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Gillian Philip

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Firebrand (Rebel Angel Series) Hardcover – February 19, 2013

by Gillian Philip (Author)

4.2 87 ratings

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New 1st ed.

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor Books
Publication date

February 19, 2013
Grade level

10 - 12
Dimensions

6.1 x 1 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0765333228
ISBN-13

978-0765333223
See all details

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Once a year, a new novelist really blows me away. Last year it was Suzanne Collins with The Hunger Games…. This year it's Gillian Philip's Firebrand…. A fantastically violent, utterly thrilling tale.... Firebrand is one of the very best...Philip's clear prose is as fiery as whiskey…. The best fantasy novel of 2010.” ―The Sunday Times

“Philip has created an utterly believable other world, where male and female are equals in arms. It is often stark and brutal but with moments of heartbreaking beauty.” ―The Guardian

About the Author

GILLIAN PHILIP was born in Glasgow, lived for twelve years in Barbados, and now lives in the north of Scotland with her husband, twin children, three dogs, two sociopathic cats, a slayer hamster, three chickens, and a lot of nervous fish.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Firebrand

By Gillian Philip

Tor Books

Copyright © 2013 Gillian Philip
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780765333223
1

You deal with him.
That was the first and last communication my mother ever had with my father about me. My father was more surprised than angry when my mother’s emissary rode through the dun gates with a sullen brat on a pony behind him and an expression of pained endurance on his face. The man had ridden three days with me and I’d made sure they were the longest three days of his life. He was so glad to see the back of me, he didn’t even take bed and board from Griogair for the night; he stayed for one meal and a very stiff drink, then turned right round and rode back the way he came. I hope Lilith made it worth his while.
Even later my father was never angry about it. He wasn’t involved enough for that; at most he was mildly irritated. Deep down I’m sure he wasn’t convinced of my existence, that he thought I was just one more of Lilith’s illusions.
My stepmother believed in me, all right. I used to feel Leonora’s cold blue gaze like frost on my skin, and if I looked up, she wouldn’t look away. She was the only one who didn’t. The rest of the clann averted their eyes, as if I was a colossal embarrassment. Well, that’s what I was, so as soon as it became clear Griogair wasn’t going to embrace me as his long-lost heir, they adopted the policy of pretending I didn’t exist. The small band of children took more of an interest, the older ones freezing me out or taunting me at best, and giving me thrashings at worst. The younger ones ran from me: I made sure they did.
But my stepmother didn’t bully me or fear me or ignore me. She watched me. I thought it quite likely she’d eventually kill me, but I never could read Leonora’s eyes, let alone her mind. It wasn’t that she felt threatened by me; she wasn’t threatened by anyone. I’d watched her and my father together and I’m sure he never smiled at my mother like that, or touched her so gently, or spoke so tenderly. Certainly he never treated me that way. If he caught sight of me his brow would furrow and he’d set his teeth and look exasperated, as if I was a reminder of some great mistake, a souvenir he couldn’t get rid of. Leonora? All I could ever make out in her was pity and a degree of contempt, and I hated her for it. I’d have liked to hate my father too, but I couldn’t. All I ever wanted was his love, or if I couldn’t have that, his notice would do.
I never had a chance.
But my mother sent me back to him anyway. She was living at court by then, an adviser to the queen: oh, her exile had brought her up in the world. From being Griogair Dubh’s afterthought lover, she’d risen to be one of the most powerful courtiers in Kate NicNiven’s halls. What she didn’t need was a truculent attention-seeking toe-rag who was always getting into trouble, calling the captains names and the courtiers worse ones, getting thrashed on a regular basis and generally being an embarrassment. So she sent me back to Griogair.
I liked it better with my father anyway. The women of our race don’t do motherhood well, it’s a known fact, so I didn’t really miss Lilith, not after a while. Sithe women make wonderful fighters, wise and wily counsellors. If they’re healers or smiths they do it well; when they’re witches they excel at witchcraft. What they do not excel at is motherhood. It’s not something that happens easily, we’re not a fertile race; maybe that’s where those ridiculous stories come from, the ones about us being baby-stealers. Let me tell you, our women can barely tolerate their own brats, let alone someone else’s. Our women don’t yearn for children, because what’s the point mourning for centuries over something that may never happen? Instead they harden themselves, and even if they do breed they never quite shake off that hardness. Anyway, some of them don’t even take lovers, the loss of their virginity is so physically painful. Must be, to stay loverless for centuries.
Well, my mother must have got over that problem. She had plenty of lovers, though what she wanted more than anything was to be Griogair’s bound lover and that was something she’d never get for all her wiles, because he’d bound himself to Leonora decades before Lilith came along. When it became clear I wasn’t going to advance her cause in any way, Lilith lost interest in me altogether.
Which was fine by me. Being sent away from Kate NicNiven’s labyrinthine caverns was like breathing for the first time, and there was no-one I missed from her pale and haughty court. There had been even fewer children underground than there were above it, but anyway, I needed neither friends nor mother. At my father’s dun I was content to skulk in the shadows and watch; that way I could see how the fighters trained, how the children scrapped and competed, how the strange and complex hierarchies of dun life operated. There were daredevil games on horseback that I might have liked to join, and when the wild racing music played on moonlit nights I used to half-wish I could throw myself into the dance with the rest of them. But it was fine, I was fed and clothed and relatively safe, and I was learning a lot—not that anybody made me study, or even tried to make me work the fields or learn a practical skill. My education was self-inflicted and unconventional, but I knew that the lessons would come in useful for the rest of my life. The most useful of them was the one I learned first: I was responsible for myself. In life and death you’re on your own, and I knew that better than any of my peers.
It seems stupid now that I looked forward so much to living with my father. I must have had some childish romantic picture in my head, me and him doing father-son things together, fighting and hunting and laughing and confiding.
But it turned out he already had a son, a perfect one, so he didn’t need another.

Copyright © 2010 by Gillian Philip

Continues...
Excerpted from Firebrand by Gillian Philip Copyright © 2013 by Gillian Philip. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; 1st edition (February 19, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765333228
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765333223
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 10 - 12
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,132,449 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,403 in Teen & Young Adult Wizards & Witches Fantasy
- #246,254 in Fantasy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 87 ratings

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Gillian Philip

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Gillian Philip was born in 1964 in Glasgow, Scotland. She has worked as a music store assistant, wine sales rep, radio presenter, theatre usherette, barmaid, hotel wrangler, typesetter, and political assistant. She lived for twelve years in Barbados, where to avoid spending her entire life in a beach bar she took up writing seriously. In the evenings she worked as a singer in a band in an Irish bar, playing a combination of Celtic folk rock, reggae and calypso.

Her books include Crossing the Line, Bad Faith, The Opposite of Amber and the Rebel Angels series - Firebrand, Bloodstone, Wolfsbane and (coming in 2014) Icefall. She has written the Survivors series (as Erin Hunter), two Beast Quest instalments (as Adam Blade), and the Darke Academy series (as Gabriella Poole). She has toured widely in the United States as Erin Hunter, promoting the Survivors series for Harper Collins.

She has been nominated and shortlisted for awards including the Carnegie Medal, the Royal Mail Scottish Children's Book Award and the David Gemmell Legend Award.

She now lives in a beautiful valley near Dallas (the tiny one in Scotland), with husband Ian, twins Lucy and Jamie, and a fluctuating population of animals: currently Cluny the Labrador, Milo the Papillon, Otto the half-Papillon, psycho cats The Ghost and The Darkness, chickens Mapp, Lucia and Honey Boo Boo, and a lot of nervous fish.

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4.2 out of 5

87 global ratings

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Amazon Customer

strong historical fantasy

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2012

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The Veil separates the world of humans from that of the Sithe. Because of the radical different life spans, the underlying philosophies of the two species are polar opposites. The humans' strongest value is fear of anything odd or new as change threatens their possessions even those with nothing. On the other hand the Sithe's most significant value is trust of one another regardless of station as ages of living together require belief that those in your community have your back.

The unthinkable happens when Sithe Queen Kate NicNiven has plans to destroy the Veil and subjugate the humans under her rule. To do this she must eliminate her most powerful opponent Lord Griogair MacGregor. When Griogair is assassinated, his two sons (Seth and Conal) flee to the mortal realm. They vow to return one day to claim their inheritance, but first the siblings must avoid the human witch-hunt at a time when Restoration divisive fervor has savage Scotland in a deadly turmoil.

This is a strong historical fantasy in which two mythical siblings struggle to survive as strangers in a strange hostile land. The key to this engaging storyline is that the Sithe society seems genuine with its construction built from the premise of the species' longevity. The plot accelerates once the brothers cross the Veil and find themselves held in suspicion by just about everyone while stalked by cleansing fanatics on both sides of the restoration fight. Readers will appreciate the first Rebel Angels thriller wondering why the Queen wants to conquer the pathetic race on the other side of the Veil.

Harriet Klausner

2 people found this helpful

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IT Dude in Austin

a very good read

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2013

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I really enjoyed this book and would probably put it at 4.5 stars if I could. The only thing keeping me from 5 stars is that I found some of the plot subtleties hard to follow. Characters were well-developed though.

2 people found this helpful

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starlight

Definitely worth the read

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2013

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I quite enjoyed this book and am looking forward to the next installment. the characters and the story were very compelling.

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Jenny Q

A beautifully flawed antihero carries this gritty new fantasy series

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2014

I became absorbed in Firebrand right away, and the reason was the kick-ass prologue followed by a trip back in time that introduced me to the young Seth MacGregor and allowed me to follow his journey to his moment of crisis presented in the prologue. It's coincidental because I was just reading an article on antiheroes, and Seth is a wonderful example of such a character. In Philip's evocative story world, a whole other magical race inhabits the Scottish Highlands—the Sithe—separated from mortal humans by a Veil that cloaks them and keeps them safe from the witch hysteria sweeping through sixteenth-century Europe. A bastard child of a powerful Sithe lord and a powerful Sithe witch, Seth is treated as an outsider in both his father's and mother's clans. He's a lonely, angry, bitter child until his older half-brother, Conal, the golden boy and heir to the clan, comes home and takes him under his wing. Thanks to his brother's intercession, Seth is grudgingly accepted by a few members of the clan and over the years learns to become a fierce warrior, and there's no one he loves and protects more fiercely than his brother.

But he becomes an unwitting pawn in an ancient political battle spearheaded by the beautiful but deadly Sithe queen, who seeks to harness Conal's magnetism and born leadership for herself in a time of unrest and unhappiness under her rulership, and amid rumors that the Veil that sustains them is dying. She's not above using those Conal loves, including Seth, to force him and his clan to her side. Seth finds himself in new and dangerous territory, attempting to navigate the pitfalls of a Sithe court seething with secrets, betrayals, alliances, and murderous intent. Though his angry and bitter heart has never fully healed, he remains true to his beliefs and to his brother, and to the handful of Sithe he has come to call friends. But when the queen has enough of Conal refusing to fully submit to her, she banishes him to the mortal world, and Seth stubbornly refuses to let him go alone.

Seth never thought he'd miss the snake pit of the queen's court, but living in the mortal world proves to be more difficult than he realized. Forced to live among squalor, poverty, abuse, and rampant superstition, Seth is disgusted by they way humans live their lives, while Conal's big heart won't let him stand by and do nothing to help. And that leads to trouble. On their own in a foreign world, the brothers have only each other to rely on, and when Conal is swept up in a witch hunt incited by a fanatical priest, it's up to Seth to save him—or die trying. But if he can rescue his brother, what will become of them? Returning to the Sithe world will keep them safe from mortals, but the fury of the Sithe queen is even more dangerous. What follows is an exciting sequence of events—full of action, drama, and even a little love—that kept me on the edge of my seat to the very last bittersweet page.

I really liked this story world, I liked the way the author held no punches, and I loved, loved, loved Seth! This story was filled with so many gut-wrenching emotions, complicated layers, subtexts, undercurrents, and plot twists that I was fully submerged and could not put it down. I was loving this book so much I really thought it was headed for 5-star territory, but things fell apart a bit at the end. I applaud Ms. Philip for creating a complex story world and resisting the urge to explain every nuance, to let the reader learn by context, and that worked wonderfully for me until the last few pages. A couple of shocking things happened very quickly and they appeared to have far-reaching consequences and hidden meaning, but I was left wondering what the heck had just happened and why everyone was making such a big deal out of it. I was so confused! It seemed really rushed and half-formed. So that was frustrating, and since I couldn't grasp the full impact of the ending, I didn't have the feeling of satisfaction I craved. But Firebrand is a great start to an imaginative, gritty, and dangerous fantasy series, and the ending also opened up a new beginning, so I'm off to follow the character I grew to love so much on the next leg of his journey!

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Gemma H

Edge of your seat stuff!!!!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2012

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Originally Reviewed at Book Chick City

Before reviewing this book, I have a confession to make. Every time I hear the term, "Young Adult", I run screaming from the book. Mainly due to the fact that most of the books in this genre seem to be a variation of Twilight or Vampire Diaries (well, the one's I've read anyway). Though there are people my age who still like these books and find them entertaining, I am past the teenage angst stage and prefer my tension more gritty.

However, my pre-conceptions of this genre were blown out of the water after reading the first chapter of FIREBRAND. This was no Twilight or Vampire Diaries. This was something altogether a bit more special.

We open to the infamous Witch Trials of the 16th century and within the first few pages, we are introduced to the two main players in this brutal and compelling tale. These are Seth MacGregor and his elder half-brother Conal.

In the very first scene, the author puts you right beside Seth, just as he is waiting for the right time to shoot Conal in order to prevent him from suffering by being burned at the stake. Seth had already seen the horrific deaths of others put to death in this way, for being identified as witches. He knows that he cannot save Conal and that this is the only way to prevent him from feeling the flames lick his skin. What is very interesting is the fact that Conal is not alone and that there is a young woman beside him.

While waiting to take his shot Seth apologies to the woman for choosing to shoot Conal first. It implies that there is some sort of agreement, but since it is the beginning of the book, we don't know how it has come to this. Its edge of your seat stuff and I held my breath as the prologue closes with Seth readying to pull the trigger of the crossbow, just as the guards are about to light the pyre that Conal and the mysterious young woman are tied too.

The prologue ends with Conal's life hanging in the balance. We don't know if Seth has taken his shot or if something has happened to prevent him from doing so. Instead we go back a few years to when Seth was sent to stay with his father and Conal's Mother, in the dun. It is from here we see how everything unfolds to take us to the point in the prologue.

At first I thought that Seth and his brother Conal, lived in our world. The differences I noted were the fact that their queen is a `Kate McNiven,' and how the people of their dun live. (A dun is like a medieval town or village, with a Laird overseeing the running of the land for the King or Queen. In this case it is Seth and Conal's father). This is made clearer by the the women of the dun are almost equals, when at this time in Scotland, they were anything but. This is shown by the fact that the women fight along side the men and also undertake more masculine jobs, such as a blacksmith.

The animosity between Leonnora, Conal's mother and Lilith, Seth's birth mother is clear to see. It is all due to the fact that Lilith seduced Lennora's husband, Griogair. Her hatred ends up being directed at Seth and he feels that he never really fits in with the rest of the clan.

A major sub plot is the fact that the Veil that separates the two worlds is failing. It is hinted that only Kate, Lennora and Lilith are able to keep it in place. Their personal feelings means that it is effectively Lennora against Kate and Lilith, especially when it looks as though Kate wants the Veil to fail. However, we see that Kate fears Leonnora for some reason that isn't clearly defined. It's these weaknesses that result in her losing the little loyalty and respect she has from her subjects due to some of the decisions she makes. One such decision involved the punishment laid out against some of Seth's closest friends. Kate seems to like to rule with an iron fist, but it is this that turns out to be her downfall.

The failing of the veil and the fracturing of the people's loyalties isn't the main storyline, but is merely the catalyst for Seth maturing from a headstrong boy, to a man of great strength and honour.

We see the first signs of him maturing when he chooses to go into exile with Conal to our world. Conal is being punished for an act of treason against Kate, though they know that this is not forever as another traitor had been exiled for a length of time before being invited back across the veil, after some intense grovelling. Instead of staying in his homeland, Seth decides to go with Conal into exile. It clearly shows the loyalty Seth has to his brother.

The stark contrast between Seth's world and the human world is vividly drawn by the author, to the point you can imagine what 16th century Scotland was really like. It is a time of suspicion and where the church is scared it is losing its hold over the people. Anything strange is questioned and at times pits family members against each other. At first Seth and Conal are treated with caution. Since they keep themselves to themselves most of the time, they are accepted, if not welcomed fully into the village in which they are exiled to.

While Conal seems to adjust to life with ease, Seth finds it more difficult to blend in. Conal knows that there is a real threat in this land and does his best to try to school his brother in the art of camouflage. Unfortunately, Conal ends up being found guilty of witchcraft due to the hysteria of the time.

When the kindly minister, who has helped them to adjust to their new lives, dies suspiciously and his very shady replacement arrives, we see the dominoes begin to tumble towards the events at the beginning of the book. There is no sugar coating it and although Philip never goes into full detail, like you'd maybe find in an adult book, there is no pulling any punches on how cruel these inquisitions really were.

After the intervention of the Laird returning to his lands, just in the nick of time I might add, Conal, Seth and Catitonia, Conal's fellow prisoner, all cross the veil. Conal only just manages to cross. Lennora's distrust and dislike of Seth returns when she makes the comment that had Conal not returned alive, Seth would have been the heir to the dun. On there return Lennora all but blames Seth for Conals exile.

Everything comes to head with a climax that had me on tenterhooks. I didn't know who would live and who would die. The horrors of true warfare are shown, yet not in a graphic way. Everything is hinted at, but sometimes that is worse for your mind and can be much worse than any description in a book.

The end of the book is tragic, after Seth and Conal are once again in exile in the human world. I am not going to spoil it, all I will say is hankies at the ready. It's this one scene that demonstrates how far Seth has come on his journey.

VERDICT:

I can't put across how much I loved this book and urge anyone who wants something that little bit different to read to pick it up. I have pushed up the second book Bloodstone in my TBR pile and I can't wait to read it. Philip is definitely a hidden gem that deserves the recognition for this book. I would recommend it to anyone who likes the dark and broody world of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin and is a good introduction to this type of book for younger readers.

One person found this helpful

terryb

firebrand

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 17, 2014

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A page turner, Easy reading. Lacks the subtly of writing that would make it great but worth reading. Worth investing a few pound to buy,

One person found this helpful

Book Babe Extraordinaire

One of my Top Reads for 2010

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2010

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This is, quite simply, one of the best faerie fantasy books I've ever read. No kidding--it's that amazing. What slightly niggles me about some of the current crop of 'modern faery tales' is that the faeries have been translated from their original Celtic homelands to the USA. Nothing wrong with that--but sometimes it just doesn't sit quite right. Gillian Philip's book is not set in the USA, but in the Scotland of the 16th century where there's a whole otherworld of gloriously dangerous telepathic faeries just beyond the Veil. In the dour and dirty mortal world, on the other hand, witches are burned, superstition is rife and 'different' is often fatal to your chances of living to a ripe old age.

Now, I am quite squeamish about people-bonfires, and it takes a lot to get me to read a book where burning witches is described in any sort of detail at all. Firebrand had me so tight in its grip by the end of the second page that I just didn't care when, later on in the book, the author was putting nightmare images of popping, crackling flesh into my head. It is one of those (sadly unusual) books where I simply forgot I was reading--because I was so totally engaged with her richly created and beautifully crafted world. Her feral yet fiercely loyal Sithe hero, Seth MacGregor, is a fully-imagined and fascinating character who I fell for immediately. He's a driven, volatile, knife-edge sort of boy--unflinching in his shield of outward fierce pride and yet (in his own head) so vulnerable and so unsure that he is loveable or redeemable in any way. His older brother Conal--opposite to Seth in almost every way on the surface--nearly broke my heart with the power of his generous, breath-stopping love. The faerie queen, Kate NicNiven is suitably amoral, cruel--and a vicious political genius who knows just exactly when to exercise the power of a grand gesture. I could go on and on here, but I don't want to put up any spoilers, so I will just say this: go and buy the book. Now.

4 people found this helpful

Amanda

Great novel by a very much under-rated novelist.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2020

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This book was bought for my teenaged daughter. But, she was so enthusiastic that I was persuaded to read it too. Great book and I look forward to many more. Exciting. Interesting, and well-drawn characters. She is every bit as good as her Scottish contemporary, JK Rowling.

Joolz

Exciting enough in parts, but flawed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 20, 2012

Verified Purchase

With so much praise heaped on this, and with my love of Scotland, it was a must read. I was lead to expect an exciting adventure, and the second half was exciting enough, but I found the book as a whole flawed in serveral respects: 1) firstly, I found the flash-forward prologue meaningless in that position, and it put me off reading the book - I think this is a technique which works well in film, but not well on the printed page; 2) the first half of the book I found rather dull, as the motivators of the action, the step-mother, the birth mother and the Queen are so weakly drawn, that being almost indistinguishable, failed to inspire interest; 3) there are good plot reason for the violence in the second half of the book, but none for the excessive violence in the first half, which is gratuitous; 4) why are all the female characters either rape victims, lovers, fawning partners, or evil witches? ok, it's a "boys own" type adventure, but I found this demeaning...there was plenty of room for a feisty non-evil female rather than a side-kick; 5) There is some very nice descriptive writing here. Although the author's decision to have the characters speak and think in modern day English was overall a good one, there are many places where it goes too far and jars, using modern jargon like "make contingency plans","put up a firewall" etc. which could only be 21st century.

2 people found this helpful

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