Review by friends2lovers - Into the Fire: The Complete Series

friends2lovers 's review for:

Into the Fire: The Complete Series by Mia West

3.5

emotional hopeful slow-paced

“I wanted you to stay,” Wolf said.
Marc waited.
“To be with me. But what sense does that make?”
“Whatever sense we give it.”

This is a M/M historical romance spanning 30 years and set in the early middle ages, just after the fall of the Roman Empire, from 476 to 506 CE. The story follows the lives of Marc, an ex-Roman soldier, and Wolf, a blacksmith, as they fall in love and build a family and community. Marc and Wolf are in their 30’s at the beginning and in their 60’s by the end. It is split into 9 novelette-length ‘books’ and 2 short stories, totaling up to over 600 pages. Since the individual books are no longer available to purchase separately, I think it’s probably more accurate to call this an episodic, standalone novel, rather than a ‘series’.

I enjoyed this very much, though some books were definitely more enjoyable than others. The first 2 books were my favorite, since that’s when the Romance happens—they’re reunited, sparks fly, love grows, and they commit to each other. In the following books, their relationship settles and matures. A new conflict arises and resolves within each book that mostly fits thematically with the development of their sexual relationship. For example, in book 4, Quench, the community is suffering through a drought at the same time that Marc and Wolf are experiencing a dry spell in their sex life. Most of the books have low-stakes, domestic type of conflicts. However, a couple of the later stories were surprisingly heavy and emotional. The ending was touching and heartwarming, I actually teared up.

The negatives:

I wish the secondary characters within the stronghold community, and the worldbuilding, had been more fleshed out. There was just enough there to make the time period feel ‘authentic’, yet I wanted more.
In the final book, I loved Wolf’s talk with Arthur, and the final scene of Marc and Wolf in the cave, but the rest of it was more about setting up the Sons of Britain series than about wrapping up Marc and Wolf’s story. There is too much new stuff introduced.
Sometimes, the plot or characters’ reasoning didn’t make sense to me and I had to suspend my disbelief. Like in book 4,
I still don’t understand why Wolf thought a threesome was the key to Marc and Philip reconciling their differences. It seemed like a poorly contrived excuse to spice up their sex life. I didn’t find the scene hot, just confusing. The whole time I was thinking, “Why are y’all doing this? What is the point?” I think I would have been more on board with it if their motivation was simply to scratch an itch. Instead of this weird plot machination where Marc has to have sex with Philip to see his side of an argument that has absolutely nothing to do with sex.

Overall, the positive aspects outweighed the negative. I rated the individual books either 3 or 4 stars, so I’d rate the whole collection 3.5 stars.

Endnotes: M/M Historical Romance, medieval period, childhood friends to lovers, found family, caretaking, parenting, older heroes, opposites attract, 3rd-person dual POV, long novel (173k words), freebie (via author's newsletter)
Heat Index: 5/5

21 full, explicit sex scenes. Includes light bondage, anal, oral, grinding, frotting, intercrural sex, edging, and one MMM threesome scene.

Content Warnings