I will be doing a full review for Library Journal so these are my messy thoughts for a mess of a novel.

I was assigned this book to review as for Library Journal. I review specifically "Historical Romance" novels for Library Journal. This book looks like a historical romance novel, has back copy that reads like a historical romance novel, and even has a Hawaiian language glossary at the back, all things that indicate this is a historical romance novel. But. The author's note at the beginning makes sure to specifically point out:

Bound in Flame is not intended to be an accurate portrayal of history, but rather a re-imagining, a consideration, of what might have been...Is this a romance? Is this a fantasy? Or merely the ramblings of an old woman who has spent too long in the sun? I leave that for you to decide.

No thank you. I don't want to have to guess whether this is a romance or a fantasy and the story doesn't embrace any of these genres in any satisfying way.

1900s Hawaii is a time period fraught with colonialism and racism and if you aren't ready to do the work besides following your own personal research rabbit holes, than don't write a historical fiction novel. Don't use historical figures. Don't make your blurb sound like you are writing about a real person (as far as I can tell Letty Lang is made up).

Most readers and book clubs are going to pick this up and think oh, how lovely, this will lead to such interesting discussion, but will not have the wherewithal or the prior knowledge to understand that this book is at best badly written and misleading and at worst highly problematic.

Letty Lang is 18 years old, is a budding Suffragette, an aspiring veterinarian, and SHE'S MAGIC. I hated that Letty's skills were made possible by magic she barely understood and that wasn't fully comprehensible to me, a white lady who is very unfamiliar with Native Hawaiian mythology. I just felt uncomfortable about it all.

And if that weren't enough, Letty is also best friends with the former Queen of Hawaii, rides at least fifteen different horses with different names throughout the story, interacts with other Native Hawaiians who seem to only be able to speak stilted English, and falls in love with an older English "nice white guy" who owns a sugar plantation. But she might kill him with her fire powers you know. And of course it is the MAGIC that is keeping them apart, not the fact he's a White plantation owner and she's a Brown Native Hawaiian who gets to experience casual and forthright racism throughout the story. Oh and there's a polo match, and a ball, and some other sort of horse race, and a magic white donkey riding lady who appears sometimes, and a dog named Rosebud, and a bad guy who wants to sabotage the nice White Guy for some reason and is mean to horses and kidnaps Letty and tortures her. SO MUCH STUFF. And the Hawaiian Ladies' Riding Society is barely mentioned, and again should perhaps been the focus of the story?

Basically this felt like it should have been a YA fantasy novel that took inspiration from Hawaiian myth, took more responsibility for not being "own voices," and just really shouldn't be out here masquerading as an Adult Historical Romance novel (there is one explicit sex scene).