Adara is already an oddity: a water fae who lives in the earth fae realm. Unfortunately, she cannot even access her water magic, which forces her to train to join the military. During the tryouts, everything goes wrong and she ends up on the run from famous General Slaugh, and her ex-boyfriend Dune, who want her very badly for rather different reasons. Waking up the last dragon was certainly not on her agenda either ... a dragon who just wants to go back to his eternal sleep as the fae are responsible for the erasure of his kin.


I wish I could show you my WhatsApp thread with my bestie because she had to endure all my anger about Promised in Fire. It isn't pretty, believe me. TL;DR: Imagine someone combined all existing romantasy novels with fae and dragons and poured the mixture into a shape. The result would be the Of Dragons and Fae series. It includes every cliche and trope for the type possible, which is rarely a good thing.

The World-building is described in the marketing text as 'unmatched' and 'unique'. Personally, I still try to find the world-building because there's barely a scrap of it available. It starts with the fact that there's no map despite the book playing in a fantasy world. If you write a fantasy novel that is not set on planet Earth as we know it: CREATE A FUCKING MAP AND INCLUDE IT! So, the reader has zero idea what the world looks like. The author says that there are four realms, a volcano, and a mountain range but that's it. Aside from the lack of a map, there's a hint of history for the world but it's extremely vague. The author always goes back on what she wrote as well, which is utterly annoying.

(E.g.: At the beginning, it is mentioned several times that the fae believe that the dragons were responsible for the shadow-cursed lands and shadow magic, and that the king fights the shadow magic with all his power because he also killed all the dragons. Around 40%, it is already known to one fae that the shadow magic is wielded by the General. In the end, it is suddenly known that the king wields shadow magic and that it isn't a secret as he uses it to destroy any rebellion.)

Please do not get me started on the fact that dragons lay eggs but are born in their human form and have to give themselves a tattoo to become dragons.

The magic system made me weap. It is taken from Avatar - The Last Airbender as Walt includes not just the four main elements but also metal, ice, ... - and I'm pretty sure that the rule "No fae can rule elements that aren't complementary" is taken from some other novel because it feels familiar. It would have been fine to use elemental magic if it had been done correctly but it's just a mess that made me upset. It is stated that the elements have to be complementary to each other to allow a fae to wield two elements, which is why Adara's elements (fire and water) are such a big issue. Walt even mentions the combinations that are ok:  Fire & Air; Fire & Earth; Air & Water; Air & Earth; Earth & Water. I would like to argue that air and earth aren't complementary elements and should cancel each other out like fire and water.

The main characters ... Adara is a Mary Sue. I don't have another word for it because she fits into all the categories: special hair colour, unique powers, extremely beautiful while she doesn't consider herself as beautiful, special necklace with a rare stone, "superior intelligence" (although she doesn't consider herself as intelligent enough for university), ... - it's rather exhausting. Especially since she isn't even intelligent. She ignores every warning and throws a tantrum when she learns the truth about her heritage. Einar is just an ass. I can understand his hate and anger towards the fae because they are responsible for the death of hundreds of dragons (including his own family) but he sits on a rather high horse as the dragons also killed countless of fae. Of course, everything changes once he realises who Adara really is. Both characters are underdeveloped and flat. There's no personality here.

General Issues:
1. The predictability of the plot is extremely high, which is due to the fact that it's just a mash-up of previous romantasy fae/dragon novels. It doesn't help that the main characters are rather flat and underdeveloped, and the side characters are just a joke, so they don't even add anything new to the known plot. All the involved tropes/characteristics just underline the predictability of the book. There's a prophecy (Fun fact: everyone but Adara knows about it but yet, she still has to go to the oracle to hear it.), fated mates/mating bond, and stereotypical villains, ... -- I don't expect romantasy authors to invent the genre again but please, put more efforts into your novels. I have read better fanfictions on Wattpad.

2. The romance is a joke. It's described as steamy and a slow burn when it's insta-lust/love and there's no spice. There's one longer kiss with a bit groping but that's it. The insta-lust/love is extremely one-sided due to the mating bond between Einar and Adara (of course they are fated mates, we need to have the trope), which forces Einar to be close to Adara (and try to mate her) while Adara is not affected by it.

3. The diversity. Everyone of relevance is white. Adara gets whiter with each chapter and all descriptions for her skin colour involve purity in a way (e.g., snow-white, like alabaster, ...) because she's a virgin and it has to be underlined. Her name also means "noble"/"pure" and "beautiful" (depending on the website), which fits into her character story and skin colour descriptions. Einar is vaguely described in terms of skin colour (which is so typical for romantasy) and could be read as white, light-skinned BIPOC or even as dark-skinned BIPOC because compared to Adara, he's "dark". I call it the SJM syndrome as all her male main characters are always vague in skin colour description. The best friend has nut-brown skin (Hazelnut brown? Walnut brown? Coconut? Almond? Who knows ... it's just 'nut-brown'.) and is the only character of colour who appears in more than two sentences. Every other BIPOC character is the kind of side character that just appears in two sentences. As for gender diversity, of course everyone is male/female and hetero. There's a hint of bisexuality/sapphic representation with Adara's best friend Mavlyn as she flirts with another female character in two lines but that's it. I would have expected more from a BIPOC author.

4. The writing is very corny and reads like YA when the book is marketed as New Adult. I can do without lines like "If you want to get to my friends, you'll have to go through me first". I would expect such lines in a TV series from the 90s but not from a book that's from 2023. Of course, the villain doesn't take Adara seriously when she says such bullshit. In addition, the entire novel reads like a first draft. There are plot holes, the author is inconsistent in terms of established