Iron Flame — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Rachel Yarros
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Pages: 658

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.

First Impressions

I put this book on hold before I even finished Fourth Wing. It is the second book in the Emperyan series and I was very excited to get my hands on it. I love the cover and I think it compliments the first book in the series very well.

What I thought

I was beyond excited to get my hands on this book and it didn’t disappoint. If you haven’t read Fourth Wing and are planning on it, you might want to skip this review as it will be hard to review this one without potential spoilers to the first one.

This book picks up where Fourth Wing leaves off. Violet wakes up in Aretia following the Venin attack. She is battling with being lied to by her mother as well as Xaden and also the betrayal of Dain. Now she has to return to Basgaith with all of this new knowledge and try to keep herself and her friends safe.

This book has two parts and honestly they feel like completely different books. I was kind of surprised by how quickly this story has moved. I expected a bit more of a slow burn in regards to the rebellion and the dragons and venin and wyvern.

Yarros does a fabulous job of holding your attention and keeping you on the edge of your seat by not knowing who is going to die next. Violet’s growth in the book is also very well done. She feels very much like a 21 year old to me which I think can be difficult in these types of books. This book is definitely spicier than the first one. I understand that a lot of people really enjoy that this series has a heavy romance aspect to it, but I kind of feel like I could do without the sex scenes. When I read romance novels they feel like they fit and I don’t mind them. In this fantasy series, I’m much more invested in the fantasy element and just skim over those scenes.

This book did take me a little longer to get into compared to the first one, but once I got into it I was just as invested as the first one. For the most part, I don’t find myself being able to predict what’s happening until the end of the book. Just like in the first one, about 50-100 pages before the end, I had a suspicion I knew what was going to happen. I wasn’t 100% right, but I was definitely on the right track.

There were so many twists and turns. I feel like I read two books at once and am not really sure why it wasn’t broken up in a different day.