annalicenicole's reviews
63 reviews

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

This review has been really hard for me to write. Simply because I am still processing everything that happened in this book. The amount of tears I cried is absurd. To get the basic stuff out of the way, this book was amazing I loved it so much, and I felt like it was a perfect way to round out this series. All of the characters went through so much and developed sooooo much. Honestly I was annoyed with Ithan for most of the book, but just when I would try to rush through his perspectives something crazy would happen and I would be interested in what he was doing again. I think his character definitely deserves some more development especially with him becoming the prime. Tharion was another character I didn’t enjoy much, but would still love to see more development in his new relationship in the future. Although they weren’t my favorite I still loved them, and am excited to see what happens to them in the future. Now Hunt, one of the many men I love. He was great. Finding out about his father was WILD and I did not see it coming at all. His love for Bryce had me bawling, and wanting them to be together again asap. I was happy that they were only split for a short amount of time, and felt that the split did wonders for the characters. Speaking of their split up, the cross over with ACOTAR. I loved it. I thought it was really fun. Honestly I wished that Rhysand would have been in it more (because he is actually the love of my life) but over all I thought it was an amazing addition to the plot and a great way to share information with Bryce. Now for the Queen of the Valabaran and Avallen fae her self, Bryce Quinlan. She is so freaking cool I can’t handle it. I mean she has always been an icon, but her “iconness” jumped like 100 levels up in this book. My new favorite SJM line was derived from her in this book. “‘I’m judge, jury’….’and I’m your motherf****** executioner’” THIS LINE HAD ME FERAL. Now to end with the other loml, Ruhn. I can’t even try to discribe how much I love him with out crying. Basically he’s PERFECT and I adore Lidia. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

So can a book be perfect? Because this one is. I’m honestly pretty much at a loss for words. To be honest, if you haven’t read this book, you need to. The fantasy world was amazing, and I’m so excited to see more of it as the trilogy goes on. Paeyden is such an amazing character with SO many layers. I felt like I could genuinely relate to her although I’ve never been in a situation even remotely close to her’s. Kai is the blue print for a morally grey MMC that you INSTANTLY fall in love with. All of the side characters are written in a way that makes me feel like I could be best friends with them. The best way for me to describe the plot would be The Hunger Games, if there was magic and royalty. The romance in this book is NEXT level. it relies strictly on tension and longing and oh my goodness was is it beautiful. It literally had be kicking my feet in the air giggling. The cliff hanger at the end had me bawling, and I need the next book asap. Over all Seriously if you haven’t read this book, just do it. 

Tropes

enemies to lovers

duel pov

slow burn

royalty 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

🌶️.5/5

Well, that was a wild ride. Everything was going, and going non stop. There was not a single dull moment, which is crazy given that it’s an 800 page book. The character development over all was intense. We also got to get a bigger insight into all of the characters, especially Ruhn and Tharion. So if you are also a Ruhn lover, like me, you will seriously enjoy how present his character is in this book. Also you guessed it, the plot twists went wild. I didn’t think Sarah J. could top the plot twists dished out in HOEAB, but she did. Like a lot. The over all plot of this book was also simply amazing, and had me flying through it. The romance between Hunt and Bryce seriously blossomed in this book, and their characters grew together so much. There was definitely wayyyyyyy more spice in this book, but it still did not rival the plot and I felt like it was easily skipped. There was still a lot of world building in this book, but it was mostly things that none of the characters already knew about, so it was easier to digest. I am so glad that I waited to read this series until the release of HOFAS because I don’t think I would have been able to handle the cliff hanger. It had me bawling at 1 o’clock in the morning with Justin Bieber playing in the background. Over all this book was a masterpiece, and everyone should read it. 

Okay I will not lie, this book was hard to get into. The first 200 pages were ROUGH, but it was so worth it. Sarah J. Maas has once again created an AMAZING fantasy world that makes you want to escape your reality. Bryce is such a relatable character and is so easy to love. Hunt is the definition of brooding male that we shouldn’t all fall in love with, but honestly everyone always does. Their alliance and friendship was amazing. Honestly every character in this book was so interesting, and had so many layers to their character that you either fall in love with them or hate them with everything in you. Now, the plot twists in this book, insane. They all fit really well into the plot, and made so much sense once they happened, but you will literally never be able to guess them until they are happening. And I mean like the sentence that they happen in because almost everyone had a format of “oh okay everything is normal or at least okay in the moment” and then BAM Sarah J. dropped a massive “haha you thought”. The hardest part about this world was what felt like the never ending world building. Compared to other SJ books such as A Court of Thorns and Roses where you got to learn all about the world at the same time as the main character so the world building felt more like a plot line, the world building was literally just Bryce’s inner monologue pretty much telling you everything you need to know about Midgard, Crescent City, and the houses. It was difficult to get through, but once I was through it, oh my gosh. The story took off. Over all this book is amazing and DEFINITELY worth the read, all 800 pages.