Take a photo of a barcode or cover
heretherebebookdragons 's review for:
Iron & Embers
by Helen Scheuerer
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
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