by Cyn Bagley

Created on: February 04, 2009

"The Fire Rose" by Mercedes Lackey is a retelling of the fairytale, "Beauty and the Beast" with overtones of Lackey's Elemental Master's series. Rosalind Hawkins, the beauty, is a medieval scholar. Her tragedy starts when her father dies, leaving her destitute. In the early 1900s women were considered chattel and many ambitious woman went West to seek their fortunes.

The beast in this story is Jason Cameron, a railway baron and a Firemaster. While Earth magic, he transformed into a half wolf, half man. With Rose's help, he hoped to change his shape back to a man. Of course, he lured Rose to his home with a false contract. He told her that he needed someone to tutor his precocious daughter. There were no children. But, once he had her in his house, he told her that he actually needed her to read medieval books to him. So that she would never see him, he had her speak into a speaking tube.

Also, Cameron had an assistant to help him in money and magic matters. However, Paul, the assistant, was not willing to learn magic the "hard way." He wanted to learn magic with sex and drugs. Also, Paul has a lot of unsavory habits that takes him into Chinatown often. Although Cameron is aware of a few of his habits, he doesn't know that Paul is selling his secrets to Simon Beltaire, Cameron's enemy.

Simon Beltaire is another Firemaster. As the saying goes, "Firemaster's cannot live together." Although Cameron's vice is hubris, Simon's vices are much more extensive and terrible. He supplies Paul with drugs, while telling Paul of easier ways to gain magic. Simon uses the dark side of fire magic and enslaves his salamanders. Cameron, although prideful, would never think of enslaving his magic creatures. He asks for their help and receives magic far beyond what he would get if he had to coerce his helpers.

As Rose reads more and more of the medieval texts, she becomes interested in their contents. Many of them are about alchemy and some are about the elements. It doesn't take long for Rose to realize that the invisible servants are fire salamanders and that her element is air.

Part of this story centers around San Francisco and the history of that time. When the earth shakes and the SF fire begins, Rose is in the middle of that catastrophe.

"The Fire Rose" was an enjoyable story with memorable characters. The book sits in my library for another re-read when I want an adult version of a beautiful classic.

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