Review by rosy_posy - The Dagger and the Flame

rosy_posy 's review for:

The Dagger and the Flame by Catherine Doyle

2.25

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I didn't like it. I usually like dual POVs but stuff was repeated A LOT and it didn't add anything to have their perspectives repeated.

Lorenzo was so badly shoehorned in there and was a pointless character.

Ransom spoke so awfully about Sera at times I hated it. Also it wouldn't medically be possible to have hit his liver like that and for him to be fine.

Theo was clearly just there as a back up love interest for book 2 and had all development on hold until then.

The recipe was stupidly easy to figure out when she had been smelling gunpowder at the time! Not much need to break into a crypt or have the majority of the book being a mystery to find it.

Why would Pippin run out in the road? He'd never done that before and was constantly sensible, it was literally so we could swoon over Ransom saving him. But then Ransom was really awful about Sera not immediately trusting him after that?

It was also so cringe that Sera was immediately lusting after Ransom and he was literally trying to kill her and threatening to and she was just like omg he's so hot. Like what?

ALSO, when it's revealed that

Dufort is Sera's dad, Ransom is like omg yes they look so similar. But continues to wax poetically about how beautiful she is and then whenever he sees Dufort, is saying the similarity is so striking - Dufort is literally his adoptive dad and he does not see how weird that is! Also when Dufort is saying he's getting the king to track down Ransom's family, he's so naive in that he believes him, thinks his family wants to be found and that it will make things okay again - it's so stupid! Dufort literally says it was a small favour so why is Ransom not asking why he didn't do it before?

This book did not need to be 500 pages. I hated the ending - not sure why

Lark decided to go that far and then Ransom to blame Sera when it was self defence?

Ransom then physically hurt Sera to break up and it was awful. I kind of understand that he wants to make the order okay and that she's a mark but realistically he won't be able to steer the order in that direction without way more cruelty and if he thought he could do this, surely he could just let Sera live and be in the city.

And of course Theo is one of the saintly Versini because he's special special like Sera and has had his character development stalled for the whole book.

Good bits: Sera was an okay character, I didn't hate her, she was only mildly annoying. Dog didn't die.

Never compare this to the grishaverse it's how I was lured in 😭

Content Warnings