Flamecaster (Shattered Realms #1), by Cinda Williams Chima

Flamecaster is a typical young adult fantasy: a princeling loses the people who would guide him, thus forced to find his own way, while finding other people to guide him and using his great skills to fight the typical tyrannical villain. However, that doesn't make it a bad book. The characters are easy to sympathize with, maybe too easy, and the world is interesting enough without being too weird or requiring great leaps of belief or a lot of thinking.

I thought the title of the book was related to Cinda William Chima's name and I expected the next books to be related to fire as well, or at least some cinders, but it's the "caster" part that is important and it seems as if each book will focus on different main characters, which I find refreshing. I am currently reading Shadowcaster, which I expect to finish quickly, with Stormcaster to follow. Unfortunately, this is not a trilogy and the fourth book is not published yet. I was hoping to read the entire story start to end.

Bottom line: easy to read, reasonably well written, not too challenging.