Hello everybody! Today, I’m delighted to be on the blog tour for Sam Stewart’s MG debut Fireblood. I actually read her teen books when they were out, so I’m excited to see her write in one of my favourite genres. Onto the post!
Hello, frailskins, and hello, Amy. Thank you for having me on here to connect with your readers!
So I thought I’d share about the time when I was about two or three, and I set fire to my bedroom with my sister in it. Luckily my parents put the fire out before she was hurt! Even this experience, however, has not stopped my fascination with fire.
I always wanted to write a book about people with the power of fire, and to my mind that meant dragons, of course. I wanted at least one of the characters to be aged nine, because there were never any books with nine-year-olds as readers when I was growing up and so that’s why Tula is nine. I think she’s great! Really fearless, but also sensitive, with a special affinity for animals.
Her brother Finn is twelve and he is also sensitive, and though he’s not as brave as his little sister he’s ridiculously powerful, only he doesn’t know it yet. They meet Errol on a secret fortress island called Portaldor, and Errol is amazing with all kinds of creatures. Some of them even live on him!
They also meet Charlie, who is fifteen and it’s him who introduces us to the different houses on Portaldor, which are magical buildings that are home to people with particular fireblood qualities.
Want to hear about one of them? The house of Brann? St George, who settled on Portaldor when the last dragon on earth was killed, found Brann abandoned as a baby in a Norwegian fjord. Brann could fly before he could walk and had the biggest wings of any fireblood.
The Brann turret is made of crystal and glass. Here’s a rough sketch of what I think it looks like, but you can see a finished version in the map of the actual copy of the book. Those invited to the house have all the powers of the air.
They can control the air to create mist, winds, clouds, and thermals to aid flying. They can breathe underwater and have legendary. By creating thick banks of mist and cloud, the breathers, which is what those in the house are called, keep Portaldor hidden from frailskins and enemies.
Patrick is one of my favourite characters! He’s Irish, so he has a brilliant accent and an excellent sense of humour. He always makes me laugh because he’s so full of life and cheekiness! He belongs to the House of Brann, and loves to show off his wings, which are truly spectacular.
Here’s a link to order Fireblood if you’d like to read more about how Patrick found Finn and Tula, and about their perilous adventures thereafter!
And you can check in with me at @IAmSamStewart on Twitter or @I_am_samstewart on Instagram, plus you can go to fireblood.co.uk for exclusive news and giveaways and ridiculous character takeovers. I look forward to seeing you there, and thanks for taking the time to connect with me.
Love, Sam x
Thank you so much for reading! Are you planning to pick this up? What elemental power would you want to have? I’d love to chat in the comments!
Amy xx
Golden Books Girl 