1.11k reviews for:

Iron & Embers

Helen Scheuerer

4.17 AVERAGE

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

malfantasy's review

5.0
adventurous medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
adventurous emotional lighthearted fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

noveldefine's review

4.5

Loved it!! Can’t wait for the next one
medium-paced
adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated

This didn’t quite work for me as well as Thea and Wilder, and I have absolutely no reason for that as each individual part was excellent. 

It’s hard to cleanly identify what to call the romance here - enemies to lovers? Second chance? Strong connection between the two, and a long history that leads to simmering tension from the get go. 

Wren is kind of hard to deal with at first - she undoubtedly suffered major trauma in the war of the last series, but she is stuck in it and doing a thing that drives me nuts: acting like her pain is special and entitles her to behave abominably (in this case, becoming a literal serial killer), when in fact EVERYONE in the story suffered major trauma - it was a war, after all - and they all manage to not horribly mistreat the people in their lives and justify it. Fortunately, she comes to realize all this over the course of the story, so I can forgive how awful she was in the start. 

Torj is deeply devoted to her, even when he’s spitting mad. 

Proud to say I totally called a particular subplot with Kipp. 

Rating: 4.25/5
Spice: 3/5

Tropes:
- Magical academy 
- PTSD rep
- One bed
- Slow burn
- Touch her and die
- Bodyguard
- Games and trials
- Who did this to you?
- Burn the world for her
- Fated mates? TBD
medium-paced
adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: N/A