Iron Flame

Rebecca Yarros
Completed 12/28/2024 Reviewed 12/28/24
4 Stars

This book is much of the same as the first book, Fourth Wing.  It’s well-written, fast-paced, action-packed, and a fast read despite being almost 900 pages long.  It did take me almost two weeks to get through it, but I enjoyed almost every minute of it.  This book is in two parts and could easily have been two books.  It will be interesting to see how long the third book, which comes out next month, will be.  The only thing that knocks it down a little for me in my rating is that it is not as much of a surprise as the first book. I’m not going to make it a habit of reading “Romantasy” very often, well, straight romantasy anyway.  I do have a nice collection of LGBTQ+ romantasy I’ve accumulated which I hope to get through this next year.  In the meantime, I will probably read the rest of this series, which is supposed to be four books, as it comes out over the next two years.

This book begins right on the heels of the last book.  Violet Sorrengail has found out about the new generation trying to rebel against the powers that be at the military school.  The leaders of the school have been lying about many things, to the students, and to the people in the part of the continent they control.  Violet is now a second-year student who has bonded with the most powerful dragon in the Empyrean, and also with a second dragon who is barely an adolescent.  She is also still madly in love with Xaden.  He is stationed outside the school, but since their dragons are mated, they get to travel back and forth so their dragons can mate and they can see each other as well.  However, Violet is under attack again, this time from the leadership of the school, trying to find out what really happened on the ill-fated mission that ended the last book.  

Like the first book, this is a very dark story.  There are deaths in battle and torture by military leaders.  There are some lighter moments but not many.  Even when it seems things have smoothed out for Violet, she meets another big problem, like the woman who was betrothed to Xaden to seal a political deal made by their parents.  This gets Violet and the woman into an extended “fight over a man” which is kind of trite, but I thought it was executed well nonetheless.  The more intriguing plotline was the attempt to find how to create a ward over a part of the continent that is under attack, but not protected by the ward over the school and its environs.  The magic to create it is hidden deep in the history of the school and unification of the kingdoms.  And I always have a thing for libraries and ancient texts.  

Violet is still an interesting character.  She’s torn by loyalties, family, and love.  And she’s still young, only twenty-one, I believe.  But she develops over the course of the book by these conflicts.  Reflecting on the book, I do believe it passes the Bechdel Test.  Two female characters have conversations and it’s not about a man.  The women all get good roles that aren’t about relationships, except for the previously mentioned “girl-fight.”  And it seems kind of ironic considering this is a romantic novel with three major sex scenes.  But that’s not bad, averaging about one every three hundred pages LOL.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  I’m continually surprised by the fact that I’m enjoying it so much.  Everything about it is pretty good, but the overall effect is tremendous.  And the end is a terrific cliffhanger.  I’m going to wait a while before reading the next book.  It’s the beginning of a new year with new challenges on Worlds Without End.  I probably won’t participate in as many, as I want to read a lot of books not in WWE’s database.  But to end this year, I definitely was glad to finish on a high note.