Chaos & Flame | ARC Review

Darling Seabreak cannot remember anything before the murder of her family at the hands of House Dragon, but she knows she owes her life to both the power of her Chaos Boon and House Kraken for liberating her from the sewers where she spent her childhood. So when her adoptive Kraken father is captured in battle, Darling vows to save him–even if that means killing each and every last member of House Dragon.

Talon Goldhoard has always been a dutiful War Prince for House Dragon, bravely leading the elite troops of his brother, the High Prince Regent. But lately his brother’s erratic rule threatens to undo a hundred years of House Dragon’s hard work, and factions are turning to Talon to unseat him. Talon resists, until he’s ambushed by a fierce girl who looks exactly like the one his brother has painted obsessively, repeatedly, for years, and Talon knows she’s the key to everything.

Together, Darling and Talon must navigate the treacherous waters of House politics, caught up in the complicated game the High Prince Regent is playing against everyone. The unlikeliest of allies, they’ll have to stop fighting each other long enough to learn to fight together in order to survive the fiery prophecies and ancient blood magic threatening to devastate their entire world.

A great new YA fantasy series to add to your shelf! It has romance, a unique world, and a cliffhanger that will have you sitting on pins and needles until 2024.

I loved the world this took place in. There are kingdoms of sort ruled over by one big kingdom that conquered them all. There are creatures, magic, Chaos (which I hope will be expounded upon in the second book), and fun new terms. Plus, all of their last names were so spot on to their kingdoms.

As well, this book started out incredible! The action was so fun and engaging. A wonderful fight scene that ended beautifully and jumped right into the thick of things. It was a great hook to introduce the characters, this war they’ve been fighting, why they hate each other, etc. I wanted to know more and it was all slowly revealed.

Caspian, the older brother to our MMC, was a great character in this story. He seemed to hold so many secrets and was always so flighty and unpredictable. I never knew how he was going to react to something, or if he was actually crazy or simply playing a part. I loved his character while also distrusting him.

The romance began earlier than I thought it would have. I expected more enemies to lovers and that ended semi abruptly. Our lovely War Prince, Talon, was actually quite soft. Not a morally gray guy at all which is what I was expecting. And not grumpy which I also expected. In fact, he seemed to be the one jumping right into this romance without a second thought. Again, things felt rushed and sudden. I thought there would be time to build on things, but that was not the case. They jumped right in and I feel neutral about it.

The plot slowed down quite a bit after the initial action scene. The story was interesting still, but I expected more fight scenes and action and whatnot. There were a couple of small things, but not the same high energy as at the beginning of the book.

Lastly, I felt like Darling’s emotions were off. Where she should have shown strong emotions, she breezed over the situation. Where she should have moved on, she was showing strong emotions and having big reactions. I was missing that something from her to tie it all together.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, even with its oddities, and look forward to the next one! The ending was quite exciting, leaving many things up in the air and facilitating soooooo many questions. I’m excited to see where this series goes.

Rating

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