A Kingdom of Flame and Fury by Whitney Dean

 

Blurb: 

At ten years old, Raven was mysteriously willed to be the next ruler of Seolia, a kingdom nestled within the realm of The Four Kingdoms.

Orphaned as a baby, she has spent fifteen years ruling over a kingdom she believes she did not earn all while hiding secrets: she possesses dark magic and she thirsts for blood.

Now at almost twenty-five years old and with a sudden addiction to stealing life, Raven must fight through her new procured darkness to save her soul, but when a mysterious stranger arrives in her kingdom, she starts experiencing vivid dreams that detail who she truly is. As she slowly starts to unravel her story, what she uncovers at the end of the spool will change the course of her life and her kingdom forever.

Thoughts:

There's some good things, and some bad things in this novel, and I think I have a love/hate relationship with it. 

The good...this was a well paced book, with great world building. Raven's character and history I felt was fairly original, her not knowing her past or even why she had magic. We gradually get into her history...but I won't ruin it for you.  It unfolds nicely. Also...I love a good romance triangle.  We definitely get that, except...we always kind of know who is right for her.  Missed opportunity...the beauty of an achingly good triangle is that both could be really good for our MC.  Instead the author makes both of them kinda lame choices for her.

Queen...you don't need a man.

Things I didn't like. I am not a fan of insta-love.  There could have been any way to go about this, but they hardly knew each other and there were crazy sex scenes and love proclamations and they barely knew each other's names.  I also got annoyed at the scene repeats, the author would replay scenes from a different person's perspective. It seemed to slow the book down, and I didn't need to see what happened twice, and she did it A LOT.  The sex scenes dominated the book at the beginning making me think initially this was just some light smut...but there was a story there. Also...the book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger with lots of things being left unresolved. Brace yourself.

Overall this book just barely scrapes by with three stars for me. I just was not that into it. 

Steam factor 10/10.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced e-copy of this book free for review.  This however does not affect my opinions, as I do not leave a review for each book I receive. There are links to Amazon, clicking these links won't cost you anything but any purchase helps support this blog.  Thanks!