Incendiary (Hollow Crown)

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Renata was only a child when she was kidnapped by the King’s Justice and brought to the luxurious palace of Andalucía. As a memory thief, the rarest and most feared of the magical Moria, Renata was used by the crown to carry out the King’s Wrath, a siege that resulted in the deaths of thousands of her own people. While Finkelstein's style is unique, the arguments in his book are not. This newspaper echoed his views on the problems of over-stating the uniqueness of the Holocaust when the Imperial War Museum opened its permanent Holocaust Exhibition a few weeks ago. Likewise journalist Tom Bower, who has written extensively on attempts to get compensation from the Swiss over the Holocaust, says some of what Finkelstein claims about the machinations of the international compensation process are correct. Moria were feared, hunted, persecuted and killed by the crown of Puerto Leones and the Robári were the most feared of them all. Which brings us to our main character, Renata Convida, a Robári who was kidnapped by the King's Justice as a child and was used to steal memories from royal enemies. Memories that contained information leading to the deaths of thousands of Moria. However, the Moria rebels (called the Whispers) rescued her and let her join their ranks but they never let her have their trust. When Dez, the commander of her unit and the only person who truly trusted and cared about Ren, was captured, Ren had to go under cover and complete his mission no matter the cost. Letters that magically, somehow, have perfectly remembered dialogues and long plot driven descriptions that no one would ever write. Mendez does very much "care" in his own twisted way about Renata, but at the same time he uses her as a weapon to torture prisoners and to please his king at the same time. I honestly didn't realize at the end that Renata reminded him of someone he used to care about (I do hope we will find out more about "Lina" in the next book).

I kinda hate how we got no new information from what we already knew in the synopsis until over halfway through the book. It pretty much made it hard to get through the beginning. It did start to get good from that point, but some of the twists were pretty obvious. Dez being the Castien's brother. Though I didn't see some stuff coming like Castien being an Illusioner, Dez being alive, and Margo betraying Renata. That was cold.😒. Desperate to atone for her sins, Renata became a Whisper - one of the select rebel spies determined to bring down the crown. “They're afraid. Fear makes people do things they normally wouldn't. Like share a drink with someone they despise.”But when the commander of her unit (and her friend) Dez is captured by the royal family, Renata knows she must once again make a choice - herself or Dez. Her life or thousands. It's worth mentioning that there was no disconnect for me re: a male writing from a female's perspective. Cleave did a great job of getting inside a female mind and I had no problems believing it. Points to Cleave for that. She was kidnapped by King’s Justice when she was little and became prisoner of Andalucia because the people were afraid of her ability/super power/curse and they wanted to control her but she achieves to escape and join the Whispers, having intimate relationship with Dez, their commander of the unit. Now Renata is one of the Whispers, rebel spies working against the crown and helping the remaining Moria escape the kingdom bent on their destruction. The Whispers may have rescued Renata from the palace years ago, but she cannot escape their mistrust and hatred--or the overpowering memories of the hundreds of souls she turned "hollow" during her time in the palace.An epic tale of love and revenge set in a world inspired by Inquisition-era Spain pits the magical Moria against a terrifying royal authority bent on their destruction.

One of my favourite aspects of the book was the magic system. It was heavily based on the senses and the mind which is not something I see often (most magic systems I've seen are more physical or elemental). In the book, the kingdom of Puerto Leones conquered neighbouring Memoria and sought to wipe out its magically gifted people, the Moria. They had magical abilities of four types: Robári (can take people's memories), Persuári (can influence and bring people's emotions to life), Ventári (can tell if someone is lying) and Illusionári (capable of conjuring illusions). Moria with no magic were called Olvidados. Betrayal is such a simple word. We use it in so many ways. But one betrayal does not equal another, and Chris Cleave’s novel has a depth and honesty that leaves the reader crying, not just for the dead boy, but for all the hopes and dreams that die in everyday betrayals, and for a world that might well be all too real, but really can’t be trusted. Renata is a very complicated character. She is a girl who was used as a weapon all the time, by the king, by the Whisperers. So by any rights, the girl struggled with trust issues because anyone could betray anyone in her world. When the book actually first started, I didn't know how to feel about her at first, but as the book went on and as I got to know her from her perspective. I realized that she's like any 17 year old girl (despite the fact that she has a very deadly power), she doesn't know who she is, she is slowly discovering herself, realizing her strength and of course her power later on the book. Which was a very well written progress.His incendiary book, published in the US last Thursday and here this week, argues that interest in the Holocaust arose after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war not because survivors found a voice but because an all-powerful American Jewish lobby realised it could now be used to lend a kind of moral victimhood to an Israeli state engaged in criminal acts against the Palestinians. Further, he says efforts have been made to stress the 'uniqueness' of the genocide of the Jews, not for any moral reason, but simply to protect its power as a symbol. Most recently, he says, it has been used to extort money from Germany, Switzerland and others in the name of Holocaust survivors who do not need it, the funds staying with Jewish institutions and not those very few living survivors who might need it. He adds the number of Holocaust survivors has been grossly inflated, and that there are now more survivors than at the end of the war. Cleave is right: today's Brits are not the self-same people who, faced with a blitz of aerial bombardment in the second world war, kept calm and carried on. 70 years of convenience, of cheap fatty foods and evening spent relaxing on sofas in front of mindless television, have done much to diminish that. One factor is the early disintegration of genuine communities, where neighbours are only people who happen to live near one another as opposed to united people making their lives together in a shared space. Mid-20th century Britain was a tough, sturdy nation - that strength has melted away into fat, and it's a depressing thought how this new sort of nation would respond under similar threat. I think I've gotten tired of the whole "MC is a rebel who goes undercover to help overthrow the evil tyrant on the throne." Not that I hate it or anything, but I've read too many of them—most of them I liked, but this one......eh.🤷‍♀️

The author has revived that feeling of intense loss and the way a mind can operate after such a loss. He has made it real again, though he does change the location, he does not change the way humanity reacts to the taking of innocent lives. Eerily true to life this book was released on the same day of the London bombings. This structure gives the plot a somewhat uneven pacing, but the battery of revelations during the finale was perfectly pitched. There was so much awesome in this last bit. My heart nearly couldn’t take it. While the hints had probably been clearer to the reader than the main character, the way the reveals were piled on each other in the final section gave it a punchy feeling. The new direction offers a real freshness and a much more interesting cast list. There's no doubt I'll be reading what comes next. Finkelstein is unrepentant. 'When I want to invoke the memory of my parents I am accused of using it. There is something plainly revolting going on. There are people claiming to be working in the name of Holocaust victims, getting money on false pretences and then not distributing it.UGH!! This is horrible! Trying to read it is like banging your head against a concrete pillar. You should only do it for the feeling of relief when you finally decide to stop.

I adore Renata. I realize I say that a lot about female protagonists, but when they're brave and fierce, they get my love. Ren has not had the best childhood and she does not know where she fits in. As a young child she was stolen from her parents for her magic to serve under the Arm of Justice, taking memories from people and helping the king in his quest to hunt down the Whispers—the rebels with magic. But poor Ren doesn't remember much of that time, which keeps her at arms length from the rest of the Whispers who rescued her. They do not trust her, and she struggles with being part of a team that really just doesn't like her. Aside from Dez, of course, but I can't even talk about that without spilling some major secrets. Finally... I couldn't connect with Renata. She was too unstable as a character. Sometimes she would be strong, sometimes she would just be too dramatic.

Goodreads Summary:

Ren was found in the woods near the city by the palace guards. She was taken to the palace, and raised by Mendez. He had her use her memory powers to take memories from prisoners in exchange for sweets. She remembers telling the guards where her parents were, and the fire that was set in the forest, and then Dez saving her outside the palace walls.