I quite liked that the shirt-making was pointless - it seemed to tie in with the idea that she had to learn to trust her power rather than accept what she was told - but it was a bit anticlimactic, yes!

Also the whole part where she had to stay with her aunt seemed a bit disconnected from the rest of the book.
It did need to be integrated a bit better, yeah. I was a bit taken aback by how long she was there, too: cutting the timeframe down might've helped.

Daughter of the Flames is quite interesting...
Cool, I'll try and get the library's copy (...after Christmas, probably).