Fear the Flames (Fear the Flames, #1) by Olivia Rose Darling Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy romance, romantasy
Series: Fear the Flames #1
Pages: 384
Published by Delacorte Press on September 17, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
An exiled princess teams up with the last man she thought she could trust in the start of a dazzling and unforgettable epic fantasy romance series.As a child, Elowen Atarah was ripped away from her dragons and imprisoned by her father, King Garrick of Imirath. Years later, Elowen is now a woman determined to free her dragons. Having established a secret kingdom of her own called Aestilian, she’s ready to do what’s necessary to save her people and seek vengeance. Even if that means having to align herself with the Commander of Vareveth, Cayden Veles, the most feared and dangerous man in all the kingdoms of Ravaryn.
Cayden is ruthless, lethal, and secretive, promising to help Elowen if she will stand with him and all of Vareveth in the pending war against Imirath. Despite their contrasting motives, Elowen can’t ignore their undeniable attraction as they combine their efforts and plot to infiltrate the impenetrable castle of Imirath to steal back her dragons and seek revenge on their common enemy.
As the world tries to keep them apart, the pull between Elowen and Cayden becomes impossible to resist. Working together with their crew over clandestine schemes, the threat of war looms, making the imminent heist to free her dragons their most dangerous adventure yet. But for Elowen, her vengeance is a promise signed in blood, and she’ll stop at nothing to see that promise through.
An immersive fantasy filled with a sizzling reluctant-allies-to-lovers romance, a world to get lost in, dangerous quests, dragon bonds, and an entertaining band of characters to root for, Fear the Flames marks the stunning debut of Olivia Rose Darling.
My Review:
Historically and fictionally speaking, there seem to be two types of prophecies. Some prophecies are vague and mysterious and mysteriously vague – think of Nostradamus – and resemble 20/20 hindsight, in that they are only able to be interpreted after the fact – which one would think would be a bit beside the point by that point!
Then there’s the other kind, the prophecies that seem really specific – which they kind of are. But they’re specific because they are self-fulfilling. The classic example is Oedipus Rex. The poor man was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother – but it only comes about because dear old dad tries to prevent it from coming about. There’s also that truly dreadful prophecy about Harry Potter and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that totally and utterly derails Potter’s whole, entire life.
I’d say I’m digressing but I’m actually not, because Princess Elowen of Imirath’s life was thrown into an equal and equally painful amount of chaos and destruction by an equally terrible prophecy that was brought about by the direct actions of her very own dear old dad attempting to thwart it.
At the celebration of her first birthday, Elowen was gifted with a quintet of dragon eggs. The eggs were positively ancient and assumed to be merely curious fossils at this point in their long existence.
But we wouldn’t have a story if that were true – so of course it’s not. The eggs hatch into not one or two but FIVE baby dragons who instantly imprint on and bond with the equally tiny princess. The prophecy that goes along with the event foretells that the bond between the little princess and her dragons will either doom her country, or bring it to even greater heights of glory – and nothing in either of those fates says anything about the fate of her father, the man who currently sits on the throne of Imirath. Whether doom or glory is coming – he seems to have no part in it at all.
Out of fear and jealousy, to save his country and his throne – or so he believes – King Garrick of Imirath, little Elowen’s father – does his absolute worst to thwart the prophecy. He should have known better.
Fear the Flames is the story of more-than-once-beaten and bloodied Princess Elowen coming home to deliver a brutal lesson that she’s spent her entire life preparing. In many stories, revenge is a dish best served cold, but for Elowen, the only way to achieve both justice and vengeance is in a blast of dragon fire.
Escape Rating A-: Romantasy as a genre, like its sister from another mister Science Fiction Romance, has to straddle the line between its two genres and has to dig itself deeply into that fence line to the point where its feet touch the ground on both sides. Which, all too often, ends up with splinters in some VERY uncomfortable places – even when it’s successful at that endeavor.
Which is pretty much the case in Fear the Flames. I have a couple of tiny quibbles, but for the most part Fear the Flames works and it works well. From my own personal perspective, it seemed that although it does successfully straddle that line between fantasy and romance, the foot on the romance side of the equation is just a bit more firmly planted. Your reading mileage, of course, may vary. I certainly found it impossible to put down!
The Elowen we meet at the beginning of her story is the product of long years of torture and darkness at the hands of her father and his henchmen – as well as a daring and desperate escape. She’s reached adulthood as queen, not of her birthright Imirath, but of the tiny hidden kingdom of Aestilian. But her little kingdom is a refuge for many fleeing from her father’s increasing tyranny, and with each new immigrant comes greater danger of either discovery or simple starvation. Or both.
To protect her people, Elowen leaves her kingdom to forge an alliance with neighboring Vareveth, seemingly in a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend as the hand of Imirath’s tyranny stretches further each year.
All of the above is political, and very. Just the kind of epic political warfare that epic fantasy is known for. Elowen’s rise from prisoner to power has the shadows of grimdarkness looming over it in the grandest of style.
And then there’s the romance, a fantastic – in more ways than one – story of enemies to lovers, with all the steamy intensity of forbidden passion and ringed round with the spikes and thorns of an epic betrayal.
That all of this – and it’s compelling pretty much every step of the way – is just the beginning of a truly sweeping story of love and revenge will leave readers panting for more. Which they’ll get in Wrath of the Dragons, coming not nearly soon enough in 2025.