A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet

"I can say, without a doubt, that A Promise of Fire is going on my keeper shelf...I cannot remember the last time I wanted to both savor and devour a book." — Smart Bitches, Trashy Books KINGDOMS WILL RISE AND FALL FOR HER... BUT NOT IF SHE CAN HELP IT Catalia "Cat" Fisa lives disguised as a soothsayer in a traveling circus. She is perfectly content avoiding the danger and destiny the Gods-and her homicidal mother-have saddled her with. That is, until Griffin, an ambitious warlord from the magic-deprived south, fixes her with his steely gaze and upsets her illusion of safety forever. Griffin knows Cat is the Kingmaker, the woman who divines the truth through lies. He wants her as a powerful weapon for his newly conquered realm-until he realizes he wants her for much more than her magic. Cat fights him at every turn, but Griffin's fairness, loyalty, and smoldering advances make him increasingly hard to resist and leave her wondering if life really does have to be short, and lived alone. The Kingmaker Chronicles: A Promise of Fire (Book 1) Breath of Fire (coming January 2017) Heart on Fire (coming Fall 2017) More praise for A Promise of Fire: "Fantasy romance at its finest!" -Darynda Jones, New York Times bestselling author of the Charley Davidson series "A sexy, mysterious fantasy that straddles the line between mythic adventure and paranormal sizzle." -Damon Suede, award-winning author of Bad Idea

MY EYES TRIP OVER A MAN AND GET STUCK.

This was the first sentence in my copy of the book. Just like that, in all caps. Never before have I wanted to DNF a book after the very first sentence. It turns out, it wasn't the first sentence; it and a few of the paragraphs that followed it were lifted from the chapter and used as a foreword of sorts. I thought it was a bit odd, but whatever. The point is, omg that sentence. I rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache.

But it was a buddy read and a book club selection and I'd just joined the book club and I wanted to participate and Felicia Day and ... well, you know how it is. So I took some Excedrin and kept reading. I figured there'd be more eye rolling soon enough, and I may as well get it all out of the way before the meds kicked in.

There was a lot of eye rolling.

Eventually, as usually happens with a good story, I got interested enough to put aside the snark. Mostly. There was a lot of oooh, he touched me, so hot, I burn, scorching, etc. which was irritating. There was a lot of mild rape fantasy stuff, wherein woman—despite her strength and self-reliance—falls for big, bad, burly, manly man who, let's not forget, kidnaps her, and that was frankly hugely problematic for me.

But it is in fact a good story; or, at least, it is a story with many goodish and enjoyable elements. There's the fun take on Greek mythology and godsly shenanigans, there's all sorts of fun magic that I've not seen before, there's a fantastic chapter in which our protagonist is completely high and it's spectacularly hilarious, and there's a really stellar supporting cast. And a circus! I wish we'd gotten to see more of that.

A lot of the writing feels really young, and that's probably what irked me in the beginning, because I'm a grumpy old. But in time, I came around to thinking that it works here, for these characters and this story, and I guess maybe they don't have to get off my lawn. For now.

When I looked at this like a Greek work of liturature it was a fun read. Just on its own through the main characters are too much. He is overly possesive, she is ‘independent' but quickly falls for her kidnapper (felt a little Stockholm syndrome to me). The world building was fun and was just enough to pull me past the winney main characters.

A kind of ???enemies-to-lovers??? romance where the heroine isn???t helpless (for the most part). The magic doesn???t follow too many rules or limitations making the heroine unbelievable powerful. I had fun!??