This post contains affiliate links.
Title: The Fiery Crown
Author: Jeffe Kennedy
Sub-genre: Fantasy
Not going to lie, when I read this book, I was still smack dab in the middle of my struggle fest. I don’t know what it was about the month of September, but I really had to work hard at reading, which is basically the opposite of how quarantine was going for me up until that point. For the first few months, reading was my escape. Last month, reading felt like a punishment. I’m happy to report I seem to have snapped out of my funk, but it was definitely still present when I read Fiery Crown, which means I will probably go back and read this book again at some point.
Fiery Crown is the sequel to The Orchid Throne, which I really liked, even if it seriously lacked in the kissing department. When we pick up here in book two, Con and Lia are already married, but despite their very hot sexual chemistry, they still don’t trust each other, and have warring opinions as to how best to handle Lia’s former fiance and dictator emphasis on the dick, the Emperor. Somehow they manage to devise a plan they can both agree on, but in doing so, they each come to the conclusion that their relationship is second priority. Con only cares about killing the Emperor and Lia only cares about protecting her people. Of course their brilliant plan doesn’t go to plan (haha) and the two have to decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve their goals. The book ends on another soft cliffhanger–things are fine for the moment, but the main problem has yet to be resolved.
Alright, so the best parts about this book are (duh) the times that Lia and Con are together. They butt heads frequently and the sparring is fantastic. And their super hot sex scenes are also fantastic. I didn’t love a lot of the other stuff in the book, just because it so clearly wasn’t going to work out. I want to at least have enough suspension of disbelief to feel like my heroes’ wild plan stands a sliver of a chance. With this one, it was so obviously going to fail that it made the climax anti-climactic. All that being said, I’m still going to read the next book and hope for some more hot sex and some real resolution.
Overall Rating: 4 stars