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Arrows of Fire
It’s October 1519, and Cortés has invaded Moctezoma’s empire, part of the Triple Alliance that rules one of the most advanced civilizations in history.
In this story, Moctezoma orders his henchmen to kidnap a girl named Flower from her family and imprison her so she can learn to impersonate a warrior goddess and, unbeknown to her, ultimately be sacrificed to the God of War. Moctezoma becomes obsessed with the beautiful Flower and is torn between keeping her as a concubine or offering her to the God of War. But now Cortés nears Tenochtitlan, the Mexican capital, and Moctezoma commands Flower be brought to him so he can perform the cold-blooded ritual sacrifice.
Arrows of Fire takes the reader inside the brutality of both Cortés and Moctezoma and illustrates the mightiness of the human spirit and the resilient power of hope.
In this story, Moctezoma orders his henchmen to kidnap a girl named Flower from her family and imprison her so she can learn to impersonate a warrior goddess and, unbeknown to her, ultimately be sacrificed to the God of War. Moctezoma becomes obsessed with the beautiful Flower and is torn between keeping her as a concubine or offering her to the God of War. But now Cortés nears Tenochtitlan, the Mexican capital, and Moctezoma commands Flower be brought to him so he can perform the cold-blooded ritual sacrifice.
Arrows of Fire takes the reader inside the brutality of both Cortés and Moctezoma and illustrates the mightiness of the human spirit and the resilient power of hope.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
343 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2019
About the author
Marlen Suyapa Bodden
2 books132 followersMarlen Suyapa Bodden is a lawyer. She drew on her knowledge of modern and historical human rights abuses to write THE WEDDING GIFT, an international Wall Street Journal and Barnes & Noble bestseller, and ARROWS OF FIRE, her second novel.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 24, 2019
1519. Twelve-year-old Flower is taken from her family and forced to become a goddess impersonator. When her beauty catches the eye of the ruler, Moctezoma, her learning is accelerated and she’s taught the bow and arrow. Her sympathetic new teacher eventually tells Flower the truth: she is going to be ritually sacrificed to the God of War. With Cortes and his army marching toward Moctezoma’s capital, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake, Flower knows her time is drawing short. But there are plans in motion to stop Moctezoma’s bloody rule and rescue Flower from her dire fate. Will her rescuers or Cortes arrive first, and what will be the cost?
As a fan of The Rise of the Aztecs series by Zoe Saadia, I was excited to discover a new author exploring this culture, albeit in a later time period. While Arrows of Fire is ripe with historical numbers, dates, and names, there’s little in the way of cultural richness or emotional depth. Chapters alternate between Cortes, Moctezoma, and Flower, but the voices are interchangeable. There’s also a time continuity issue between chapters. One chapter will extend further in time than the following chapter, making it difficult to follow the development of events. Additionally, chapter two feels completely out of place as it’s set before Flower’s lifetime and has no significance on later plotlines.
While it’s an important story to tell, unfortunately there’s no scene setting or emotional reactions to events, and it has one-dimensional characters and contrived dialogue. It felt like the facts were more important than the people, and I just couldn’t connect. It reads more like a textbook told through dialogue rather than a fictional exploration of the significant events involving the dramatic conquering of the Aztec culture.
Review originally posted via the Historical Novel Society at: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...
As a fan of The Rise of the Aztecs series by Zoe Saadia, I was excited to discover a new author exploring this culture, albeit in a later time period. While Arrows of Fire is ripe with historical numbers, dates, and names, there’s little in the way of cultural richness or emotional depth. Chapters alternate between Cortes, Moctezoma, and Flower, but the voices are interchangeable. There’s also a time continuity issue between chapters. One chapter will extend further in time than the following chapter, making it difficult to follow the development of events. Additionally, chapter two feels completely out of place as it’s set before Flower’s lifetime and has no significance on later plotlines.
While it’s an important story to tell, unfortunately there’s no scene setting or emotional reactions to events, and it has one-dimensional characters and contrived dialogue. It felt like the facts were more important than the people, and I just couldn’t connect. It reads more like a textbook told through dialogue rather than a fictional exploration of the significant events involving the dramatic conquering of the Aztec culture.
Review originally posted via the Historical Novel Society at: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...
January 16, 2020
Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.
Honestly this one was a hard one for me to read, and that was really because it felt like I was reading a textbook. I already have issues reading textbooks for school – seriously how was I ever a good student is still a mystery to me – and when I saw the blurb for this one on Netgalley, I was hoping that it was going to be… I guess different from what I got.
One of the comments that I’ve heard from other reviews that I personally agreed with was the reasoning for including Chapter 2 in the novel. It didn’t follow our main character’s point of view, and honestly I felt like it was a totally separate short story from what the rest of the novel was about. That was also the chapter that felt the most like I was reading a textbook that tried to give some sort of human aspect to the history, but didn’t.
I will say that I can see how much research that Bodden did for this novel, and that’s probably why it felt like I was reading a textbook. It was an odd feeling if I’m quite honest, because while we hear about this book from Flower’s point of view, it still felt like she was just spitting out facts. I didn’t really get any emotion from it, and I honestly couldn’t tell if Flower really felt anything about what was happening to her or what she was experiencing, or if she was just a spectator. Which she shouldn’t have been just a spectator, since she was going to be the sacrifice for Moctezoma.
It personally wasn’t for me, but I think those that are interested in non-fiction novels about this time period may find it interesting, even though it’s technically a historical fiction novel.
Honestly this one was a hard one for me to read, and that was really because it felt like I was reading a textbook. I already have issues reading textbooks for school – seriously how was I ever a good student is still a mystery to me – and when I saw the blurb for this one on Netgalley, I was hoping that it was going to be… I guess different from what I got.
One of the comments that I’ve heard from other reviews that I personally agreed with was the reasoning for including Chapter 2 in the novel. It didn’t follow our main character’s point of view, and honestly I felt like it was a totally separate short story from what the rest of the novel was about. That was also the chapter that felt the most like I was reading a textbook that tried to give some sort of human aspect to the history, but didn’t.
I will say that I can see how much research that Bodden did for this novel, and that’s probably why it felt like I was reading a textbook. It was an odd feeling if I’m quite honest, because while we hear about this book from Flower’s point of view, it still felt like she was just spitting out facts. I didn’t really get any emotion from it, and I honestly couldn’t tell if Flower really felt anything about what was happening to her or what she was experiencing, or if she was just a spectator. Which she shouldn’t have been just a spectator, since she was going to be the sacrifice for Moctezoma.
It personally wasn’t for me, but I think those that are interested in non-fiction novels about this time period may find it interesting, even though it’s technically a historical fiction novel.
October 22, 2019
I love historical fiction and haven't read anything set in this time period before so I was looking forward to this book. However, I wasn't able to finish it.
I made it to about the 175-page mark but gave up - it was just too gory and violent for me. I disregarded the profanity at the beginning, and even human sacrifice, because I wanted to read the story. After the scene where Cortes has the hands cut off of fifty people, I couldn't force myself to read any further. I had an easier time with human sacrifice than the brutality of Cortez. At least the sacrifice was because they felt it was an act of worship vs. violence just to punish and take revenge.
I made it to about the 175-page mark but gave up - it was just too gory and violent for me. I disregarded the profanity at the beginning, and even human sacrifice, because I wanted to read the story. After the scene where Cortes has the hands cut off of fifty people, I couldn't force myself to read any further. I had an easier time with human sacrifice than the brutality of Cortez. At least the sacrifice was because they felt it was an act of worship vs. violence just to punish and take revenge.
November 14, 2019
I received this free book from the publisher for honest review.
4 stars ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐
This is the first time reading from this author.
What a beautiful wonderful amazing read.
What a great read! This had me hooked from the beginning. The sitting, theme, and the Characters had me pulled so in. Everything was well put together and it was just perfect. This novel did just that to me.
Highly recommend everybody get this book and read it. Its so good!
Can't wait for next book.
4 stars ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐
This is the first time reading from this author.
What a beautiful wonderful amazing read.
What a great read! This had me hooked from the beginning. The sitting, theme, and the Characters had me pulled so in. Everything was well put together and it was just perfect. This novel did just that to me.
Highly recommend everybody get this book and read it. Its so good!
Can't wait for next book.
December 17, 2019
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Extremely brutal and gory, this was a difficult read for me. The realization that this was a brutal time in history helped me to finish. As historical fiction goes, there are not so many books set in the time of Moctezoma and Cortes, and this does set the stage for the tragedy that ensued.
Extremely brutal and gory, this was a difficult read for me. The realization that this was a brutal time in history helped me to finish. As historical fiction goes, there are not so many books set in the time of Moctezoma and Cortes, and this does set the stage for the tragedy that ensued.
May 18, 2020
Actual rating: 1.5 stars
This really just didn't work for me unfortunately. I had hoped it would be focused on Flower and sort of like an adult version of the Royal Diaries series that I had loved when I was younger. However, that was not the case. We follow Flower, Cortes, and Moctezoma as POV characters. There's also a strange chapter that seemingly came out of nowhere to discuss Jews vs Christians in Spain? I still don't understand what that had to do with the rest of the story.
Flower's chapters started off nicely, but then there were some strange structural choices made. Basically, we follow one character up to a certain point (where we now know what will happen to the other characters), and then we backtrack to follow the other characters up to that point. It made it very challenging to know what time we were in, and knowing what happened to the characters made it seem pointless to backtrack. I would have preferred to follow each character so that we could see their experiences at the same time.
The writing seemed a little simplistic as well. Flower falls in love very rapidly, and I really didn't believe that romance at all. Parts of this book felt basically just like reading a history book (and in fact, the last 30 or so pages are actually just history lessons).
Content warnings for rape, human sacrifice, and torture. This is definitely brutal.
I won an ARC of this in a Goodreads giveaway from the author - thank you! All opinions are my own.
This really just didn't work for me unfortunately. I had hoped it would be focused on Flower and sort of like an adult version of the Royal Diaries series that I had loved when I was younger. However, that was not the case. We follow Flower, Cortes, and Moctezoma as POV characters. There's also a strange chapter that seemingly came out of nowhere to discuss Jews vs Christians in Spain? I still don't understand what that had to do with the rest of the story.
Flower's chapters started off nicely, but then there were some strange structural choices made. Basically, we follow one character up to a certain point (where we now know what will happen to the other characters), and then we backtrack to follow the other characters up to that point. It made it very challenging to know what time we were in, and knowing what happened to the characters made it seem pointless to backtrack. I would have preferred to follow each character so that we could see their experiences at the same time.
The writing seemed a little simplistic as well. Flower falls in love very rapidly, and I really didn't believe that romance at all. Parts of this book felt basically just like reading a history book (and in fact, the last 30 or so pages are actually just history lessons).
Content warnings for rape, human sacrifice, and torture. This is definitely brutal.
I won an ARC of this in a Goodreads giveaway from the author - thank you! All opinions are my own.
March 25, 2020
Truly enjoyed another title by this author, but this one lost me. It was a little too much historical and not enough fiction, maybe? An interesting telling of the history of Mexico, nonetheless.
November 20, 2019
If you love to read about the downfall of Montezuma by Cortez you will really enjoy this book. The battle descriptions are well done. This is told in the first person by Montezuma, Cortez and a female Mexican named Flower. I loved how this told about Flower and what she was going through in her life at this time. Well done. I received a copy of this book from Smith Publicity for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.
October 17, 2019
Extremely raw and gritty descriptions of rites. This book is based on the Spanish conquest of Mexico which was ruled by the Aztecs.There are three story lines.The author did a great job with showing the other side of history.
Solid book.Extensive research.
Thankyou Netgalley for this ARC
Solid book.Extensive research.
Thankyou Netgalley for this ARC
December 1, 2019
Captivating historical fiction. Read and compare with Aztec by Gary Jennings (not necessarily the sequels, though...)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews