Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman
Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman
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Flesh and Fire
Book One of the Vineart War

Author: Laura Anne Gilman

Narrator: Anne Flosnik

Unabridged: 14 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/21/2009

Categories: Fiction, Fantasy, Epic


Synopsis

Once, all power in the Vin Lands was held by the prince-mages, who alone could craft spellwines and who selfishly used them to increase their own wealth and influence. But their abuse of power caused a demigod to break the Vine, shattering the power of the mages. Now, fourteen centuries later, it is the humble Vinearts who hold the secret of crafting spells from wines, the source of magic, and they are prohibited from holding power.

But now rumors come of a new darkness rising in the vineyards. Strange, terrifying creatures, sudden plagues, and mysterious disappearances threaten the land. Only one Vineart senses the danger, and he has only one weapon to use against it: a young slave. His name is Jerzy, and his origins are unknown, even to him. Yet his uncanny sense of the Vinearts' craft offers a hint of greater magics within—magics that his Master, the Vineart Malech, must cultivate and grow. But time is running out. If Malech cannot teach his new apprentice the secrets of the spellwines, and if Jerzy cannot master his own untapped powers, the Vin Lands shall surely be destroyed.

In Flesh and Fire, the first entry in a spellbinding new trilogy, Laura Anne Gilman conjures a story as powerful as magic itself, as intoxicating as the finest of wines, and as timeless as the greatest legends ever told.

About Laura Anne Gilman

Laura Anne Gilman, a freelance writer, is the author of the Cosa Nostradamus books (the Retrievers series and the Paranormal Scene Investigations series), the young adult trilogy Grail Quest, and two Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels. She also writes paranormal romances as Anna Leonard. Laura lives in New York City, where she also runs d.y.m.k. productions.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ashley on February 07, 2019

This was interesting but not super compelling. I will probably finish the series? Another one from the TBR Jar. And this one really kicked me in the butt, because I've actually owned an ARC of this book since six months before it was originally published in September 2009. And I've had it in my smal......more

Goodreads review by Beth on October 05, 2019

I'm embarrassed by how long I had this book, buried in a to-read stack, but the important thing is that I finally read it and I greatly enjoyed it once it got going. Gilman created a unique fantasy world based on wine magic. Yes, wine magic. Jerzy is a teenage boy, a slave toiling in a vineyard, but......more

Goodreads review by Michael on December 03, 2009

Laura Anne Gilman's fantasy novel "Flesh and Fire" may not reinvent the fantasy wheel, but at least it has an interesting magical system in place. The magical system of this world is built around grape and wines, with various vineyards producing grapes and wines that have various magical powers and u......more

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on April 01, 2010

Laura Gilman's latest fantasy novel in a huge departure from her urban fantasy novels. She pulls it off with panache because she brings to the table a completely unique system of magic involving vinters and wine. The spellwines themselves involve a lot of the same usual magic of weather, healing etc......more

Goodreads review by K. on September 13, 2009

**I read an ARC of this book** Gilman says in her afterword (or foreword, I can't remember) that she wrote this book after an off-hand comment by her agent about writing her a food-based fantasy. So she did. About wine. About wine that is magic. And so this first book in the series (and it's oh so obvi......more