Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (book review)

GENRE: Adult Fantasy Romance

LENGTH: 623 pages

PLOT

Following the events of Fourth Wing, Violet Sorrengail is now part of the revolution after learning the truth about venin/dark wielders. She returns to Basgiath with the intention of learning how to raise the wards to protect her allies.

CHARACTERS

In addition to our protagonist Violet and her love interest (and revolution leader Xaden), their other primary allies all return for this book: The only one I'm going to touch on are Dain, Violet's childhood best friend who betrayed her in the previous book, and Jesinia, her scribe friend. Dain has a redemption arc in this book and I actually started to like him again. I hope Yarros doesn't plan to make Violet have feelings for him again in addition to Xaden, however, though I don't think that's the path she was setting up. I would like to see them as friends again.

Jesinia didn't really have any impact on me as a character in the first book. In this book, however, she is a key player in Violet's mission to raise the wards. Violet is hailed as having a scribe's brain with a rider's heart, but though she's not a rider I think Jesinia proved that she's just as brave as one. I loved seeing a non-rider character who could use her own skill set to contribute to the war effort in such a meaningful way.

A lot of the other reviews I read before reading this book shared the same complaint about Violet and Xaden; how they spend most of their scenes together in this book rehashing the same fight again and again. On the one hand, I think Violet's sense of betrayal was valid. On the other hand, after the first few times the argument did indeed grow tiresome. Violet and Xaden are both courageous characters with strong moral compasses and they are a wonderful power couple when they're working together. That makes it extra frustrating when they're not.

Tairn is largely unchanged from the first book in terms of his personality. I saw another reviewer remark he's like a father to Violet and I agree. He's super protective but also often exacerbated by her not listening to him. Andarna isn't as present in this book which is a bummer, but the scenes she is in are golden because she is an adolescent now and she's brimming with attitude. Violet's dragons really add a note of humor to an otherwise heavy story and this is one of those rare series where I think those moments of levity really do work.

WRITING

As with the first book, the novel is told from Violet's first person perspective. Also like Fourth Wing, all chapters begin with excerpts from in-world texts. This time it even adds snippets from correspondences between the characters. I imagine a lot of readers may skip over these but they can give you some added insight into the story so I always read them.

The novel is split into two parts and they each feel like they could be distinct books. The stakes are even more elevated from the first book as Violet now knows the truth about the Venin and wyverns but can't tell anyone. Since this is only the second book in a five book series, I was surprised by how much ground this book covered. I wasn't expecting some of the plot points to happen until the next book. As is standard for second books in fantasy series the magic system/world building was expanded upon. The most interesting thing for me was learning about the cultural differences with how the gryphon fliers are trained compared to dragon riders.

In my opinion, Yarros' strengths as a writer are her foreshadowing and especially her ability to write a cliffhanger ending. Both Fourth Wing and this book have endings that made me gasp and have me eager for the next installment. As a writer myself, I don't think I can give an author higher praise than that.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I actually ended up rating this book just slightly higher than Fourth Wing (which I gave a solid 4⭐️). The only real downside was the bickering between Violet and Xaden overstaying its welcome. Outside of that, it gave me really everything I wanted from the sequel with a climax and cliffhanger that make the wait for Onyx Storm (book 3) feel like it's much farther away than it actually is (Jan. 2025).

FINAL RATING: 4.25⭐️