ARC Review: Blood & Fury (Chaos & Flame #2) by Tessa Gratton and Justina Ireland

Blood magic. Ancient fury.

Prepare for the gripping conclusion to the Chaos & Flame saga, the "fast-paced, action-filled fantasy that reads like a mix of Game of Thrones and The Last Airbender" (BCCB) from two beloved New York Times bestselling authors.

A single kiss set Chaos ablaze.

Picking up months after akiss transformed Darling into the long-lost Phoenix and every House regent into their empyreal form, Darling struggles to make sense of her destiny as a legendary creature. How can she, an orphan with no family, truly be the one to reunite the fractured houses and bring about peace, if she can't control the magic of her new Phoenix body?

Talon Goldhoard, still in love with Darling but wounded by her betrayal, is tasked with ending the vicious war that his family instigated. With the Phoenix reborn, Talon is hopeful that the bloodshed will end swiftly. Instead, the kingdom grows more fraught, with the threat of violence ever present – especially from dark, conniving forces within the walls of his own House Dragon.

As Chaos reigns, Talon and Darling must find their way back to each other to not survive but save the kingdom. Can Darling harness the power of the ancient magic that runs through her blood to bring about a new peace? Or will the fury that House Dragon fueled for a hundred-year war be too strong to break?

Title: Blood & Fury (Chaos & Flame #2)

Author: Tessa Gratton and Justina Ireland

Publisher: Penguin Young Readers

Expected Publication Date: May 14, 2024

Review:

Thank you to Penguin Young Readers for sending me an egalley of this book to read and give an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I cannot say how excited I was to get to the conclusion of this dualogy. I tore through the first book and really adored most everything about it. To say I was excited to receive this for review is an understatement. 

That being said, this book cannot be read without reading the first. You will not understand it and be totally lost. So if you've not read Chaos & Flame, stop here and don't read because it will be spoiled for you!

Picking up a few months after the events in Chaos & Flame, the empyreals have returned, and Darling is the Phoenix Reborn. She is struggling with the betrayal of Talon. But there is blood magic at work that is tainting the kingdom and its lands and it must be dealt with. She needs to harness her new found power and use it to bring peace to the land

While I loved Chaos & Flame, this book ended up falling very flat for me. I wanted so much more for Darling and Talon's story. Not just where the romance was concerned, but also where the fight for peace within the kingdom was. Sadly, I didn't feel I got either. I feel like this one suffers from second book syndrome without even being a second book but a conclusion to the story!

For the majority of this book, I felt like Darling was whining. Whining about missing Talon and how he betrayed her. Whining about how she will be the Phoenix Reborn and harness her power. Whining about her struggling relationships with her family. It was one big whine fest and it had me wanting to punch her! I know this often happens in YA books. And it it usually what leads the main character to find themselves and become more than what they were. But I just didn't feel that development here.

Talon's character faired better for me. He never waivers in his love for Darling. But he also knows that he may have to give her up in order for her to find her own peace. He did whine a bit but nothing like his counterpart. And at least for him, I could feel his emotional distress and hear how his mind was working to solve things.

What I was missing most with characters in this book is Caspian. I really felt like we needed more of him, more of his POV. The authors totally missed the mark on this in my opinion. And his ending did not do him justice. It was just left laying there, open to whatever. There was no wrap up for his part of the story. I will say Elias is probably my favorite character in this book. They are so honest and open, nothing left as a mystery and heart on the table. I loved the conversation between them and Talon where they were speaking about Caspian. Probably my favorite part of this book.

Also missing, the politics, the intrigue, the history of the magic. It just was not there as it was in the first book. I missed it. I needed it. I wanted it. I craved it. And it made me angry.

Also, I felt like the book was disjointed. It moved along, very slowly, to try and get the characters to the point where their actions bring about change, but I hated how it got there. I was bored. I was scanning sentences and words just to get to the next chapter. The pacing was not at all like the first book which pulled me along and made me want to flip to the next page.

And could there be MORE scenes with the characters changing into their magical beast forms and losing all their clothing only to come back naked? And then not really even caring that everyone sees them as such with people rushing with robes or jackets to cover them. It seemed like an odd choice for YA, to be honest.

And the romance, ugh. I really wanted Darling and Talong to reunite, I really did. But I just was not feeling it. It's like they were saying they loved each other but they were in no way showing it. Zero of the chemistry I felt between them in the first book.

We didn't get as much world building in this book as with the last since it's the second book in the series. And that was ok with me because I knew what the magical system and kingdom looked like. What I would have liked more of was the background of blood magic. It's introduced in book one so I thought there would be more depth to it with this book but there really wasn't. It was glossed over. And expansion in this area definitely would have made the book feel more complete.

I will say I enjoyed the writing. It did flow well and the prose was truly beautiful. I think it's what kept me reading, to be honest. 

In the end, I wasn't truly impressed with this follow up. I just wanted so much more than what I got. I think this book may have done better as a trilogy. I feel like this book was stuffed full of all the things that needed to be revealed before it wound up less than climatic at the end. It was disappointing for me when all I really wanted was a fantastic follow up to the first book.

Author:

Tessa Gratton is the author of adult and YA SFF novels and short stories that have been translated into twenty-two languages, nominated twice for the Otherwise Award, and several have been Junior Library Guild Selections. Her most recent novels are the dark queer fairy tales Strange Grace and Night Shine, and queer the Shakespeare retelling Lady Hotspur. Her upcoming work includes the YA fantasy Chaos and Flame (2023), and novels of Star Wars: The High Republic. Though she has lived all over the world, she currently resides at the edge of the Kansas prairie with her wife. Queer, nonbinary, she/any.

Justina Ireland is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books including Dread Nation and its sequel Deathless Divide, the middle-grade novel Ophie's Ghosts, which won the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction, and a number of Star Wars books including Flight of the Falcon: Lando’s Luck, Spark of the Resistance, A Test of Courage, Out of the Shadows, and Mission to Disaster. She is a former editor in chief of FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, for which she won a World Fantasy Award. She holds a BA in History from Georgia Southern and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University.