Empire of Flame and Thorns by Marion Blackwood

TL;DR: More of the same tropes and a cliffhanger ending with no satisfaction.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much!

Plot: Silver haired fae girl enters trials to get freedom, black haired broody man gets horny.
Characters: I can’t say much for them because honestly there wasn’t much too them.
Setting: Felt very much like every other trial/subjected city I’ve ever seen.
Romantasy: I didn’t much buy the romance and the fantasy was not great either so… no thanks?

Summary:

Trapped in the Seelie Court by a forest of thorns, Selena Hale lives at the mercy of the dragon shifters. Her only chance to gain her freedom is by entering the Atonement Trials: a deadly competition that pits fae magic users against each other. Only three people can win, and Selena intends to be one of them.

There is only one problem. Draven Ryat, the ruthless commander of the dragon shifter army, is determined to make her lose.

He symbolizes everything that she hates, and if he finds out that she is also a member of the secret fae rebellion, he will not only mess with her chances to win, he will kill her. But the more time she spends with him, the more she finds herself inexplicably drawn to him.

And nothing is more dangerous in a lethal trial than a distracted heart.

Especially one that beats for the enemy…

Thoughts:

I was sadly unhappy with this one within the first chapters. To begin with this writing… weak. Very weak. When people say they’ve read this in one sitting, I can see why. On top of that we have a big collection of very familiar tropes. We have the swirly magical eye fae, our main character has silver hair, our love interest is tall with black hair and wings, and they antagonize each other because they’re ‘enemies’.

I know that a lot of people love this, and that’s totally fine but I can confidently say that this wasn’t for me. Again, I stress, the writing was wild to me. It felt like I was reading something a teenager had written, or something on wattpad. I didn’t have a lot of fun and I’ll be honest, I actually hated the ‘twist’ at the end. I don’t find that trope fun, interesting, nor do I like seeing it period (I’m being vague to save people on spoilers).

Ultimately this is a hard pass. Even if I had enjoyed the story leading up to that ending I would not be reading the next one because of that trope. I’d also like to point out, fae only having one child per couple is actually not feasible? This race would have died out ages ago? Let’s try a little harder in our worldbuilding guys.