who is still living in the County of Voulhire, and in the town of Magnum Caelum where he is living in his late Uncle’s house that he inherited in the first book. Also, on the land he inherited, is his late Uncle’s forge. Galen has been using his Uncle’s notebooks to teach himself the forging techniques. This book centers more around Voulhire’s town of Virko. 25 years ago, Virko really didn’t exist- in fact, you won’t even find it on old maps. Lord Venden Hrelek built the industrial town up from nothing. Today, he is a sick old Lord. He has a son named Hans Hrelek who is in charge of the upkeep of his fathers’ estate. The people of Virko want the city to grow more, and for the technology and government to expand and become prosperous. Lord Vendon Hrelek doesn’t really like that idea, and he starts turning the town into a Capitalist Land. Hans receives a mysterious letter that says the King of Voulhire is going to put Virko in charge of the Royal Administration. Meaning lots of money. Galen travels to Virko, to speak to the ailing Lord on behalf of his town to ask for reserve of iron. Lord Vendon Hrelek agrees to the reserve but asks for a favor in return. He is worried that his son has fallen into the influence of a dark demon, who was baited and binded to their house decades ago. Galen agrees to cleanse the house and rescue the Lord’s son from darkness, and so our adventure truly begins. What I liked about this book what that it was easy to get swept into. It is almost like you are transported to that time and era, and you are really in the story. I love how realistic the characters all are- you get a great picture in your head of who they really are. It is almost as if they are truly living. I like the pace of the book as well. There are no grudgingly slow parts, as some books tend to have. This book grabs you from the start, and has you holding on till the very end. I also like how each chapter is clearly titled with who’s point of view it is from/who it is about. It makes it easier to keep track. What I didn’t like what that the author seemed to try to make it be standalone, by briefly summarizing the first books characters background in the first chapter we come to for them. For example, chapter 3 is called Galen Bray. It talks about the town he is in and his uncle’s forge. However, it also calls his uncle his great uncle, and that confused me quite a bit. Having read the first book, I believe there would be enough that you could just pick up and read this book, however I feel you would be missing vital information. I think a section in the beginning of the book summarizing the first book and the characters and main cities would have been helpful. I didn’t like the lack of editing this book seemed to have. There were a lot of words that should have been hyphenated I felt; goodlooking [pg 23], milkchocolate [pg 27], twenty five[pg 7] to name a few. Page 45 talks a lot about an armchair, but in one spot on the page it says armchai and is obviously missing an “r”. I feel like the book would certainly deserve a higher rating if it even had one read-through editing session done! This book is for the lover of fantasy or old times. There are Kings and Lords, but there are also mentions of demons and magic. Anyone who loves an adventure story would most certainly love this book. People who like book series will enjoy this, as well as those who prefer standalone books. I personally am not a huge fan of fantasy or medieval times, but I really did enjoy this book. I started reading and could not stop till I finished!