Katherine

Great start to the series, I really enjoyed it! underneath it all, Pestilence is more human from the get go than he thinks. Sara just brings the rest of it out of him.

I liked the world scenario in this book, it is a really good apocalypse version. The real/raw human scenes between Sara and Pestilence were my favorite parts of the book - watching his humanity come to light and his love for Sara bloom.

Well this is my favorite read of the early summer so far! Assistant to the Villain is a delightful read, and an instant favorite and 5⭐️ book for me.

I normally read heavy, dark, spicy, etc. books and this wasn't that, but I still LOVED it.

The banter was witty, the FMC was smart and a little bit odd but so relatable. The MMC was broody and villainous, there was resistance to the attraction, a grumpy sunshine vibe, and so much more.

I loved this book so much! It was a perfect read and I cannot wait for the second one!

The way I and any other oldest sibling/sister can relate to Evie caring for her sister and taking care of her family is uncanny, and then watching the villain fall for her despite his best attempt at remaining detached? My heart 😍

I loved the chapters from the villain's POV. It was wonderful to see him breaking down his unfeeling walls one by one against his will, because he couldn't resist Evie. Ugh! Just loved it so much.

August cannot come fast enough for me to get my hands on book 2, Apprentice to the Villain! I recommend everyone pick this one up!

I expect this will be an unpopular opinion, and for that I am sorry, but not sorry for my opinion in itself.

Honestly? I am disappointed.

Crescent City has always been my least favorite of Sarah J Maas’ series, but I still liked it. Books 1 and 2 were good; I liked the plot (aside from how often Danika came up), the characters, the world building, and the Bryce/Hunt relationship. However, House of Flame and Shadow almost felt like it was a completely different set of characters.

Tharion, no longer the snarky sexy confident guy – now the defeated moping depressed guy.

Bryce, kind of a b*tch? In general she was extremely unlikable for most of the story. I was not rooting for her, in fact it was quite the opposite. Uncaring for Hunt in a way that made their relationship seem toxic, and a selfish asshole for several other parts that would be considered a spoiler. Their interactions made me cringe at times, and I was underwhelmed by their spice, reunion, and supposed power couple nature. I hated how she acted with everyone else, and I didn’t like her issues with her ancestry and how it became almost her whole personality.

Several other characters were different as well, and it was just not my favorite.

This review is really hard to write because I want to air my grievances with it (and there’s quite the list) but I don’t want to spoil anything since it is still a new book. I’ll outline some high level things, and maybe do a spoiler heavy part 2 where I really get into it.

The plot: horrible. Things that were easy should have been harder by a long shot, The story line did not make sense to me, the teased out combo of worlds was not what I imagined it at all to be. There were so many bad plot points and things that were stupid or just did not make sense. If you’ve read it, you can probably think of several pretty quickly.

It felt like someone else entirely wrote this book and decided to throw a bunch of things that didn’t make sense at all. The giant teaser we got at the end of book 2 had my hopes up high for the combo section, but it fell so so so flat. In my personal opinion, it was pointless, useless, and could have not happened at all. I do not believe it added any value.

I am really disappointed because as far as SJM’s 3 FMC’s, it seems like Bryce now is the most powerful, but she also didn’t have to work to master her powers at all?? How does that make sense? There is no character building with her, she just magically can wield a ton of power and it makes her so much less relatable.

Overall I am super underwhelmed and honestly really sad and disappointed. I kept having to put it down and come back to it, which is something I never thought I would say about an SJM novel. I read that she threw away draft 1 and completely started over, and I wish I could read that instead. My guess is I would like it more than this. I think in general I just did not like the story. I wished it would have gone so many different ways and wished the characters would have acted differently.

To be honest, I am not sure if I would read the next one in the series. I am not interested in hearing more about Tharion or Ithan, and that is the only realistic next step I see?

*insert sad face here*

I enjoyed this book, but I enjoy a lot of Kate Robert's other books a lot more.

This one felt forced to me. I liked the story, but the push and pull, and enemies to lovers didn't really hold up very well. It was a halfhearted resistance, and I just was not super into the storyline. I liked both of the characters, and loved Lizzie, but idk, there was something about it that didn't immerse me. The spice was good, and I enjoyed the world it was set in, and already have read book 2 (which was great!). I think this book set us up nicely for the rest of the series for sure!

What a fantastic book this is! I can’t believe I had not read it before now, and I wish I had read it sooner! A Dawn of Onyx is a really great book, full of magic, sacrifice, enemies to lovers tension, friendship, personal growth, and so much more.

I loved our main character, Arwen. She is caring and strong, stubborn, eager to learn things, and willing to do anything to save her family. Arwen can heal others, and devotes her life to saving others. She doesn’t feel as loved and strong as her brother, but as we go on in the book, we get to witness her growing into herself. One of my favorite things is watching our FMC grow into herself and her confidence, and become the woman she is meant to be.

Our MMC, Kane, is soooo perfect as the MMC. A shadow daddy wicked king, he is as dark and devious as everyone says… or is he? I loved getting to know him more throughout the book and from Arwen’s perspective.

Their budding attraction? AMAZING. Kate Golden knows how to write a slow burn with a ton of banter. It was perfection, and I was eagerly devouring their relationship as it began to grow. I also loved all our other characters as they came into play!

The world building in A Dawn of Onyx was 10/10. I felt as though I was plopped right into the world and story. The details describing everything, the background info, it was all perfect! There was so much character development, a lot of plot, and the story was truly so good.

This is your perfect slow burn enemies to lovers romantasy! It doesn’t have a lot of spice, but the spice that is there is great. I enjoy a good spicy book, but I felt like this was really well done and did not need more than it had!

Overall, A Dawn of Onyx by Kate Golden was fantastic and enjoyable, and I am so excited to read book 2! I recommenced it to anyone who likes a slow burn enemies to lovers romantasy.

Me, finishing Iron Flame & texting my book bff “oh my god oh my god oh my god I finished Iron Flame. I have passed away, I am in utter shock.”

Well done Rebecca Yarros, well done. There was so much hype around the release of Iron Flame the month leading up to it that I was a bit skeptical of its greatness and chalked it up to tiktok hype. I am pleased to say it was a fantastic novel and I cannot wait for the rest of the series. Rebecca, I have so many questions!!

Let’s get into it, because there is a lot to unpack here. This review will be spoiler heavy, so heed my warning.

DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW UNLESS YOU WANT THE BOOK TO BE SPOILED.

I really really liked Iron Flame. The character development, themes, plot, spice, and everything else came together to create an immersive world and pull you into the story. Violet continues to be a bad ass while also continuing to learn how to deal with her lesser strength, her relationship with Xaden, and now some huge secrets she has to keep – even when being tortured for the information.

Xaden continues to be sexy, strong, and secretive – much to Violet’s dismay. The progression of their relationship was super good and with that ending??? I CANNOT WAIT FOR BOOK 3.

The Iron Squad continues to be friend-group goals, Jesinia comes more into play, and we even meet some new characters that offer an interesting twist into everything (I’m looking at you, Catriona).

I want to dive into a few different themes in the book because I have so much to say that I could write a novella about my thoughts. Instead, I will try to limit myself here.

The big theme we start off with is trust. We start off Iron Flame with Brennan being alive after having been presumed dead for the last 6 years. Not only did he fake his death, but Xaden and the rest of the resistance crew all knew and kept it a secret from Violet. We left off Fourth Wing with Violet realizing Tairn and Andarna kept the resistance a secret from her. Now back at Basgiath War College, Violet has to keep Rhi and the rest of the Iron Squad in the dark about what happened at Athebyne, and Xaden has to work to regain Violets trust. That is a lot of dishonesty, secrets, and strained relationships from all sides. This was such a good theme not only in the beginning of Iron Flame, but through the whole novel. I loved seeing the evolution of the trust worked on and regained between all these different groups, it was interesting and heart wrenching and oh so good.

The evolution of Xaden and Violet’s relationship. This was a really great theme throughout the entire book. Their chemistry is incredible, and it is heart wrenching to see them not be together but want to be. Xaden and Violet are great together, but they really needed to work on their trust and and openness if they were ever going to make it work. “How can I love you when I don’t even know you” was one of the most powerful quotes from Violet related to this, and just really shows how deep both their trust issues and affection for each other went.

Seeing Xaden try so hard to prove himself to Violet time and time again was honestly sexy and I can’t believe she didn’t cave sooner; I would have! As Iron Flame went on, they continued to work on their honesty and openness and their chemistry continued to flame, it was almost unbearable. When Varrish kept preventing them from seeing each other, ughhhhh! It was a great plot point but I was so sad for them each time. When Xaden was fighting to have the night free to see Violet while Sgaeyl and Tairn got to be together? OMG.

There were a lot of great themes and plot lines in this book, too many to break down individually. There was a ton of introspection, relationship issues, communication work, secrets, character development and so much more that went on in Iron Flame that you really can tell Rebecca is setting us up for one hell of a series going forward.

I loved the addition of Cat, her special power, and her history with Xaden and subsequent hatred of Violet. There is nothing like a scorned lover and man she feels scorned hard. I love that her power is to amplify emotions, and she makes Violet super jealous and self conscious. It was a good plot point and great avenue for continued character development of Violet. I even liked that they had to begrudgingly work together as the book went on.

Other themes and things I want to mention/ point out but not get into… maybe I’ll have to do a review post part 2 once I re-read it.

Other themes

• Secrets and the damage/protection they do, and the fine balance
• Insecurity and inner thoughts/emotions you don’t let yourself think about until they are right in your face
• Right and wrong, the choices we make, and why
• Sacrifices for love and the safety of the people

Things I loved – SPOILERS BELOW

• Violet vs Codagh scene
• The relationship and work Rhi and Violet have to do to salvage their friendship and the trust Violet puts into them? UGH YES
• The torture scenes? SO GOOD, it was described really well and I thought Rebecca Yarros did a fantastic job. Varrish is so cruel and terrible, and to have Nolan be there too? NOOOOO
• When Dain comes into the picture….. just wow holy shit, great development.
• THE SPICE SCENE on the throne of Tyrrendor, WHEW.
• I love that almost everyone knows how to speak sign language with Jesinia, that is so awesome. I love Jesinia’s character development too!

The continued world building and history was great, I love that you thought you knew so much in book 1 and then in Iron Flame you realize you actually know nothing and were very sheltered inside the Basgiath War College. You learn about the whole other part of the continent out there, the fliers, the other people, and more about the dreaded venin. There are people being left alone to die without support or saving from Navarre. The venin are running rampant while leadership continues to lead Navarre to believe that they don’t even exist. Then, to top it all off, you learn that the scribes 400 years ago rewrote all of history and hid everything away to keep the people in the dark. It all continued to build to the story and start to set up the rest of the series, and it really drew me in. I hope we continue to learn more, especially about the empyrean.

Also I need to know more about the 7th type of dragon??? Andarna girl can’t wait to learn more about you.

There are SO many other things I want to mention and talk about, but overall I LOVED Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. It was so good and I definitely will be rereading it in the next 30 days.

Worthy of a million re-reads.