4 Honey Stars ⭐
Spicy Level: 🌶️🌶️/5

This is one of my most anticipated books of 2024 and while I absolutely loved it and LOVED the fact that this was the culmination of everything that we've been gearing towards; namely that epic war between the Fates, Elves, Nymphs and Humans... I can't help but be a little disappointed.

PREPARE FOR A LONG ONE... It's what you get when it's the final book in one of my all-time favourite series...

TL;DR - Read this series! She is good.

NOTE: This is the final book in the Fate and Flame series and cannot be read out of order. There might be spoilers for the previous books. If you don't want to see them, please stop reading. If you do it's either because you do not care about spoilers or you have already read the previous books...

If you're like me and you read this book exactly a year ago and also happened to read about 100 books in between, I would highly recommend that you go back to book 3 and read the last 15%. (If you do not do a full reread of course). It reminds you about where we are in the story and what events happened to lead to the start of Book 4, as this picks up immediately after the events of Book 3.

𝙎𝙮𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙨𝙞𝙨:
Where we find our characters...
1. Queen Neilina is Dead and Romeria finds herself another throne and she has dragons as "pets"
2. Malachai and Sophie are back, with Malachai possessing Elijah's Body.
3. The blood curse has been lifted and everyone who was affected no longer craves blood to survive
4. Atticus is missing and presumed dead.
5. Tyree has kidnapped Annika and after a mutiny by the captain who sailed them out of Cirilea, they find themselves transported by Sirens to a distant land
6. War is coming with new and tenuous alliances formed to face the eventual battle against a Fate.

𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙁𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨:
Wow, talk about taking the world-building to a whole new level. While the world and the lore were already pretty well formed (given that you have had the three books which were able to lay the foundation and flesh it out right from the start) there is a new notch it is taken to. We see more about the Nymphs and who or what they are. We discover a whole kingdom thought to be myth (and that is not Ulysede), we unpack more of the Queen for All's prophecy and we learn more about who the Fates are and their vindictive and spiteful nature. I loved how seamless the introduction of the Nymphs was to the story and applauded the foundation that has been built to their entry. You can see and feel the care and meticulous plotting and planning K.A. Tucker has done from the start to flesh out this series from the start of book 1.

I really loved that Romeria challenged Xander a little little bit more in this. I always felt that she was too quick to just let him bully and dominate her with his opinion in the previous books, so now that she is a Queen and his equal (actually higher as she has two kingdoms and Zander technically has "none"). It was the growth I needed to see her.

If you do not like books with political intrigue, this is not the book for you. There is A LOT OF POLITICS and discussions and negotiations and conferences that all have a "political nature", from kingdom negotiations to treaties to deals across nations and realms. IF this is not something you enjoy... BUT this is book 4 - it's not that much different to the politics in those and if you read those you already know what you are getting yourself into...

This book does take a turn into dark... even more dark than I think the previous books and almost all of this is seen through Sophie's POV and her interactions with Malechai. He is cruel, twisted and vindictive. A manipulative and violent bastard. His presence and actions take this fantasy into realms of uncomfortable and disturbing. All I wanted was for him to die a slow, painful and agonising death for the abuse and treatment of Sophie and everyone around him.

I ADORED that this introduced another romance. Zander and Romy are already together, Attitus and Gracen had their moment in book 3... THIS IS ALL ABOUT THE INCREDIBLE TRANSITION from enemies to lovers between Tyree and Annika. Their banter and bickering were superb, their attraction magnetic and explosive and the push and pull between the two of them was absolute perfection. I kept finding myself wanting to go back to their chapters because the tension between the two of them is what romantasy is made of! That epic culmination of when will they finally come together and how explosive will it be. I will NEVER LOOK AT HONEY THE SAME WAY AGAIN!

One of the main problems I have on why this was a little disappointing is that the pace felt a little off. The beginning was incredibly slow, and because there are so many points of view, (Something very often seen in more traditional fantasy than general romantic) you're dividing your time amongst different people's points of view. So the story moves slowly because you're only shown a small little bit at a time, and just when something gets exciting from one point of view, you are thrown into another person's perspective, and you have to read a whole bunch of chapters before you go back to that part of the story you really want to see (mostly Tyree and Annika), and this happens a lot.

Now while it felt like those first ~75 chapters took a while to get through, then everything just speeds up really, really quickly and feels like the ending is very rushed. The book kind of resolves itself only in the last 10%, and for something that has built up to such a big conclusion and has taken so long to get there, to just resolve it that quickly felt very anticlimactic. It felt unfair to everything that these characters have been through and how they developed to have it over in a couple of sentences...

The ending also only has one POV "epilogue" of Romy, which sums up all the other characters, and I would have loved to see a little bit more of their endings, especially since we have grown and travelled with them and their POV's from the start.

And finally what REALLY disappointed me was there were so many things that were not wrapped up. Given that this is the last book, I don't know if I'll ever have answers. There are rumours that there will be a spin-off, but it's probably going to take an entire year for that to get written, and it's going to follow a different character (HOPEFULLY JAREK and LUCRETIA) so I don't know if I'm going to get that "pretty resolution bow" on everything that I wanted.

My list of unanswered questions:

❃ How did her parents come through the nulling? It was mentioned that they "probably died", but not everybody who dies goes through the nulling. Or did I just forget that part of the lore being mentioned in a previous book because it WAS NOT reinforced in this book?
❃ Gracen and Atticus's relationship is DOOMED. They have broken the blood curse, the one thing that could have made her immortal so he didn't have to watch her as a human die of old age while he didn't age a day over "thirty". That seems incredibly unfair for a couple that has gone through so many troubles and trials to be together to have such a short life in the land of immortals.
❃ How did the Sirens get them halfway across the world? Was there a wormhole that they went through? They were on the West Coast, and then all of a sudden they ended up on the East Coast? Or do I just not know how to read a map? Is the world round so it wraps around so the "west of the map is connected to the east?" Because that's the only way I can understand how you can go from the West Coast to the East Coast almost instantaneously.
❃ Why was there such a big deal made about never summoning the Fates again and then having it just left hanging in the end...

Now for the "General Discussion" on other things I didn't like....
1. Jarek deserves so much better. THE STORY WAS hinting, I mean there were all the signs that the relationship between her and Jarek was going to get cleared up NICELY. There were so many moments in the previous books where I almost wanted her to end up with Jarek as he was so much more devoted to her. I loved the banter between them, and I loved how close the two got together. But it just felt incredibly mean and selfish of Romy to lead him on. He just seemed to be the punchline to every joke and seemed to get the short end of every stick. I'm really hoping that he's the main character of the spin-off series, because I want him to have his happy ever after, and I want him to meet his soulmate, even if it is Lucretia.
2. Aspects of the plot that just felt awfully convenient, like eye-rollingly convenient.

I am mostly speaking about the fact that Annika and Tyree end up at the exact place that Aiofe is and at the exact moment when they're about to die they get rescued. Also, what was the point of all the speculation about where Aoife is for her to basically be dead in a cave? SHE WAS THE BIGGEST CHEKOVS GUN I HAVE EVER SEEN. It felt very frustrating that it could have been such a big culmination between the Fates fighting each other but it was over in a split second.

But as much as I'm complaining, I'm complaining because I love this series so much. I adored being back in Islor. I adored being back with these characters. I loved watching them grow, make mistakes, and redeem themselves and I suffered through all their trials and tribulations. I wanted them all to succeed (except Malachi and Sophie.)

𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨:
▶ Multi POV
▶ Epic Fantasy
▶ Touch Her You Die
▶ Burn The World For You
▶ Meddling Gods
▶ Elves, Humans, Dragons, Demons and Nymphs
▶ Intricate Worldbuilding with Elemental Magic
▶ Prophecy
▶ Political Intrigue
▶ Enemies to Lovers
▶ One Bed/One Horse

I keep saying to anybody who will listen to me that this series is one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITES. It has played a big role in the definition of who I am as a reader. It has shaped my taste and what I love seeing in a book. It literally has everything I look for, from the characters to the world-building, to the plot, to the magnificent writing. It's because of this, that I'm a little bit harsh, because I have grown with the series. I have read it for three years, and I'm so sad that it's over, but I can't wait to see what K.A. Tucker comes out with next.

Thank you to K.A Tucker and Valentine PR for my gifted copy.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.