Wicked Like a Wildfire | Lana Popović
“The word for “witch,” veštica, meant “deft one,” and that was what we’d been: deft in beauty, versed in its tastes and sounds and textures as it wove like a ribbon through our fingers. It was an heirloom we carried in our blood, a legacy of magic passed down from womb to womb. All the women in our family had it.”
Wicked Like a Wildfire is the first book in the Hibiscus Daughter duology by Serbian-born author Lana Popović. Let's cut to the chase and admit freely that the cover was what initially drew me to this novel. But when I read the author's name and found out that she hails from my corner of the world, I simply knew I had to buy it. The next discovery - that the story is set in my home country, even my hometown - was just an added bonus.
I have always loved fairy tales - have begged my mother to read them to me, before I went to school and started reading by myself. Over time, I went on to read more adult content, more serious and less whimsical stories, but the love for the magical never truly left. And so this novel simply sparked my adoration of whimsy back into life.
The Slavic legends about witches, the magical Montenegrin landscapes and the perfect storytelling combine to give the reader an unforgettable experience. I started reading this on early afternoon on Sunday and just couldn't put it down. I finished it by 10 pm that same day. The tale is so engrossing, the characters so real and the places so vivid I felt as if I was there with them, living it all.
The novel tells the story of two sisters, Iris (read as it's written, so /iris/)- like the flower - and Malina (again, read as /ma-lee-na/) - meaning 'raspberry'. They live in Kotor (the Italian Cattaro is used in the book) with their mother Jasmina. She is the owner of a confections store where she makes the most delicious treats, and where the two girls work shifts. Their only friends there are Jovan (a surrogate grandfather), Nevena (the girl who works in their mother's kitchen) and Luka and Nikoleta, the girls' best friends. This loneliness stems from two things: first, they are half-Japanese, as their mother got pregnant with a passing sailor from Japan; and second - they are simply different, other, their beauty too much for people to comprehend.
“It was bad luck to name a daughter after the thing that first sparked the gleam, Mama said. So I was Iris, for a flower that wasn’t hibiscus, and my sister was Malina, for a raspberry. They were placeholder names that didn’t pin down our true nature, so nothing would ever be able to summon us.”
When the girls were younger they discovered they had gifts - gleams, as they are called. They used to practice them at night with their mother - Malina's voice could sing any emotion, and Iris could make everything bloom - or fractal, as the power is called. But when an old neighbor sees them, Jasmina decides to put an end to it in order to protect them.
Now, at seventeen, Iris is a rebel who is constantly butting heads with her mother, who sneaks out and drinks and smokes put and has sex with boys she's known for a few days. Due to misuse, her power is all but gone, and she takes up glass blowing with old Jovan as a substitute for her gift. Malina is more of a good girl - her gift is still intact, she uses it often, and her lack of interest in boys is a relief to their mother - who always warned the girls not to fall in love.
“Nothing was ever simple. There was no such thing as the one and only truth, and that too was a freedom in itself.”
Now, I must admit that I am not entirely a fan of Iris. She makes some pretty dumb life choices and it all boils down to spite. She feels inferior to her sister who still has her gleam (and whom she sees as prettier and just better) so she goes and behaves like... well, not nicely, let's say. The other issue I had was not an issue, per se - but I found all the magic more believable than the same sex relationship in the book. Sorry, but this is Montenegro, I know what we're like. In the real world the two girls would probably be physically punished and ostracized. It's unfortunate but we're a deeply patriarchal society stuck in the 19th century. Still, this aspect of the story put the idea of a more tolerant society in my mind, and I like to hope that we'll get there someday.
Then, suddenly, a woman walks into their life. Iris and Malina are befuddled by their mother's visceral reaction to this arrival and as things escalate even further, the sisters are thrust into an unknown world where they are expected to fight for themselves, their mother and... the rest of the world?
“Your beauty is a force, you know, a power all its own. It can be both sword and shield for you, and win you anything you want.”
This is a thrilling story of magic, but most importantly, a story about relationships: between siblings, between mothers and daughters, between friends and significant others. I am in love with this book and I simply cannot wait to read the second book Fierce Like a Firestorm.
0 comments