The Night Ends with Fire

If they tell me it's a retelling of Mulan, with dragons and magic, I am already standing in queue to wait for it

A fresh, new retelling of Mulan, with a stronger focus on feminism and the lack of control that women had in China's history.

The first few bits of the story felt a little rushed, a filler in order to build up some background and flesh out Meilin's character before we reached the bit where she disguises as a man to participate in a war. However, the plot does kick in, with a lot of questions revolving around ambition and power, with Meilin wondering how much can she be influenced by this new power that she receives.

The romance subplots felt a bit lacking. While it is clear who the main male interest in, we don't get much of his development and character showing through. It's completely overshadowed by the second male interest, who has proper interaction of a deeper sort with Meilin. The male lead seems reduced to a way for Meilin to root herself to her home country.

As for the ending... I understand why it went the way it did with the strong reminder that Meilin does not want to be reduced to a controlled possession, passing from one male (father) to another (husband) yet it was done in such an unsatisfactory way, in order to announce a “to be continued”. Perhaps more can be revealed in the sequel, hopefully with more insight into the male lead if he is to carry on being so.

This is a super soft DNF. I will be back but I just not interested right now! 

Update - Yea this is a hard DNF now 💀. As a retelling the author didn't add anything of substance (any ✨pizzazz✨) that would keep me interested especially since it feel like a retelling of the Disney version, and not the true story of Mulan as it was marketed to readers. Which is super unfortunate. TLDR; I'm just bored reading it. 

Thank you Ace for the free copy! 

I’m having a hard time rating The Night Ends with Fire. It wasn’t quite a 3-star or a 4-star read for me—it’s somewhere in between. There were parts I genuinely liked, but I found myself getting bored in the middle and kept checking how much I had left. Then, just as I was ready to give up, I got reabsorbed, and suddenly, it was over.

As a historical romantasy retelling of Mulan, it has some nice elements—the setting, the blend of romance and fantasy, and the familiar yet fresh storyline. But the violence and misogynistic society felt predictable and didn’t offer much in terms of surprise. In fact, the most surprising aspect was how absolutely idiotic the main character could be at times, making decisions that had me shaking my head.

The pacing probably would have benefited from splitting this into two books, allowing more room for the story to breathe, or by adding some spicy scenes to break up the slow middle sections. Despite its flaws, though, I’m still intrigued. The world is interesting enough to keep me curious, and I’ll likely continue with the rest of the series, hoping for more depth and better pacing ahead.