A stunning conclusion to the Kingdom of Fire trilogy. A perfect blend of magic, adventure and romance. A great choice for fans of JK Rowling and Cassandra Clare!

I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

I thoroughly enjoyed the previous books in the series, I will be adding my review for book two below, but I cannot in good conscience write a grand review for this novel after recent tweets made by the author.

Review for Book Two
This review contains spoilers of both A Shadow Bright and Burning and A Poison Dark and Drowning. Books one and two in the Kingdom On Fire Trilogy by Jessica Cluess.

I gave the first book 4/5 stars, and this book 5/5 stars.

General Thoughts

“I am Henrietta Howel. The first female sorcerer in ages. The girl who can control flames. The one who will defeat the ancients. The prophesied one. Or am I?”

This trilogy follows the magician Henrietta Howel who is trained as a sorcerer in order to defeat the monsters who have overrun their world- The Ancients.

The beginning of the novel was slower paced then I expected but it soon picked up about a quarter of the way through. I absolutely loved all of the character development that occurred throughout this book. There were many amazing plot twists (one chapter had two!) and the book kept me at the edge of my seat.

Characters

One of my all time favorite characters has to be Blackwood. I love his growth throughout this book as well as his relationship with Henrietta. Throughout the whole book I was hoping he would confess his love and I’m so glad they’re together now. I was never to big of a fan of Rook but I did feel for Henrietta when he changed into a Familiar.

We were introduced to a new character in this book- Maria, who ends up being the actual prophesied one. At the start of the novel, I was slightly put off by Maria, but soon grew to like her. I especially liked her friendship with Henrietta and her loyalty and dedication to her work. Without even knowing him, Maria was kind enough to work on a cure in order to stop Rook from changing into a familiar.

Plot Twists

This novel caused my jaw to drop multiple times. There was one point where I just sat in disbelief at the plot twist. So, the biggest secret that is revealed in this book was when we learned that R’hlem is Henrietta’s father, William Howel. I was shocked! When we first learnt that William Howel did not drown like Henrietta aunt told her, I expected him to be alive and possible able to help defeat the ancients- Not be one of them!

Another, lesser plot twist is when we learn that Maria is Agrippa’s daughter. Along with this, we soon learn that Maria is actually the chosen one who Henrietta has been pretending to be. Though this was something of what I expected, I was still surprised by this.

Final Thoughts

The Kingdom On Fire Trilogy by Jessica Cluess is quickly becoming one of my favorite trilogies. Though the writing style is simplistic I believe it works really well for the story-line. With historical fiction aspects and plenty of magic, this book has the perfect blend of some of my favorite genres. All in all, I truly adored this novel and am highly anticipating the next.

DNF. This was a mess and the messages it can send are truly troubling or at best, mixed. A confusing, mad-dash to the end that takes pains to ruin almost any affection had for the characters. Truly maddening choices made on the part of the author. A whole mess.

I feel like I waited AGES for this book to come out! The first novels in the series were so good, I absolutely could not wait for A Sorrow Fierce and Falling to be released, and it did not disappoint in the slightest. Absolutely worth the wait. From the characters to the plot, everything about this book is perfect.

While I enjoyed the first book in the series, I did not continue with the second book, so I do not feel right to read and review this title. Thank you to the publisher for giving me the chance to review.

I tried reading this book but sadly I didn't make it very far while reading this book. I think that the different point of views made it a bit difficult to understand . I usually love this author's books and I hoped that this one would work out for me.

Interesting character development!
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read and review A Sorrow Fierce and Falling by Jessica Cluess!
Now that Blackwood and Nettie are engaged, they are able to fully work together. They move to Blackwood’s estate, Sorrow Fell, and Nettie discovers the curse that goes along with the stolen Fae dwelling. The Blackwood bride deteriorates for decades. Blackwood becomes Imperator and the power changes him and not in a good way. He craves honor, love and acceptance, which he never received from his parents. He yearns to control everything and this puts a wall between himself and Nettie. As the Ancients get closer, the sorcerers, magicians and witches struggle with leadership and the possibility of working together. This third and last book of the series contains more emotional upheavals and ups and downs, as well as great character development! Jessica Cluess has proven herself as a wonderful fantasy author and I would love to read this series again, 5 stars!

I'm sad to say that I liked each subsequent book in this series a little less than the one before it. The essence of this book perfectly matches the title with "sorrow" and "falling". This book had so many sad, depressing moments that really brought a dark tone to this book. Cluess's dry humor and witty remarks were missing in this book. I felt like so many convenient things happened in the plot so everything fell into place at the last moments. There were still some shocking moments delivered throughout the book which I appreciated, but overall I was unsatisfied with the ending.

A Sorrow Fierce and Falling is the third and final nook to the Kingdom of Fire trilogy. This third book was exactly what was needed to end the series. It will be one of my favorite series. I was surprised and enjoyed the ending because I didn't dee it coking after book two. The only thing I hated were characters dying but the shock from that IS what made it a good story and have a great ending, BRAVO!

So...I honestly don’t know how to feel right about now. And to risk giving anything away, I’ll kindly let you all know that my heart was shattered and kind of pt back together in the end. I’ve obviously shipped a certain gentleman throughout the whole series; as many of you have as well. I’ve been quiet about who it is but after this book...let’s just say my heart hurts. Just a little bit.

If you haven’t already started these books, I’d like to point out that this is the third book—please start with A Shadow Bright and Burning. Not only are the covers all gorgeous but the writing and prose are perfection. I fell in love with the world and all the characters inside of it. There’s been many references from other reviews and from marketing that this is Harry Potter meets Jane Eyre. If those books are up your alley, then it’s no question about whether you should read these or not.

This book is all about the war and Henrietta, Blackwood, and gang doing their best to try and save the country. On top of that, she’s set to be married to Blackwood, but nothing is ever that easy. With her friends by her side, Henrietta will do everything in her power to save those she loves.

With the way the blurb was worded, I was very scared to start the book. I shouldn’t have been scared because Cluess knocked it out of the park. It left me feeling breathless from the twists and turns it had. Of course in the end, my heart was in bittersweet pieces. Especially bittersweet that the trilogy is over. I’m always sad to see characters go when I’ve become attached.

On par with book one, I found this to be good. The darkness, the fantastic descriptions...Cluess did beautifully.

The series has basically been quite consistent. A few minor blips with book 2, but still one I enjoyed.

I think this is a good ending. With the execution issues, it's probably for the best. While enjoyable, it's probably not something I'd read over and over. Having said that, I will say I'm content with how it all panned out.

I have no idea what to rate this because there were aspects I enjoyed and were dramatic and intense, but also the mashing of Jane Eyre and this fantasy world was way too much. And once I saw the Jane Eyre parallels I couldn’t un-see them, and it was incredibly distracting and made the whole thing feel like a fanfic. (If the Jane Eyre connection had been made clear in any of the blurbs or the summaries of the books, I may have been able to forgive this because then it wouldn’t have felt like the author was trying to pull one over on us.) The plot was all over the place, reminding me of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, which I had to dnf. If you’re one for insane plots with constant dramatic reveals, but not so concerned about understanding the characters, this series might be for you.

Oh my god the crying and the laughing and I loved this!

Faster paced than the other two - definitely cramming in a lot more plot in the last book, but it works out pretty well. I anticipate people having issues with some of the romance stuff, but honestly I think it was done really beautifully, particularly this idea that you can genuinely love more than one person, in different ways, and that life sometimes makes you give up one happy ending for another. (Even if there really aren't any 100% happy endings.) Really this series, particularly this installment, is all about complexity of feelings and emotions and I love it.

A SORROW FIERCE AND FALLING by Jessica Cluess is the third book in the Kingdom on Fire Trilogy and once again, it is filled with magic, monsters and romance. This time heroine Henrietta is training Maria, the true Chosen One, and also anticipating marriage to Blackwood. Filled with humor and action, this fantasy is easy to read and will engage middle school and younger high school students who have read the other two titles in the series. See links below for my reactions to those earlier titles by Cluess:
http://treviansbookit.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-shadow-bright-and-burning-by-jessica.html https://treviansbookit.blogspot.com/2017/09/jane-unlimited-by-kristin-cashore.html

A fantastic finish to a fantastic series! I loved this finale. It was as explosive and magic and romantic as I could hope for.

Of course, I was disappointed with the way certain characters ended up -- and I don't mean this in a bad way. I was invested in the story and characters and was sad that some of them didn't get their happily-ever-after. And I loved the ending! It was sweet and unexpected.

What can I say about this book without giving anything away? Not much. But I will say that I enjoyed seeing all my favorite characters again. I happily fell into this alternate historical England filled with magic and monsters and surprises.

If you haven't read this series yet, I highly recommend it! It's my favorite YA series I read in 2018!

My Review: The world building throughout this series has been so spot on and this book is no less beautiful! The author did an amazing job bringing this world to life and this one was way faster paced than the first two books. The characters were amazing and I just could not put this book down! That ending was so perfect and this one left me with a final feeling that a lot of series don't do very well. If you are a fan of this series I would say that you will love this one as well. Everything about it was just perfect and I can not wait to see what else this author gives us in the future.

Go Into This One Knowing: Fantasy and History

Jessica Cluess is a wonderful writer. I give her that. However, this series devolved from a strong female character who didn't need a man to a wishy-washy female character who didn't take charge of her own life. Without spoiling too much, there was a lot of unsettling themes concerning what women "have to do" and motherhood in this last book that definitely ruined my experience of the whole series. I thought there would be more focus of Maria and Henrietta as friends, but aside from a few good moments, the whole book felt like it was just Henrietta being "woe is me, all these boys love me and I love all of them". Again, Cluess is a majorly talented writer but the end of this series missed the mark in a huge way for me.

I had enjoyed the other books in this series and was eager to see how it all played out, sadly this was wildly disappointing.

I like Henrietta’s arc and the bit of growth with the first two; however it seemed like she was an entirely different character. She’s wishy washy and sort of whiny and I struggled to care about what she was doing. I have serious issues with what happened with a couple of characters because they deserved a lot more than what they got. I’m being vague because spoilers.

Plot wise, it was confusing. I will admit to not remembering much of the other books before starting this one, this one felt like a bunch of random ideas mashed together. I couldn’t settle into the rhythm of the story. And I firmly believe people are either going to love or hate the ending.

Overall, I’m not entirely sure why I kept reading this because I could have easily set it down and not finished. I guess I kept hoping for a spark that would turn things around. I loved the idea of this series, but the execution of this book did not work for me.

**Huge thanks to Random House BFYR for providing the arc free of charge**

I wasn’t sure how I wanted this series to end, but what happened was just perfect. This book, like the other two before it, was very hard to put down. The plot twists and the constant battles kept you turning pages. The romance was very well done I thought, it really did justice to the idea that you can love more than one person at the same time, just in different ways.

Henrietta is still a strong character, however she still makes some mistakes that I found hard to believe. Her relationship with Blackwood was not the best in this book, at times it was unhealthy for both of them. She needed a bit more back bone to stand up to him earlier when he didn’t support her ideas on how to win the war. Fortunately, the others around her were willing to listen and work on the goal of getting rid of the ancients.

Blackwood was interesting in this book. He got a little bit caught up in not becoming his father, and doing the right thing and to hell what anyone else thought. Although, I didn’t like him much in the other books, I really despised how he treated Henrietta at one point in this book. He does redeem himself in the end though.

Rook, sadly, mostly disappeared in this book. But when he did finally show up he played a very crucial role. I was sad about what happened to him in this series. No one deserved his life, for he was such a sweet and gentle boy.

Magnus is still my favorite of Nettie’s suitors. He was funny and kind and genuinely cared for her. He suffered a lot in this series, and yet he still managed to make those around him happier and stronger. He ended up being the leader I knew he could be.

The world that was created for this series is still amazing. The alternative Victorian England setting was fascinating and the Ancients that were destroying it were very different than anything else I have seen in fantasy. R’hlem was also quite interesting as the villain of the story. We get a lot more back story on him and on Henrietta’s family, which was very interesting. The magical system was unlike anything else, with the three tiers of witch, magician and sorcerer. They talked a little bit about the origins of the three in this books which was very intriguing. I would love to see a spin off series on that topic.

A great ending to a wonderful series. I look forward to seeing more by this author.