Among the Burning Flowers is a prequel novel to Samantha Shannon’s epic fantasy novel The Priory of the Orange Tree. That book came out in 2019 so readers may be forgiven for forgetting who the characters are and what their significance is and should be aware that this book is essentially backstory for three of the characters who will play a significant role in the main narrative.
The first half of Among the Burning Flowers is titled “Before” and focusses on two characters – Marosa, who is heir to the throne of Yscalin, and Estina, a woman who is on the run and makes her living culling fell creatures. Estina disappears in the second half of the novel “After” (although she will reappear in The Priory of the Orange Tree), which stays with Marosa but shifts its alternate focus to her betrothed, Aubrecht, who learns of the returning threat to his world.
The Before and After titles in this novel refer to the return of the great dragon Fýredel who is the arch antagonist of The Priory of the Orange Tree. All of this backstory does get explained in the main novel, this book just provides some additional detail. In that respect it is far from a stand alone novel. Nothing really happens, characters come and go without doing much. But this is all about providing some backstory and putting key characters in their positions for the main novel. Readers’ milage with this book will depend on their interest in this world and their memory of The Priory of the Orange Tree.
Among the Burning Flowers by Samantha Shannon
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