Let Me Fly Free

Let Me Fly Free is the second novella in the Fated Stars series, but I can assure you that it reads excellently as a standalone. I can also assure you that you'll want to read the first novella as soon as you've finished, so perhaps you'll want to get both at the same time! As a lover of all things Fantasy related, it's always a joy to find a novella that is able to immerse me just as well as most of the tomes that I generally read. Mary Fan's writing did just that.

This story introduces us to Elaia, a fire nymph whose personality more than lives up to the element crackling inside her. See, Elaia is unpredictable. She's passionate, slightly stubborn, and full of the kind of deep curiosity that tends to get characters in trouble. When an unknown beast threatens her home, Elaia's first instinct is to fight back. Which, of course, goes against everything that she's ever been taught. She's supposed to sit back and be taken care of, but what great hero ever accomplished anything by doing that? Honestly, that's what I loved most about this novella. Elaia's bright and impulsive personality sang through the otherwise quiet of her homeland. Where others fled, she remained.

After doing some poking around, I realized that Kiri is the focus of the first novella in this series. Which, as I said before, means that I need to go and seek it out. If Elaia is impulsiveness embodied, Kiri is patience and kindness. Mary Fan did such an excellent job of showing the contrast between these two, and it was really Kiri who reminded Elaia that sometimes it's more important to care for others than to follow your own path. These two seemed to keep one another centered, and I have high hopes that they'll be back!