Iron Flame: The Empyrean 2

Again, the hype is still real. JUST. READ. IT!

After making it through the first year – something no one (except, of course, the greatest man ever written, Xaden aka Xaddy) believed possible for her – Violet is now a second year. Parapet and threshing are comparable to the training that happens in second year as this is when, according to Xaden “… the rest of us lose our humanity”.

New-ish characters placed in her path are literally out to ensure Violet doesn’t make it to third year. She’ll have to fight and push herself even harder than last year and truly understand what it means to not only be a rider, but a rider whose dragon is mated.

“Secrets make for poor leverage. They die with the people who keep them” and while many a secret come to light, I can not begin to fathom the amount left to be overturned. SO much happens within these 623 pages it feels like it was both a longer and shorter book at the same time. It does start off a little slow, but things pick up, and it hurts putting it down. Information, memories, back story, future possibilities as well as the past are thrown at us with every turn of the page.

The dragons banter is even better this time around. The spice and longing tension has been turned up, and Chapter 48 is an absolute 🌶 masterpiece. More signets are learned, closer bonds between the squads are born, friendship and relationships are tested, & so much more information around what happened in Resson comes to light.

As expected, this ends on another unsuspected cliffhanger, like Fourth Wing did before it – and this one has me distraught beyond belief! I have no words to accurately convey the emotions i am still processing; where I did have multiple ideas of where Iron Flame was going to end, where it did hadn’t even crossed my mind!

What is trust, and how can you earn or give it to someone whole? Is the enemy of my enemy really my friend? Do HEA’s exist on the Continent? Is there an antidote for everything? Can people truly be redeemed? Are all lives of equal value? What more do the Dragons know? Whats the cost of a royal title? Is forgiveness for you, or them? Is sacrifice truly a gift? Are grudges worth holding onto? Is love enough?

This series is all consuming, and once again I’m left wondering what next to do with myself; we don’t yet even have a release date for book 3! All we have is fellow readers, and a love for Xaden – hopefully Malek grants that to be enough.

Thank you @rebeccayarros , but also WTF?!

Original thoughts:

I am distraught.

Chapter 48 is an absolute LITERAL MASTERPIECE.
I said what I said.

I am so in awe of both “Fourth Wing” and “Iron Flame” that I thought I would sit here staring at a blank screen for a long time while trying to find words to express my respect for Rebecca Yarros, author of both books. I just spent 3 days reading them and the only reason it took so long is that one still has to bath, eat, water plants, feed pets and sleep though I did not do much of the latter.

What writers call voice in both books is so very perfect that I immediately want to reread both books! The voice is fresh and up-to-date and modern even for the dragons yet fits perfectly into whatever period of time this fantasy took place but clearly when there were dragons! Before proceeding, however, I need to hyperventilate briefly.

First of all, it is totally immature and so unnecessary for anyone to post a critical plot point in a review especially on purpose and without first posting a spoiler alert. This happens not only with these books but others as well. Doing so is just another, although minor, example of how Homo sapiens have free will which they unfortunately can and often do waste on trivialities. So, then, here is how I deal with the review situation.

I do not read them until after I read the book, then I read them to see how others felt about the book. Since one needs to know what the book is about before purchase, then reading the descriptive paragraphs at the listing along with reading the free chapters Amazon thankfully offers at the listing itself will provide that. Thanks Amazon. Reading those chapters and the description plus checking the star/purchase numbers are good steps to take to avoid learning too much in a review prior to reading the book.

The second rant has to do with plot. Let me assure everyone there are NO NEW PLOTS. People have been murdering people since the beginning of time. It is how the author takes a plot(s) and makes it her/his own that matters to the reader. It is doubtful anyone knows how many dragon/people/rider fantasy books are out there so in the end it is a personal opinion as to which book(s) one chooses to like.

Having so many to choose from means some plot points will seem similar. For instance how many ways are there to shove a dagger into someone’s ribs, a plot point in a massive number of books? This author knew how to handle the plot she chose and then developed with aplomb. Both books kept my attention fully–page after page after page.

I so love both books. What is so outstanding about both is that we learn most everything we need to know about each well developed character, not by telling, but by showing through their actions and their sharp and sometimes witty dialogue. It is beyond skillful at how on point the conversations are not only between the humans but the humans and their dragons especially Tairn and Violet and with Andarna–such a cutie and definitely my favorite dragon. The growing relationship between Violet and Xaden is razor sharp and on point.

Violet gets wonky with her “having to know all the truth up front demands” regardless of how Xaden has put forth so much effort to show her he cares. Everyone has secrets but a book needs tension to advance so whoa and hold on the tension builds and builds between those two. Xaden is my favorite character out of many favorites. Their arguments are worth “eavesdropping” on and their love scenes are well done (Chapter 48 is mentioned by some reviewers).

In this book Violet, in spite of her fragile bones and smaller size but because of her iron will and cleverness, and all those who made it through First Year at the Basgiath War College (covered in
Fourth Wing”) are now Second Years. Third years like my favorite character, Xaden, have graduated out and been assigned to outposts outside Basgiath. Thus begins an every other week trip for Violet and Xaden, him with her one weekend, her with him the next weekend. This is so their mated dragons can have time together each weekend.

It is also in this book that Basgiath and all the outposts are put in perspective regarding the coming battle. The ‘revolution’ becomes a much larger focal point and Violet learns about Xaden’s connection to the estate in Aretia. One can already see by this point how hard it is to give this book the 10 star, 100% review it deserves! Just read it and see what I mean. It is one well-done, well written heck of a book and do not forget “Fourth Wing first!!

This book covers in more detail wards, the reason for them and the ins and outs of setting them up and what happens when they do not work (descriptive details I liked BTW). Details regarding the approaching battle then the battle itself are incredible. I am skimming plot points here since others have covered them very well but there is a lot of stuff left hanging at the end of this book and the end itself will floor you. It is like learning to fly on your own and suddenly losing that ability and plopping onto the ground and then fighting to just take a breath. It is shocking, promise.

When an author has done their job, the reader will fantasize about what may happen next but this book leaves so much stuff hanging that there has to be another book. My favorite character deserves a better ending–the last two chapters still has me plopped on the ground breathless. So here’s a partial list of the left-hanging questions.

What happens between Violet and Xaden after the battle’s aftermath? What happens to Aretia? Will Andarna’s newly acquired fire play a role in the future especially in helping to set up wards? What happens to Basgiath after the war? What happens about the new dragon hatchlings? Will Cat’s crew of riders play a future role? And, BTW, how did Jack get the way he turned out?

So very many unanswered questions in addition to many, many not covered here. So, then, Rebecca Yarros, listen up: We readers have to have another book–please, please and thank you!!

I really enjoyed the book. I like where the story went, I liked the twists and turns, most of them anyway, and I generally found the book very engaging.

In my review of the previous book I said that it was an excellent mix of multiple books, just darker and more mature. The same holds true, but the balance isn’t as good. There was too much Twilight and a noticeable increase in Game of Thrones.

What I mean by that is that I felt there was too much emphasis on the love story. It’s not the emphasis on the love story, it’s how it was handled, and I felt that was too Twilight. There’s a lot of inner dialogue and trust issues, and it just really seemed to drag on at certain points. There seemed to be a lot of needless infighting between our main love interests and it was very “meh”.

I also felt there was a lot more character killing which may have had increased amounts of heart-rending sadness attached to it. I kind of got used to the characters dying in the last book, but some of these were serious gut punches!

I felt like there was some extra emphasis put on some of the side characters that never really evolved. I would have taken side character development over the turmoil in Violet’s love life.

My complaints aside, I still think it was a great book. There was some great history revealed, there were some surprise twists in the story, and I generally liked how everything went. Definitely recommend, would read again; the balance was just a little different from the first one, that’s all.

Snabb leverans och produkten är precis som förväntat. Exakt likadant exemplar som på biblioteket.