When sixteen-year-old Lilly and her dad move from the US to Castello, Italy, she's expecting boredom and poor Wifi. Instead, she finds a town split in two by a deadly feud, monthly blood tests in school and hysteria over supposedly magical beings called Saints.
Her new classmates would rather set off explosions and graffiti on the walls than learn, and many are hostile towards Lilly from their first meeting. Nico and Alex glare at her from across the room, and Christian recoils from her presence. Only Liza seems to want her there, certain that Lilly shares the same internal darkness as she does.
Lilly's strained relationship with her father gets worse as he spends long hours at work and becomes the newest acolyte of the town ruler, the General, who inspires a cult-like reverence among the townspeople.
When Lilly starts experiencing strange bursts of power she has no idea what to do, or who in Castello she can trust.
With Fire in Their Blood has love triangles, a bisexual protagonist and lots of morally grey teenagers with plenty of secrets. This is a complex and exciting YA novel with plenty of twists and turns. It also has a really interesting magic system and world which I'm looking forward to finding more about in book two.
I could definitely see this working well as a film and the descriptions are so strong I could see everything clearly as I was reading.
Plus, there are plenty of brilliant villains! Some are obvious from their first sentence, others masquerade as friends for much of the novel, while characters who seem antagonistic at the beginning may actually prove to be Lilly's greatest allies. With so many secrets still to be revealed, it's really hard to predict where this series is going to go next.
Thank you The Write Reads and Penguin Platform for sending me a copy to review for the tour.
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