The Fire Rose
core novel 1995 The Elemental Masters
Record
| First published | 1995 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.99 (11,148 ratings, collected 2026-09-12) |
| Page count | 433 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780671319670 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Set in Victorian-era San Francisco, The Fire Rose loosely retells Beauty and the Beast. Rosalind Hawkins, a young scholar left destitute after her father's death, accepts a position as governess and researcher for a reclusive, wealthy employer, Jason Cameron, who communicates with her only through a speaking tube and never appears in person. Rosalind gradually learns that Cameron is an Elemental Fire Master whose attempt at a dangerous shapeshifting spell went catastrophically wrong, leaving him trapped in a painful, monstrous half-man, half-wolf form. As she is drawn into his hidden magical world and the search for a way to reverse the curse, Rosalind must confront both Cameron's rivals in Elemental magic and her own growing entanglement with a man she has never truly seen.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Elemental Masters
- Series: The Elemental Masters core; position 1 of 21 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Mercedes Lackey
Notes
- From the series record (The Elemental Masters): Loosely connected fairy-tale retellings unified by a shared elemental-magic system rather than a continuous cast.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Elemental Masters: position 1 of 21: next The Serpent's Shadow (2001)
Sources
← The Elemental Masters dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.