📝 What is Iron Flame about?:
At Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail faces harrowing challenges designed to test her strength and resolve. As she confronts brutal training and dangerous enemies, Violet relies on her wits and determination to defy expectations and uncover the college’s darkest secrets, even if it means risking everything she loves.
The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.
Xaden Riorson
📚 Genre: Romantasy
🎧 Format: E-Book
💞 Feels: ⭐⭐⭐
After the ending of Fourth Wing I was excited to get back into this world. Now that the world building was out of the way, we could move on to all of the drama and political intrigue. Well I was wrong, the world building continued; with new details about power sets and new settings.
A LOT of things were going on. The constant change of location, introducing new characters and new power sets was overwhelming. It was too much. Pivotal characters from Fourth Wing disappeared in Iron Flame for so long that I forgot about them. When the characters returned, I didn’t care if they were friend or foe. [Ed note: leaving out names, to protect the spoiler averse.]
Some characters seemed like afterthoughts – which had me wondering how many authors of series plan out the whole arc of the story before they write all the books and how many authors take on the story, book by book. They back themselves into corners in a book and then work their way out of it in the next one. It could be a fun challenge that leads to a creative and entertaining solution, or it could lead to a predictable fix that just is.
I’m not sure everything that happened in the first half of the book was necessary. Did I feel the frustration of Violet being separated from Xaden for such an excessive amount of time? I DID! The point was definitely felt – but was it all necessary? I want to trim down like 1/3 of what happened in the first half of the book and add some pages to the second half. ‘Cause things started speeding up in the second half. The transition from the school environment to Xaden’s home was so rushed. I can’t recall the sequence of events, from point A to B. Did the action actually play out or was I just told about it in a later scene with the council?! I really don’t know.
I would say I need to re-read the book; but I don’t want to.
✅ Spinoff novella nomination:
My spinoff novella nomination is for anyone from Violet’s family. I want to know how they all got this way – who knew what and when? And how did they make their choices?
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.