Of Flame and Fury

Host Poppy and young reader Bonnie discuss Of Flame and Fury with author Mikayla Bridge.

Of Flame and Fury is Shortlisted for the 2026 CBCA Book of the Year Awards for Older Readers.

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A fiery alliance. An explosive secret. The race is on.

Phoenix racing: it's profitable, it's deadly. No one knows this better than Kel Varra and her crew, the Crimson Howlers. They live on the edge of survival. When a mysterious tech billionaire offers them a place at his training facility, it gives them hope but also forces Kel to team up with Coup, her arrogant, infuriating rival.

Embroiled in political scheming, volatile phoenix magic and a smouldering romance, Kel and Coup discover a conspiracy that threatens them all. For in this world of extreme stakes, there are two options only: win or burn.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Hello and welcome to the CBCA Shadow Judging Podcast, where young readers share their thoughts on the shortlisted books. My name is Poppy Holden and I'm the host for today's conversation. Today we'll be discussing the 2026 shortlisted title of Flame and Fury by Michaela Bridge. Joining us is our reader, Bonnie Kendall, and later we'll also hear from Michaela Bridge herself. First, Bonnie's response to the book. Bonnie, would you like to share?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I thought the book was very good. It followed the character of Kel and her friend group wanting to improve their lives through Phoenix Racing to improve their life, to get money to improve their house, their home, to pay off all of their debts. I thought the world building was really, really good and distinguished. I felt like everything was very well-rounded in the way that it was written. I feel like all of the characters were developed equally in a very true way that felt true to themselves. Like Kellen at the start, she's hating everybody and she's hating the world and she just wants to be alone with her phoenix, but towards the end, she starts caring more about other people in her life and seeing the value that they hold in her life. I felt like the plot kept continuing through the whole book. It kept going through the um Phoenix racing. Like every new race, the plot would continue even more. The ending came to a very like clear, satisfying resolution. I felt like the epilogue at the end added a little bit something extra, which made it feel like really, really complete that added to the whole thing. And the plot twist was one of the best plot twists I've read, if I'm being honest. I did not see that coming at all. It completely took me by surprise without saying what it is, but it was fantastic plot twist. I feel like the book was like written very well towards people my age. I feel like if I shared this book with my friends, they would have loved it as well. I liked the themes of found family and like having your family and your friends over family by blood. I felt like that was a really nice touch. And I like how it was written really like steampunk vibes, like it felt very well-rounded in that sense. But that's about it.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Thank you for that, Bonnie. I now just have a couple of questions. What was your first impressions after you finished that first chapter, which dive straight into the world and the characters?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

At first, I didn't like the main character a whole lot. I felt like she was very, she was very angry at the start, and I felt like she had a lot of reasons to be happy and she didn't see that, and she didn't want to be happy, like it was her active choice not to be happy at all, rather than just letting her life live it the way it's supposed to be. But it was really good after that.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Yeah, no, I agree. I think it was very interesting how I mean, yeah, how you don't necessarily have to like a main character straight away, and it makes the story more interesting to read. For me, after reading the first chapter, it was definitely all the I think it's like the very graphic descriptions of the action and very illustrative of this fantastical world, and the ending of the first chapter was just like immediately captures your attention, like it's just horrifying in this world, in a good way. In a good way. So that was sort of what really captured me this the descriptions of the phoenixes and the racing and how well built that world was. But what particular aspect did you find my shaper?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I really liked how all of the different islands and the places within the islands had like their own personality, I would say. Like they each felt very distinct and different. And I thought it was really cool how you had one place that was really like alive and angry and exciting to live in, but then you had other places where it was okay to be calm and it was okay to be wealthy and do things a certain way instead of living life loud and proud to just be living with the social cues.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Yeah, that's that's a really good answer. I think because obviously there's the I mean, I suppose it's a smaller lens just looking at the Phoenix racing in that way, but yeah, the entire world and how you have the map at the start that really shows like different aspirations for different people and how maybe they leave or want to leave and showing people have all different wants and hopes in that way. And although this is set in this fantasy world, many of the themes resonate with our world, like animal cruelty, diseases, capitalism, and how you mentioned found family. Apart from found family, did any of these other topics stand out to you?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

I would say the disease topic really stood out to me. Having like grown up and ended primary school in the peak of COVID, like I really understood the everybody being scared of getting A B and wanting to keep their family alive and being very confused by this new like sickness that was spreading and nobody knew why. And I feel like that resonated with me as a young child and not knowing what this disease was, but it was spreading everywhere. And now I had to stay home from school and I couldn't go and see my friends.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Yeah, that's you know, it's part of our I guess upbringing, our uh life, um history of having experiencing COVID, of how it's can relate to the fantasy world. For me, I think animal cruelty stood out most. I think it was very interesting because obviously phoenixes don't exist, these uh phoenixes aren't in this world, but how it's so well described and sort of foreshadowed throughout the book, it's not just straight away at the start like this is bad, this is wrong. It sort of brings up these moral dilemmas of like how can you make these choices if you're trying to survive, and what is the right choice? I think that's so relevant to animal cruelty in our world, but so many other decisions in our world as well, and dilemmas in that way. And Phoenix Racing is incredibly high-stakes team sport, as we've mentioned. If you were in one of these teams, what role would you choose?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I probably wouldn't be like, I would not be the writer. I don't think I could survive that. I am a very shut-in person. I probably would be best as the mitigator. I do like talking. I like talking with everybody. I'm a people person very much, but I feel like I could not put myself in a position of almost dying every week just for money.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

No, I completely agree. That's exactly the same as my answer. It feels definitely like the least, least risk, but there is so much pressure in that way for you know, even the people creating the like the leathers and the technology in that way, of like everyone sort of is responsible if something goes wrong. And obviously in the real world, it's a lot less high stakes, but it was also interesting to read the team and how they work, and as you mentioned, it sort of becomes a found family, but how the team dynamics can be so relevant to like everyday life and working in a team in that way, and everyone has a role and responsibility and can feel maybe not guilt in the same way, but pressure to perform. Thank you for that, Bonnie, for sharing all those really well thought-out answers. Now we're joined by Michaela Bridge, who wrote of Flame and Fury. Was the takeaway Bonnie described from the novel the one you intended?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Thank you so much, Poppy. I would just listen to you two talk for hours. There were such great questions and such great answers. Um, the takeaway, yes and no, because I think once the story goes out into the world, you want to let go of any assumptions about how the reader might feel and let them interpret it however they want. So once you finish it and it's published, you never want to assume what it's going to mean to a reader. And then on the other end, absolutely. I'm so glad that what I intended in the story has resonated with Bonnie. And I'm so glad the world building resonated and the characters felt complex and real and the solo punk, you know, Steamworld setting. The world building is always my favorite part to write. And I completely agree I wouldn't be a writer. I have such, I'm so clumsy, terrible spatial awareness, I would die in two seconds. I think I'd be a tamer, something. You know, you get to hang out with the phoenixes and not risk, well, hopefully not risk your life as much. And then talking more broadly, I'm so glad that I definitely wrote Kel to be unlikable at the start. So I'm so glad that came across. You know, she's very, she's righteous, she's stubborn, she's a little bit hypocritical in how she approaches racing and phoenixes. And then by the end, I was hoping that readers feel the way Kel's evolution and how she feels, you know, she's confident, empowered, angry, a very tasty smoothie of loud emotions. Um I really wanted readers to feel that autonomy to voice and shout, however they're feeling, you know, the confidence of it. And then on the other end, I'm very glad that Bonnie enjoyed the inclusion of A B, the disease. I wrote this book during the COVID lockdowns in Melbourne. And I think my inclusion of that stemmed subconsciously from writing it during that period. You know, I didn't even notice at the time, I was just writing it for fun. And then it's so obvious in hindsight that I hadn't realized I was writing it to help process what was happening in the world.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah, I love that. You just mentioned about the characters, obviously, and how we talked about that growth for Kel specifically, but all of these characters are rooted in reality with these complex relationships and how they do have those like hypocritical aspects to them, and they yet they exist in this fantasy world. Did you intend this for all the characters and how was that process of creating them?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, absolutely. Intentional. I really wanted to make Kel and the other characters and the howlers just real people that teens and young readers today could relate to. You know, Kel is stubborn, angry, desperate, overwhelmed. The odds are stacked against her. She's really just doing her best to survive and keep the people that she loves safe. And I think anyone who tries to do that, you never get it right 100% of the time. Kel doesn't have any adults around her. She doesn't have a therapist. She doesn't have any of the tools to help her navigate these big emotions that she's feeling. So of course, she's gonna make some wrong decisions, some hypocritical or interesting, debatable moral choices. So it was just very important to me to have Kel then consequently own up to those mistakes and apologize to her best friend when she's in the wrong, admit when she's acted rash, all the characters make mistakes at some point or another because they're they're real and they're all just trying their best in the circumstances.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Yeah, and Bonnie, just to bring it back to you, do you think that the being able to have those nuanced choices and making well not making them, but having them apologise and grow from that, does you think that relates to your age group and this target audience?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I definitely do feel like it relates a lot. I know for my case and many of my friends, we've all said things to each other and we have never meant it a single time. And I think that showing that characters in books can overcome these big challenges and be upset with their friends, but then come back together at the end is a really good like model to way that I think that people should live in the world.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Thank you. And Michaela, we're bringing it back to the world building, this fantasy world. And as Bonnie and I have both mentioned, it's so intricate and complex and detailed and important for both the islands and that world, but also with the phoenixes and their different habitats and attributes. How did you come up with this world and how much fun did you have with it?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Oh, so much fun, endless fun. I could talk about phoenixes all day. I've always I've always loved them. There are just so many different iterations of phoenixes in different mythologies and media. They symbolize so many different things. And for a writer that really just offers an amazing sandbox to play in, there's just limitless potential. And I always wanted to incorporate them into a story. It was just waiting for the right one to fit them into. Um, it it didn't take me super long to come up with the world building around the phoenixes and the different kinds of phoenixes and their have habitats purely because that's just my favorite part of the writing process. You know, it always goes by way too fast. I'll always procrastinate from the actual drafting of the book with more world building or a compendium like I included at the start of the book, or more character profiles, or how phoenixes came to be in this fantasy world just because it's it's my favorite thing to do. So it's so easy to justify spending time on it because it all feeds into the story and makes it feel real and rich and lived in. And I also just wrote this story for fun, so it was very, it was very easy. I've been, you know, writing for years and years, and you often hear about the writers will talk about their heart book, the book that really tore out their heart to write and meant so much to them emotionally. And for me, that was the book that I wrote before of Flame and Fury. It took me so long to write, it was such a personal story, and because it was so heavy and emotionally draining to write, the next thing I wrote, if I wanted to continue enjoying writing, it needed to be something that I would just write for fun. Because why would someone enjoy reading it if I didn't enjoy writing it? And so with this one, I didn't think anything would ever come of it. And it was just for me. I was writing it to fall back in love with writing and the process and writing itself. And I'm glad that, you know, that aspect of the world building and everything resonated with readers, and here we are.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

That's so good to hear. And even with all this fun world building, there is still those very deep themes, as we've mentioned. And we've already talked about how disease found its way in and found family and the importance of that. But as I've mentioned, the theme that really struck me was animal captivity. And how did you land on that? And why did you decide to discuss it in this way?

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I'm so glad that came across. I think in any book I wrote, I'll probably consciously or subconsciously work in political or important issues in some capacity. I studied politics and international relations at university, so I love pulling apart and interrogating real-world issues like that through a fantasy lens. When I first had the idea for Flame and Fury, the Phoenix racing and the characters came to me first, and I've always loved animals. I grew up on a farm, so writing about giant mythical animals was a very easy thing to decide on. And then after that, I realized that having commercialized phoenixes at the heart of an island's economy and entertainment industry would create for some very interesting moral dilemmas, you know, around animal captivity. Is it possible to respect any kind of animal magical or otherwise while profiting off it? What would a functional capitalist society look like with this kind of uncontrollable magic at its center? It all just unfolded from there. And it was very important for me to write phoenixes as real, wild, dangerous creatures with their own instincts and behaviors like real animals. You know, Savita, the main phoenix, she's smart, feisty, aggressive. And if Kel had her way, Savita would be the most perfectly amicable companion for the rest of her life. A lovely little docile pet. So I needed to write a phoenix that was stubborn and hot-tempered and always fights domestication. And the story's resolution needed to involve the characters recognizing that and rather than trying to tame or contort the differences, understanding it and respecting it.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Oh, thank you. And before we finish, one final quick question for Bonnie. In one sentence, why should someone read this book?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

I think someone should read this book because of the amazing storyline that it follows, like the twists and turns and the amazing world building in it.