Reviews - Fear the Flames | The StoryGraph

2.95k reviews for:

Fear the Flames

Olivia Rose Darling

3.74 AVERAGE

elisegarrett's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

emilyreadss's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

lotties_booked's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Despite this being a fantasy novel with plenty of danger I just didn’t feel the jeopardy. I knew all of the main characters would make it to the end of the book (in part because this is a trilogy…) so even when the stakes were high I didn’t feel stressed.

Also, the romance went from 0 to 100 and there was no yearning. By the end of the book I was ok with it because we’d had 300 pages of them being clearly in love but I would have liked to see it develop a little bit more organically.

I liked the premise but something in the execution was just off for me.

I’m torn about whether or not to read the next book…

jennh96's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

luhtahuitti's review against another edition

0.5

adventurous fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I really wanted to like this book. I liked the premise and Elowen’s background and the promise of dragons. This could have been good.

In the end I didn’t connect with the characters. There was basically no world building and without the (promise of) dragons and some mentions of magic this wouldn’t have been fantasy at all. Very romance heavy, not enough plot. The romance advanced too fast (there wasn’t enough build up for it to feel right). The interactions between Elowen and Cayden felt superficial, repetitive and removed from the story most of the time.

I almost DNFed multiple times but stayed for the promise of dragons. Skimmed the last 30 % of the book, skipping some scenes all together (for example all of the spice after the first one — those scenes had no importance whatsoever to the story and weren’t that good either).

Should have DNFed…

Content Warnings

lamia123445's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

katiespoelstra's review against another edition

4.0

Spice level:
2/5 🌶️

CW:
Graphic violence, graphic child abuse, parental neglect

Diversity rep:
Side characters are LGBTQIA+ and various races

Tropes/themes:
Romantasy, reluctant allies to lovers, he falls first, he's obsessed with her, dragons, found family, intrigue and backstabbing

Review/vibes:
Lots of fun! Great writing, especially for a romantasy. I will be reading the second book as soon as it comes through my Libby holds.

There's a lot of traveling in this book but it doesn't drag on, so that's nice. I think it could have been fleshed out a little longer, but sometimes romantasy books are just TOO long, so this was a nice change of pace.

HEA? Babies?:
They're getting married at the end, but the saga continues. No babies happen in this book, but it feels like there's foreshadowing there will be soon. But that could just be me!