A Dragonborn Novel #2: Fireborn by Toby Forward

My name is Cabbage, but don't ask me why my mentor, Flaxfield, gave me that wizard name. Something strange is now happening to Flaxfield's spells, and we've realized it's from wild magic. Even our simplest spells turn to flames that burn out of control. He was once almost killed when a harvest spell engulfed him in a blazing inferno, but strangely, I walked right through the fire to save him. I'm able to summon a magical cat that eats the runaway flames, but Flaxfield isn't sure how I can do that. We know the wild magic originated with a girl named Bee, but her mentor stole her ability to wield fire. He was never a very good wizard, and now he's changed. He's turned into something that's dangerous. Somehow, we must figure out a way to combat this new kind of magic.

This book is part of the Flaxfield Quartet, although my local library listed it as A Dragonborn Novel. I reread my review of the first book from eight years ago, and I was confused. I wrote, and the synopsis on Goodreads confirmed, that Flaxfield died, so how was he a main character again in the second book? Another reviewer said the story in Firstborn preceded the first book, but that wasn't made clear anywhere. The rules of magic weren't shared, so I didn't understand how the spells worked. That was important, because the whole conflict was based on magic that was out of control. Finally, I've always had a problem with books and multiple settings, and at one point, this book had five settings. A couple of them weren't necessary and didn't add much to the plot. It became distracting and made remembering events trickier when reading over many sittings. Overall, I enjoyed the story about an apprentice wizard and his mentor battling an out-of-control magic. The author included a few surprises to characters that made the book even more interesting. I liked the concept of this book, but the ending wasn't satisfying. The conflict was stopped, for the time being, but it was clearly not resolved. It will need to be taken care of in a future book.