A glorious "retelling" as alternate history of the Hawaiian Islands at the turn of the Century (19th-20th), with strong female heroines (multiple), paranormal elements founded and grounded in the Islands, the suffrage for women, and the rights of women to independence and careers; plus romance, animals, danger, and victories. Additionally, the author provides an inspiring and educational afterword about Hawaii's history and royal bloodline.


BOUND IN FLAME will appeal to fans of historic Romantic Suspense (think Phyllis A. Whitney and Victoria Holt), Alternative History (Harry Turtledove), history as-it-should-have-been and as it was, and readers eager for strong female characters.

I love how diverse this book is.
This book creatively combines Hawaiian folklore, horses, and female suffragettes. All of these aspects mesh together to create an entirely unique story. From the very first page I was intrigued and wanted to know more. The cover is absolutely beautiful and the story contained within its pages was full of fun YA adventure and romance.

Overwhelming!
Bound in Flame was well-written and well-researched but there was so much going on. The amount of subplots was distracting- veterinary medicine, horse training, magic, Pinkerton agents, English royalty, Hawaiian royalty, the suffrage movement, and romance. There were too many characters as well. I couldn’t keep track of who was who. I struggled to finish this book because I kept getting overwhelmed. The suffrage movement played such a small role it isn’t even worth mentioning. The synopsis on the back cover needs to be re-written to reflect more about the actual plot of the book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Heat Factor: She’s on fire. The sex is not (and it’s not meant to be, really).
Character Chemistry: Yes.
Plot: I can’t even begin...
Overall: Try a little something different on for size.

Historical romance is great, but it’s so hard to find historical romance that’s not 19th century British. There are also the various popular American settings: Wild West, Gilded Age, Reconstruction. So when I found this Hawaiian historical romance I jumped right on it. Also my in-laws have been living in Hawaii, so we’ve had a Hawaiian culture inundation the past couple years. Basically I had no choice.

This book is set in a very early 20th century (1909) Hawaii, in a fictional, mystical world, where Americans did take over Hawaii, but Lili’uokalani was succeeded by Kehokulani, a suffragist princess born with mystical powers. There is all kinds of stuff going on in this book:
1. Mystical Gates are ushering the world from its past to its future, led by Princess Kehokulani.
2. Letty’s family has money trouble.
3. Letty is part of an equestrian society of Hawaiian suffragists.
4. Timothy has family/plantation issues.
5. Letty was sent to school in California where she decided to become a veterinarian.
6. There is a psychopath who hates Letty because Timothy fired him.

Some of these things are more relevant than others, but be prepared for a lot of moving parts. Kayne also dates all the chapters, which was too much. As far as I could tell, the narrative moves in a chronologically forward progression, so the dates really just made me feel like I was missing something, because I paid attention to them not at all.

It’s going to be really hard for me to be succinct, but I’ll try. Because we at The Smut Report talk romance, I’m going to leave some of our plot points outlined above alone in favor of the romance between Timothy and Letty.

Letty Lang just can’t seem to control herself sometimes. It’s the reason she’s sent to boarding school in California. The reason she can’t control herself? She is a Gate, one of nine women who will “open new ways for our people.” (It’s a period of change, the early 20th century. There are cars, for starters.) Her power is healing and it manifests as flames. (Get it?)

It is because she can’t control her power that she throws herself off a ship after a horse as the book opens and then curses the horse’s owner, Timothy Rowley, when she and her equine friend arrive safely on shore. Timothy is a very good friend of the aforementioned Princess K, who also happens to be Letty’s godmother, so Letty and Timothy are thrown together over and over as the story progresses. They live on different islands, though. Letty starts out on the big island because she’s visiting Princess K, but most of the time she lives with her parents on Oahu, while Timothy’s plantation is next to the Princess’s on the big island. Distance makes the heart grow fonder? I honestly didn’t know if this was actually going to be a romance or if we were going to do some more series, Stephanie Plum nonsense because first there is a very slow burn and then it turns out that Gates kill romantic interests with their powers. (?) (???) I got to a point where if Letty broke up with Timothy without telling him to his face what the issue was one more time, I was going to throw the book. Teenagers.

Letty and Timothy train horses together and are generally quite proper. They write each other. The visit politely when they’re in the same space. But they are insta-attracted to each other, so it’s a subtle romance. Also there’s the issue that Letty is half Hawaiian, so Timothy, as not only a white man but as an English aristocrat, would face a degree of social ostracism if he were with her. Going home to England in glory to stick it to his father goes up in smoke and all that. The romance, therefore, is one that I really wanted to happen, but it was on-again-off-again, sometimes even seeming non-existent before swinging back to burning and yearning.

Much of the story isn’t really centered on the romance anyway. Timothy ties directly into Letty’s journey of self discovery, but Letty learning she’s a Gate and subsequently learning how to accept and harness her powers is a lot of the narrative. Given the lack of an external conflict to drive the plot, the story lives or dies based on the quality of the narrative and the writing. The narrative is definitely engaging. It took me a little while to warm up, but by the end I did become totally absorbed in all the different goings on Kayne had whipped up.

So how’s the writing? It’s good, or I wouldn’t have enjoyed the book at all. But… The first, and honestly very minor, thing is that the story is written in 3rd person omniscient and in the past tense (as most books are). So when the author says, “That is, of course, until one crafty mama decided to make a break for it….”

It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s super jarring. The other aspect of the writing I feel compelled to flag is the pacing. As I said, there’s a lot going on, so there was a lot of story to tell, but I probably shouldn’t have wondered if we were ever going to resolve the central Gate/Relationship conflict in this book, especially if it’s marketed as romance. There were a few points along various plotlines that geared up to high drama and then… resolved? Just like that?

Some of these things matter more than others, but holy wow did that ending feel packed in, like, “Let’s not make this book too long!” Hi, I just read a 500 page romance novel (Like, why? Different issue...)--this book is not too long. Or if it is, cut down on some of the story lines. Don’t fail to flesh out all the drama that’s been created in all the other carefully crafted pages!

TL;DR - I liked this book, and I really liked that its setting both physically and temporally were different than most of what I read. Is it my new fave? Nah. But that’s okay, too.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report.

Wow! I am adding Katherine Kayne to my MUST READ authors list. This was an incredible debut. It does not suffer from being the first in a series at all. This is a fantasy book that feels more like historical fiction. The world building is so well done and blends beautifully with early 20th century Hawaii. All the characters are well developed and somehow manage to be both believable and magical. I think that is because the magic itself is slow and natural and ancient like the islands and the people it comes from. I honestly cannot wait for the next books.

My only criticism would be that the villains could have been elaborated on a bit more, they felt a bit like an afterthought but not to the detriment of the book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

An interesting read, good storyline, and the author captures the reader right from the first paragraph. I look forward to reading the other books in this series.

I'm a sucker for anything set in Hawaii, especially when it references any of the old beliefs. Bound in Flame is a poetic novel filled with romance and magic, but I struggled to connect with any of the characters until about halfway through which was unfortunate. This novel has a beautiful story woven through it and I especially loved the afterward that explained all of Katherine Kayne's inspirations, I just wish there had been a bit more character development in the beginning to help you become more emotionally attached to the characters sooner.

How can I punish her now? How can we proclaim that we want more bold women and then the minute we have one, put a bridle on her? Sheer hypocrisy!


My friends, this book is about Hawaiian suffragists on horseback.
Yes, I didn’t know that was a book I needed either, and yet, here we are.

So, Bound in Flame is about Letty, whose full name I’ve forgotten as soon as I read it (my abilities to forget names in a matter of seconds is not even funny anymore, but I looked it up and her full name is Letitia Liliuokolani Lang), is training to become a veterinarian. In 1909. As a Irish-Hawaiian, who’s tall and dark skinned and female and all the things men hated back in the day.
She doesn’t give a fuck, tho.
I may have a crush on her.
She loves animals fiercely and sometimes makes rash decisions, that end up saving lives sometimes.
The setting is Hawaii, only years after the Kingdom of Hawaii became American. The majority of the cast is either Hawaiian or east Asian (I think a lot of them are Japanese? But that’s never disclosed, that’s just me assuming because of names), with only few exceptions.
And it would’ve been very easy to make the white man the enemy (because they did basically outlaw Hawaiian culture and then later exploited it for money), but they weren’t. Hawaiians do, after all, have Ho’oponopono, which is a practice of forgiveness.

The cast was great!
Letty, goddaughter of the last princess of Hawaii, studying to become a veterinarian, with a fierce love for everything four-legged and great with a bullwhip.
Agnes, an Australian woman and the stepmother of Letty, was so fierce and protective and she was ready to fight whomever dared to threaten her children, Letty included.
Princess K, who had been trained to take the throne until there wasn’t a throne anymore, was so compassionate, kind and strong.
There was a bunch of other female cast members, the British grandmama, Irene, that one weird lady with her mule, it was great. I was having a wonderful time.
And, I want to repeat myself: this is about Hawaiian feminists and suffragists, that ride around Hawaii. I love it.


My biggest problem with this book is, that I’ll have to wait for the second one.



Thanks to the author and netgalley for providing this ARC!

A Fantasy Historical romance with some Hawiiaian myths.
A good story about Letty a girl who a connection to animals and the islands.
Some drama, twist, angst,romance and Island history.
Enjoyed reading ablot the Islands.
Voluntarily reviewed.

Loved this little jewel of a book . It was good and good read , I loved the setting
thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and for the fact that the main character was an animal's lover!!!
And it does have an interesting plot, with the right amount of plot twists, angst and cute things. Katherine Kayne's writing is so poetic, from time to time I caught myself going back to some passages to read them aloud, those sentences practically sang in my tongue.
However, to be really honest this story was simply not for me, I didn't really care about the characters, couldn't connect with them and some of Letty's attitudes made me annoyed to say the least.
Perhaps it wasn't a good period for me to read a fantasy book.

Bound in Flame by Katheine Kayne was such a fun read! I am so glad I got to dive into the stories of the Hawaiian Ladies' Riding Society because once I started on this book, I could not put it down. I finished it in one day. Kayne had just the right mix of strong women, animals, and the ancient powers of the earth. I enjoyed the romance in it but am glad that there was so much else to the story that made it so well rounded. I cannot wait to read the next book in this series!

I personally don't really love historical fiction books. This one was a little difficult for me to connect to the characters. But I did think that the author did a wonderful job writing wise.

Even if it's well written if wasn't my cup of tea. I couldn't connect to the characters and the book fell flat.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I very much enjoyed traveling to Hawaii and immersing myself in the magic of the islands with this story! Recognizing that I was given an advanced copy, I truly hope that more edits came later that transitioned scenes better. Too often the scene or dialogue cuts off abruptly, jarring the reader.

I was provided with an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't connect to this book. I didn't finish it. I think it was just the history and premise of the book.

I like the romance aspect I was trying to read more historical fiction but I don’t really like it too much but this book was good I don’t know if I would want to continue the series though