Fear The Flames by Olivia Rose Darling

ARC review, release date September 17th 2024

This is one of the best books I have read this year. The world that Darling created is gorgeous and intricate. The world building was not too heavy, and fit into the plot line smoothly. From the various countries, religious cults, and dragons the world of Ravaryn is simply amazing, and I am super excited to see how the world and its lore grows as the series continues. I have only read a few books with characters as relatable as the core five in this story. Despite being from a fantasy world and dealing with situations I will never encounter, I found myself relating with the characters often, especially the FMC, Elowen. Elowen is the embodiment of everything I love in an FMC, she is kind, funny, courageous, loyal, and a fierce friend. She is also a goal oriented queen! She knows what she wants and isn’t going to let anyone stop her from obtaining it. Her MMC counterpart, Cayden, is the ultimate book boyfriend. He would go to the ends of the earth and destroy the world if she asked him. Trust me you will definitely fall in love with him. The main side characters Saskia, Ryder, and Finnian are amazing and elevate the found family aspect of this story. I quickly found myself feeling as if these characters were also my family, and I became very attached to them all. The plot of this story moved very quickly, and had me engaged in it from the start. There was a lot of political intrigue, which I loved, and the heists were amazing and had me on the edge of my seat. The romance was a nice slow burn with lots of pinning that had me giggling. As I said the plot moved very quickly, so there was a few time where I wished everything had slowed down a bit and we got a bit more description on what was happening.  Over all this book is amazing, and I am super excited to read the rest of the series! If Fear the Flames isn’t already on your tbr you need to put it on there right away!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 I felt that I was able to easily skip the spice scenes and still enjoy the plot and romance very much! All the spice scenes were only a few pages long and took place in chapters:

27

32

38

43

46

tropes:

Forbidden romance

Banter

Found family

Touch her/him and die

Dragons

Political intrigue 

Dragons