Review of Firevein: The Awakening (Firevein Saga Book 1) by Hanna Park

I went to Røros for a wedding—not to fall for a man who looked at me like he had already mourned me once.

From the first moment Rurik touched me, something beneath my skin burned. Every kiss felt inevitable. Every glance pressed at the edge of memory. He says I’ve lived before, that I’ve died before, that he has loved me through it all. I don’t remember him—but the mountain does.

The tunnels beneath Røros hum when I pass. Runes flare in the stone. The deeper I fall into his arms, the more something inside me begins to awaken—hot, wild, and impossible to ignore. I was never meant to survive what should have killed me. Now something ancient is stirring, and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s because I did.

I have buried Cristabel in every lifetime—though she has worn different names.

Across centuries, I have found her and lost her to the curse my bloodline was sworn to guard. She was never meant to live this time—but she did. Now the fire in her veins is awakening too soon. The balance beneath the mountain is shifting, and the oath I have carried for generations is beginning to fracture.

I waited lifetimes to hold her again. This time, I will not let her go—even if saving her means unleashing what should have remained buried.

A steamy Nordic fantasy romance of reincarnation, fate, and fire.

A Four Star Read

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect going into this, but I ended up flying through it.

At the beginning, it feels fairly straightforward. Cristabel arrives in Norway for her best friend’s wedding and meets Rurik at the airport. He’s a stranger, but the moment doesn’t feel entirely normal, and nor does he feel like a complete stranger. It’s not dramatic or over the top, but there’s something about it that lingers—the way he says her name, the way she reacts without really understanding why. Something isn’t quite right… or maybe it’s the opposite, like she has the strange sense she’s coming home.

After that, everything seems normal enough—almost a bit fairy tale like, like stepping into a Christmas card in real life. Even so, there’s still that quiet unease underneath it all, something you can’t quite pin down but don’t fully trust either.

As the story moves forward, things begin to shift, not all at once but in small, noticeable ways. Moments feel slightly off, reactions feel stronger than they should, and there’s a growing sense that something more is happening beneath the surface. Cristabel deals with it in a way that feels very real—she jokes, brushes things off, and avoids looking too closely at anything she can’t explain.

The turning point, for me, was the sauna scene. Up until then, there’s a sense of curiosity and tension, but afterwards everything becomes more intense. It’s no longer just attraction; it feels deeper than that, almost like her body recognises something her mind hasn’t caught up with yet. From that moment on, the tone settles into something much more immediate and immersive.

Rurik remains calm and controlled throughout, clearly holding back more than he says. It should be frustrating at times, and occasionally it is, but it also works because you get the sense he understands far more than she does. Their connection is immediate and very physical, with no slow build or hesitation, and while it is undeniably erotic, it doesn’t feel empty. There’s a sense that it’s tied to something larger—memory, history, and something that has happened before.

The setting adds a lot to that feeling as well. The hotel doesn’t just feel like a place to stay; it feels like something that’s been waiting—and it slowly becomes clear that it’s not just humans who live in Røros, which adds another layer of intrigue without giving too much away.

There were a couple of moments where I did pause, particularly when the setting suddenly shifts, like moving from the sauna to a place next to a waterfall where there is no else there but themselves took a couple of re-reads before I realised they are in a different place, where only they are - it is almost like stepping into another realm - an in between world, or a world from the past. 

By the time everything begins to come together, the focus shifts away from what is happening to why it’s happening. It becomes more about memory, connection, and the idea of finding the same person again across different lives, which is what really stayed with me after finishing it.

*A stranger who doesn’t feel entirely like one

*A connection that feels older than it should

My thoughts summed up in one posh sentence

An intense and atmospheric fantasy that blends sensuality with a deeper, more reflective story about memory, connection, and returning to something that was never fully lost.

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Hanna Park

I began my writing career in the pre-dawn of a winter morning while my husband snored like a train. We could call my husband the catalyst. If it weren’t for him, I would never have gone to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, feed the cat, and sit on the loveseat in front of the fire. It was there, in those moments of wondrous quiet, that I did something I had never thought possible. I opened my laptop, and while the coffee went cold, I wrote a story. My husband had no idea that these sojourns to the loveseat in front of the fire would become a daily occurrence, that writing would become an obsession, but the cat knew. She knows everything.

I write stories that make you laugh, make you cry, and make you love. Thank you, friends, for reading!

In the beginning, there was an empty page.

I am a writer who lives in Muskoka, Canada, with a husband who snores, a hungry cat, and an almost perfect canine––he’s an adorable little shit.

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