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Iron Flame Full Review 12/22/24

DISCLAMER: THIS REVIEW DOES CONTAIN SOME QUOTES AND SPOILERS!

Happy Sunday! How are you? Hope you are doing great! I just came come from my brother’s soccer practice (he did well) and I rushed to open my computer, make a coffee, and get Iron Flame from my duty shelf. I finished it yesterday at 2:38pm I admit, I did tear up a little bit at the end and I was in fact very not pleased with the ending that Rebecca Yarros wrote. Where do I start? Correction: Where can I start? Do I start with Violet and Xaden’s “you only have to say I love you and really meant it so you can have me back? (which only lasted till Part 2). No, I will start where Violet thought Brennan was dead but he is in fact very much alive and well. Before that let me set out a little bit on context first.

Iron Flame was released November 7th, 2023 about seven months prior to the released of Fourth Wing on May 2, 2023. Fourth Wing took the fantasy world by storm with it’s Romantasy, Dragon Rider, Enemies to Lovers, War College, Romance, and adding some spice into the mix. Everyone was reading it (including me), it was the hype! Booktokers where even obsessed with it at the time (and we as readers still are looking forward to what Rebecca has to show us of the Empyrean Series). I thought Fourth Wing was great! It wasn’t like anything I have read before, ever it was something new and fresh and I really enjoyed it. I loved the plot twists, and Violet’s journey through Basgiath War College. The deep dynamics between characters, the plot, the giggles, and just gripping till the end! After that I had to wait for Iron Flame which came out in November (of the same year) and finished it this year.

For this second sequel to the Empyrean Series (which is 623 pages long), I adored the world building that Rebecca put into it. I enjoyed the character side of it where we got to see more characters, old characters, and explanations with plot twists. At the beginning they all make it to graduation and graduate. Andarna becoming a very moody teenager she has to remain in the Vale along with Tairn. Xaden is stationed at Samara since he is now graduated, Violet and him are only allowed to visit each other once a week because of Tairn and Sageyl’s mating bond. Things are really really really tense at Basgiath since Dain and Violet’s relationship is really not on good terms. Followed by the introduction of Varrish who the Vice Commandant at Basgiath, in more simpler terms he is a sadistic asshole and hates Violet (spoiler alert he tortures her and happens to be training Dain). With evens like Professor Grady’s class challenge, Violet talking to her scribe friend Jesinia and Violet meeting Liam’s sister (during Conscription Day) Sloane and immediately her hating her.

Violet Sorrengail finds herself in the middle of two worlds where the stakes are high, while trying to raise her shields up to protect all the information she has. Later on, it is shown that Violet’s friendships are strained because she has a secret which is that she is part of the rebellion but she can’t tell Rhiannon or any of her squamates. Her relationship with Xaden was also strained since she didn’t know how to feel about him after all the secrets and not being honest with her and putting the barrier of not being honest with each other, they are having trust issues ultimately. Violet is focused on researching on how to get the wards up and needing the luminary to raise Aretia’s Wards up all in the process of A rider’s life being taken by the scribe quadrant because they’re hiding critical information, which only fuels Violet’s paranoia even more that is was at the beginning.

The journey takes them to Viscount Tecarus, who holds a powerful luminary—Violet’s goal to save her world. But there’s more: Xaden and Catriona (his ex) make things even more awkward when Tecarus demands that Violet prove her power to get what they need. Continuing on her squad has a deadly survival exercise in which they escape. Violet just had to tell her squad about all what she knew meaning Rhiannon. Sawyer and Ridoc The assembly does get mad at her for it. Soon riders from Navarre and Gryphon Riders join the rebellion and must work together to stop the threat. At the end they all fight for Basgiath and the Vale. Sawyer looses a leg, Violet looses her mother she sacrificed herself to activate the wards, Violet finds out that Andarna is a seventh species of unknown dragon (Tairn doesn’t even know) and activates the ward as well with her fire, and most shocking is that Xaden becomes a Venin.

From my point of view honestly through this was a ok read. I am giving is a hard 4/5. It wasn’t the most shocking thing only very very few things. The plot wasn’t really predictable which I enjoyed. I did feel like it lacked in some areas. I did feel the pain and emotion with this book and the high sweating action in this book. I did like the dialogue. I would have liked to seen more conversation between Tairn and Violet since we did get some of it in this book but no t as much as I would have liked. I felt that at the beginning of the book Xaden and Violet’s trust issue relationship was just flat out annoying. They do reconcile after violet says “I love you” to Xaden which was kind of pointless because she has always loved him yet not say it to him!? And they literally go full on in the middle of the book?? I liked the world building like I said before. I didn’t dislike it but it was just one of those 623 paged book where you just needed a little bit more and you expected more that what really did happen. The assembly was also one of the things that annoyed me too since they still don’t trust Violet which is pointless because they disregard her in all meetings and at the end of the book they won the fight, sort of. I believe they did stay in Aretia and didn’t join the fight in which they very much disregarded too. I feel like they don’t care at all. Now with Xaden becoming Venin I don’t know what’s next in Onyx Storm which I can’t wait to read when in comes out in January. The following are just quotes I loved from the book!

Quotes Take Aways:

• Andarna: “Can you carry a luminary while insulted?” Tairn growls.

• “I do. I’m sorry if you expect me to do the noble thing. I warned you. I’m not sweet or soft or kind, and you fell anyway. This is what you get, Violet— me. The good, the bad, the unforgivable. All of it. I am yours.” His arm wraps around the small of my back, holding me steady and close. “You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side. It’s a damned good thing that you love me, too, because you’re stuck with me in this life and every other that could possibly follow.

• “You must save yourself," Tairn demands. "I chose you not as my next but as my last, and should you fall, then I will follow.”

• “Good idea. I could use a snack.” Andarna’s tone is indecently excited. “We do not eat our allies,” Tairn lectures. “You never let me have any fun.”

• “I could torch him if you would like,” Tairn offers. “But you do seem attached.”

• “I love you. The world does not exist for me beyond you.”

• “With trembling hands, I unfold the paper—and smile. Xaden Riorson wrote me a letter.”

• “I will happily watch Aretia burn to the fucking ground again if it means you live.”

• “Me? Argue with you about books? I only pick fights I can win.”

• “To which I will remind you that not a single dragon chose her. You were selected by two.”

• “The four of us stick together. That’s the deal. We make it to graduation, no matter what.”

• “All this time, you’ve been convincing everyone you’re the hero, and now you’ll be the villain…especially in her story.”

Until next time Merry Christmas And Happy New Year!

Sahra M. Shirley