The conquering city state of Nivela has closed its gates after subjugating most of the known world and stealing their gods. Decades have passed without any whisper of life behind its walls. In the small town of Wall's End, Kirby sets out on a journey to Nivela in order to recover the stolen spring goddess and save her people. On the other side of the world, in the cosmopolitan and wise city of Ash, Ayela sets out to recover a lost artifact from Nivela and prove herself to her family. Against all odds, they will cross paths and join forces in order to get to Nivela unscathed, but what will they find there?

Truly this was such a fantastic premise, and I applaud Curtis for her creativity. As per her author's note in the end, Nivela and its empire are based on the Roman Empire but with the twist of the magic of stolen gods powering the Empire's war machine. The concept is so cool that part of me wishes it had happened in real life!
I very much liked this book, but I do feel it could have been truly great with some minor (or major?). Our two main POV characters, Ayela and Kirby were both compelling and loveable. I appreciated that they were polar opposites in personality and brought out the best in each other. I'm not sure I would classify this as a slow burn, but the romance was perfectly paced. Honestly, the whole journey was perfectly paced and felt like a true journey that you were going on with the characters. You truly get to know the world along with Kirby and Ayela as they travel through so many different destinations.
At various intervals, there are 2nd person POV sections from the point of view of Nivela and its last leader. At first, I wasn't sure how to feel about this as I'm not a fan of 2nd person POV. However, it does become an excellent and unique framing device for giving us the history of Nivela and its fall.

As for the tweaks I mentioned. There is a 3rd POV character not mentioned in the synopsis called Nypho who hails from this book's version of Sparta. However, he isn't introduced until about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the book and gets much less page time as compared to the two female leads. With how the book was structure, I'm not sure why he was included as the story could have progressed just fine without him and he left very little emotional impact. If Curtis wanted him to be a fully fleshed out character, Nypho should have been introduced in the very beginning with the other two and gone on a similar journey of growth as they did.
In addition, Ayela's uncle had changing motivations and characterization that I felt wasn't adequately explained. Again, there should have been more of him prior to Ayela starting her journey hinting at his quiet support of her. Honestly, this is just an example of this book needing a bit more breathing room for its story and characters. ( I definitely found the climax in Nivela to be rushed). It's odd to think that with the book almost being 500 pages but I'm almost wondering if it should've been a duology.?
And lastly, the epilogue was completely unnecessary and kind of ruined the ending of the book for me. It should have ended with the final 2nd person POV chapter as that was the perfect ending.

Despite all these tweaks, the world, the magic system and the two female leads were very strong, and I really did enjoy my reading experience.

Reviews going live on Goodreads, Storygraph and Fable on 3/7/25 and Tiktok on 3/8/25

Idolfire is the sapphic fantasy road trip story of my dream. Both MCs are complicated, a little tragic, and easy to root for. I know a lot of people want a HEA ending, but personally, I love it when an author is willing to take a risk with a more realistic ending. Not that the end was UN-happy.... Grace Curtis is on my radars now and I'm excited to see what they write next.

Sooo, it took me a while.
This is one of the books where the journey is much more important than the destination itself. I can see that.
The two protagonists (later three) come from very different backgrounds and want to travel together to a very famous city. They are driven by different motivations. The two characters are great and nicely built up, especially at the beginning. I got a bit confused at times because there was a lot of switching back and forth between their adult lives and their childhoods. but I actually quite liked them.
The journey itself is linear, so they get to know different places and people along the way, but I had the feeling that somehow they weren't making any progress. The journey makes no forward motion and some of the encounters seem pretty random. The chemistry between the two protagonists didn't quite click for me either.
The intermittent second person POV also caught me a bit off guard. I've read in this narrative style before and it can (!) add a lot of value. But I didn't find it here - it seemed as if the POV was only chosen because the author wanted it that way. Which isn't bad per se, but just a bit random.
I did really like some aspects of the world building though: I really liked the idea of idols and enjoyed the description of the cities. Idolfire itself sounds pretty cool too.

Overall, the book was okay/good-ish. Not bad - not by any means - but not satisfying in my eyes either.
If you like vibes, traveling and a bit of floating in books, you should definitely give it a try though!

3.5 / 5 stars
Idolfire follows two young women, Kirby and Aleya, on their (mis)adventures around ‘the walking world’, with the ultimate goal of reclaiming a stolen artifact of their respective homes. As such, much of the novel is spent travelling. I have often been disappointed by stories that spend much of their time travelling between places, as most of them - for some reason - feel the need to portray each town the story visits as its own caricature that has something quirky that sets it apart from all other towns. For example; a town whose only distinguishing characteristic is that it worships a war god, which then obviously means that every single person in that town is the most aggressive person to ever grace the face of the earth, and the only accepted currency is teeth that you just punched out of someone's skull, and every other week they sacrifice five virgins to the god by having teenagers kick them off a cliff as a coming-of-age ritual, etc. Anyway, my point is that Idolfire does not do this. It doesn't feel the need to make every single town Kirby and Aleya come across the most distinct place ever, which makes the world feel so much more real. In general, the world just feels like it makes sense, which really helps the story be more immersive. As a linguist, one of my (admittedly very niche) pet peeves is when there is a lingua franca (a common tongue) that makes no sense, because there is absolutely 0 reason why all those different places would be speaking the same language. The lingua franca in Idolfire, aka the Traveler's tongue, has a clear backstory for why it exists as a lingua franca.
So, I quite liked the world-building, both the concepts introduced, and the way they were conveyed in a low-key way that did not scream at the reader "Hey pay attention to this bit of world-building right here". What I enjoyed a bit less was the story, especially the ending. The premise that the Nivelans took away the goddess of Balt to crush their spirits and prevent them from ever rising up again, which also may have cursed Kirby's village is great. The personification of the city-empire of Nivela is fantastic. The way Aleya slowly grows fond of Kirby because she refuses to leave is marvellous. But the short glimpses we get of Nivela and Palgaro and its ruler throughout the story made me expect an island and city that are much more eerie and uncanny than it ended up being. While the intent is obviously there, the execution just left a little to be desired, and as such the city of these final few chapters never went beyond feeling just odd.
So overall, a good book and certainly an enjoyable read, but with room for improvement.

I had read both of Grace Curtis’s previous novels and while they both had faults, they were still original and interesting enough with a lot of potential that intrigued me enough to be excited for this third upcoming novel.

To say I was disappointed would be a severe understatement.

Initially it was compelling enough, especially Kirby’s (hate that name in this kind of fantasy setting but that’s the least of the book’s problems) part, and Aleya’s beginning story also had just enough mystery to have kept me reading. The “You” chapters in second person were irritating and ultimately completely unnecessary to the plot but they were few and far between enough that I could ignore them. And then halfway through the story we get the Nylophon POV, which had potential that was squandered for a convenient plot resolution.

I cannot stress just how exhausting Idolfire was to read all the way through. At a certain point, the only thing that kept me going was pure rage at the audacity that a fantasy book can be this unoriginal and just simply <i>bad.</i>

The worldbuilding had great building blocks but they were just left there without being built into anything. The magic that’s apparently so important in this world was brought up like twice, also only as convenient plot point resolutions.

The two main characters were fine at the beginning, as I mentioned earlier. Interesting even, especially with the anticipation of their character development. To my utter dismay, however, there was exactly zero character development or growth of any kind. Kirby remained simple and naively kind with exactly two personality traits throughout the entire story, rendering her flatter than an ironing board. Aleya wasn’t any better. She started out as an arrogant privileged selfish bully and stayed that way until the very last page.

With this unfortunate combo, the “romance” was incredibly lifeless and felt like someone mashing two cardboard cutouts together to make them kiss. Zero chemistry, yes, but at some points it even started to feel a bit icky with the way Aleya was treating Kirby and Kirby letting her because she didn’t know any better. And it was clearly intended to be seen as “banter” and “romantic.” The way their relationship anticlimactically ended after their adventure was also such an annoying attempt at being edgy, and even though I didn’t want them together at any point in the first place, it still felt like the author put me through all that for no payoff of any kind.

I’m not even going to start on the whole Scoria part of the plot because it’s simply not worth it.

Overall this just felt like a collection of all the things this author can’t do well without any of the things she has done well in the past. Incredibly disappointing but it is what it is, I guess.

Thank you to Netgalley and DAW for the eARC.

I read The Floating Hotel last year and thought it was great, so I jumped on the chance to read Idolfire, Curtis' first fantasy novel, early.

I'm sad to say it didn't really work for me. It's an interesting story, based on the fall of Rome, but I found it a bit slow and difficult to follow at times. It's told from 4 different perspectives. One seemed like an unnecessary character and one seemed to reference the reader...who apparently is only revealed near the end.

The magic system wasn't that clear, the belief system around the gods kind of all over the place. There is a sapphic romance, which felt under-developed.

Not to say that there weren't any interesting elements. There were, but they just didn't take the premise of the book far enough in my opinion.

Unfortunately I do agree with a lot of other readers that this book has more of the traveling and not a lot of stakes. I found myself struggling to pick this back up to get engrossed in it. It is not cozy yet there’s not quite a lot of action either. I was also confused by the main plot, as to what was actively happening. I wanted my hand held more and things explained more and a bit more action. That being said, I did still enjoy this, but I didn’t finish it. I am prioritizing other reads so I am soft DNFing this one and will likely either buy it in stores when I see it or finish the ebook at my own pace later when I am in the mood. I am excited to read the author’s other space book! I have been wanting to read it for quite some time so I was excited when I saw this book pop up. It’s not a bad book, I am just not the right reader I don’t think. Thank you so much for the eARC! I am leaving this feedback voluntarily.

Apparently, the third time really is the charm because while I enjoyed Grace’s Frontier and The Floating Hotel, I absolutely adored Idolfire. I loved it!

This is a fantasy inspired by the Fall of Rome, but you don't need to know that going in and, quite frankly, the story stands well on its own without knowing any of that. It was fun to try and decipher what was loosely based on reality and what was entirely fictional, but it also wasn’t distracting in any way. And if you aren’t a fan of Rome, if I had to choose a culture that this book was focused on, it’s not Rome at all, but the outlying civilizations that survived after it. In fact, Rome is sort of made fun of in this book a bit, which I thought was refreshing.

My favourite aspect of the book is tied to the world-building, as it’s a quest narrative, and my favourite kind of quest: where the characters aren’t in a super rush to get home. They have a mission and a goal but it’s not a three-day adventure; it’s months. And they go to so many cool and interesting places, both in the cultures and odd magic they encounter. The different countries/places are described really well, with lush descriptions that aren’t afraid to take their time unfolding. I found it really immersive.

And the magic system is subtle to being almost rare, but when it does come up, it’s so fascinating. The book also has ancient ruins, a trope I love.

The book follows two main perspectives with a third coming in later. The two women, Aleya and Kirby are vastly different in temperament, skill, knowledge, and social position. They are pretty much as opposite as they could be, but they work well together and you get to witness their reluctant alliance and then relationship blossom over time. I will say, the only critique I have of the novel is that the “yearning” aspects of the slow-burn romance weren’t very intense. I know there’s a whole subset of readers who don’t want sex in their fantasy, thinking it should be reserved for romantasy, but as someone who can’t stand most romantasy tropes, I like romance and sex in my regular fantasy, because I’m not going to read a romantasy. I’m not even asking for a sex scene, just, in the case of this book, a bit more sexual tension would have worked nicely for me.

That being said, Curtis’ skill at characterization really shines in this novel because she’s able to make you care about the most officious little prick of a character, one that you really wish would get a comeuppance ... but then she humanizes them, and you like, "damn you made me like this person." That was fun. It also showed how most of the time, we’re assholes because of how we’re raised or where we live, which felt relevant to today in a lot of ways.

The action scenes are terse, exciting, and very fun. Kirby can’t fight, but Aleya definitely can, though she’s not infallible. She has had years of training, but she also is quick-witted. Kirby helps as best she can, and while she does come off as a bit “country bumpkin” at times, she’s endearing and cute. It is very much a grumpy sunshine story. And then a third chaos element to mix things up the last third.

The ending is one of the most interesting ones I’ve read and it was bittersweet and realistic. It’s also not a “save the world” story - it’s about two women doing what they need to do both for themselves and their communities. There’s a wider world that exists around them, and the book is great at showing how the world doesn’t revolve around them as main characters. I might be reading into it a bit much, but the book also seems to include the physical manifestations of the effects of colonialism or, perhaps the theft of cultural artifacts.

Overall, I loved this one. The length was perfect, the story didn’t follow a straight trajectory but also wasn’t meandering, the characters were excellent, and the worldbuilding and action scenes were top-notch. Highly recommended.

*Full review to be posted closer to publication!*

I'm not sure this ended up being the fun 'roadtrip' that the premise posits it as, but it's still certainly an entertaining adventure full of an eclectic cast of characters! I'll admit that I'm a big sucker for traveling in fantasy books, no matter really the size of the journey--although the bigger the better--so I really enjoyed that aspect of this one. I do feel that the pacing suffered a little along the way, but I didn't always mind spending time with the characters as they moved along their trip. What didn't work as much for was unfortunately the characters themselves, as I found myself struggling to connect with any of them and therefore feel overly invested in their personal journeys. I really wanted to love the worldbuilding and think that it had a lot of promise, but I think it lacked a bit of cohesion at times and could have been better executed. Overall, I think this is a fun travel fantasy that heavily focuses on the journey!

Going by her previous two books, which were science fiction of very different stripes, Grace Curtis’s Idolfire is unsurprisingly darkly delightful. Frontier was a sapphic, post-apocalyptic road trip with Western styling while Floating Hotel was a found family story set on an interstellar luxury cruise liner that got progressively darker as it went. Idolfire shares some of the DNA of these stories but is very different again. Curtis has built what appears to be a fantasy road trip through a richly imagined world, using historical models for its various extant and former civilisations. She anchors the whole endeavour around three complex, slightly damaged characters who find strength in their mutual support.
Idolfire opens in two very different parts of Curtis’s world. Kirby lives a hardscrabble life in a small village called Walls End, nestled up against the ruins of a once great city. The god of that city was taken when it fell and that loss has left a blight which continues to affect the village. Following yet more tragedy Kirby sets off to retrieve that god from the former great city of Nivela and break the curse. On the other side of the world, Aleya is kind-of heir to the throne of the city of Ash but has her own baggage. Rulers of Ash claim their birthright by going out and returning successfully from quests. Ayela is given a seemingly impossible task that also involves going to Nivela but she has hardly started before she is waylaid and encounters Kirby.
As noted, the world of Idolfire, though fantasy-based, is built on real historical precedents. The city and people of Nivela are based on the Roman Empire, who blazed through the world, building straight roads and destroying other Empires before itself disappearing. The inspiration for Walls End were villages in Europe built in and around Roman remains, with little memory of the original. But Curtis has also drawn on Assyrian, Babylonian and other ancient empires to build her world. She builds a god-driven magic system on top of all of this which underpins and drives some of the wilder action scenes, particularly towards the end.
Curtis once again leans on a bit of a found family approach as the two travellers learn to live with each other, and more, and then the group becomes three, though not without some trauma. Similar to authors like Becky Chambers, there is a humanity to Curtis’s approach, which softens some of the darker, more dangerous parts of the story. Because there is plenty of danger, conflict, desperation and death. But much like her previous two books, it feels like a steel hand within a silk glove.
Idolfire is fantasy in a richly imagined world, built around real world analogues but powered by a fascinating magical system and peopled by engaging characters on a seemingly impossible quest which, of course, changes them. In doing so, Curtis demonstrates an ability to deliver her engaging form of narrative, characters and concerns in a different setting and different register.

Thank you to Net Galley and DAW for the ARC. I really enjoyed Floating Hotel so I was looking forward to reading another book by Grace Curtis. The beginning started strong, I liked the characters, and even the road trip was not so bad at the beginning, but as the story went on, the travelling was endless, and there seemed to be no purpose or direction beyond reaching the destination. The characters visited a lot of places, the prose used to describe these places was pretty, but I can't say I remember anything about the world. The ending was also super anticlimactic, and made me wonder what the point of reading this book was.

IDOLFIRE - GRACE CURTIS

Have you ever had that moment of realisation when you are reading a book and you feel almost like it's been written FOR you? That's what reading Idolfire felt like to me.

This book feels like an ode to travel, history and the fantasy genre all at once - and these happen to be some of my favourite things. Since Idolfire was inspired by the fall of Ancient Rome and other civilisations, you can expect that this book is truly epic in scale. The two FMCs, Aleya and Kirby, are part of communities who are living amongst ruins and the aftereffects of such a powerful colonising force. One that was a ruling menace until it suddenly snuffed out.

The first part of Idolfire sets the context and purpose of their respective journeys, and what a journey it is. You'll follow along as they each encounter new lands, with different people and belief systems, with many perils and mysteries to overcome as they go on their way.

If that sounds heavy, it doesn't actually feel this way as you read. Instead, this book has many cosy elements, with funny banter between characters and an eventual feeling of found family. And the magic is some of the best and most unique I've ever read. Imaginative and memorable, I genuinely never knew what to expect and I loved the magical powers and places that the characters encounter.

While their journeys and the world they're in feel truly epic in scale, other aspects like the romance and character development feel more subtle. This made it all the more believable, and I went through every emotion because of these incredible characters; I laughed, I felt fear for them and I cried.

I believe that Grace Curtis will be writing another standalone book set in this world, occurring many years after the events in Idolfire, and I know that I'll be reading it as soon as it's released. In fact, I'll read anything by Grace Curtis and if I could give this book more than five stars, believe me that I would!

Thank you to Grace Curtis, the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this eARC.

Release date: 11 March 2025

Review score: 5/5

Trigger warnings: Violence, injury detail, war

Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for the preview. All opinions are my own.

3.5 stars?

Journey before destination. Never have words applied to a book more. This is a slow paced, character driven quest story, with all the focus on the journey. Two characters find themselves on the same road to the same destination and pair up (initially much to Aleya’s chagrin). Later, a third character joins them. They all experience much character growth along the way, along with their at times harrowing journey.

The world was interesting, and I appreciated the author’s note at the end explaining her inspiration. But I just never connected with our characters. I didn’t FEEL things. And the end is an absolute fever dream, with a bittersweet epilogue. But I just feel kind of cold about it all.

Thank you to #netgalley for the ARC.

My prior exposure to the work of Grace Curtis was through the Floating Hotel which I only realized after reading Idolfire and seeing the book end “About the Author” blurb is actually a follow up to Frontier (🤦🏻‍♀️ how did I miss this? No wonder there were parts of Floating Hotel that felt like I missed some info somewhere, sigh). This book however unlike the prior two is fantasy and not science fiction, and at times I wanted it to break from its genre and head into space.

If you enjoy your fantasy threaded through with historical inspiration this will be an extra fun read for you. The “which civ is this?” Game was a delightful one for me and I was rewarded when my guessed civilizations proved correct by reading the “Author’s Note.”

I appreciated that this was a fantasy romance without insta-lust and was glad I didn’t have to skip over sex scenes (huzzah no mentions of “moist loins”). The love story felt believable and didn’t seem to overshadow the stakes of the quests they were on either. I find it incredibly annoying in books when characters are so focused on describing the object of their lust’s thighs that they literally ignore buildings being fire bombed around them.

Not going to get into spoiler territory here when I say the magic system was neat. If you geeked out about how the magic worked in Sanderson’s Warbreaker and Elantris you will likely enjoy this system as well and like me, wish for more info on this… I feel like the lack of grounding of the magic is a setup for book 2 (not that I know if there will be a book 2).

I think I’m going to select this for my book club to read if only to discuss the historical inspiration and magic system….

This was an utter delight! I’m so excited to read Curtis’ previous work!

Aside from the beginning being a little slow, I can’t think of anything bad to say about this book. The prose was lovely, Aleya and Kirby’s relationship was so real and sweet, the meditation on empire was thoughtful, and the ENDING!! I was almost crying in Itsu.

What really makes this book stand out to me is the pacing and the characters. The journey takes up most of the book, but it doesn’t feel padded or too short. It feels a lot like Katherine Addison’s writing in that way, though the road trip gives it a little more of a plot structure than Addison’s work tends to have. The main three characters, Aleya, Kirby, and Nylophon, are relatively simple, but they feel so lively and real. I loved all three of them. I think Curtis could have done a little more to differentiate their point of view, because sometimes I did lose track of whose point of view it was (particularly between Kirby and Aleya towards the end), but it wasn't a huge problem.

I've been doing a lot of repeating "people lived meaningful lives during the fall of the Roman empire" to myself as of late, and it was nice to read a book that was mostly about that. Just a wonderful book.

I received this book from Net Galley.

I do like traveling in fantasy books, but I also like it when characters eventually reach their destination. This book is about the journey, and I'm not sure if that was enough to fill the pages. The story follows two, later three, main characters coming from very different places in the same world, setting out for a journey to the once greatest city in existence. Kirby (not a fan of that name in a fantasy setting) is leaving her dying village in the middle of nowhere to find her lost Goddess, and Aleya is following her Calling so that she might finally take her previously denied place with the royal family. I really liked the way how these two characters were set up in the beginning of the story, although the pacing was a little weird with the time jumps from childhood to adulthood. But then they began their journey – first alone and later together – and I don't know what it was, but it just didn't work for me. They go from place to place and meet a whole variety of characters along the way, but I never felt like we were making progress in the story. The different places didn't serve a greater purpose and felt mostly random. And I say that even though I actually liked the worldbuilding. It wasn't super detailed, but many interesting ideas were presented. The world is full of great cities that once conquered the world but are now only ruins, of stolen and lost Gods and Goddesses, of magic that is powered through faith and prayers. Still, I wasn't invested in the story itself. From the cover, I expected it to be more on the cozy side and while it did feel calm, it was also full of attacks and fights, even death. It wasn't graphic or anything, but the vibes just didn't match at times. There were also things I didn't like altogether, like the somewhat pointless second person / you-are-the-city POV, or the messy ending. It wasn't an unpleasant reading experience, but also not an exciting one. The story basically went by without ever really catching my attention and that's unfortunate for a book that had a good beginning.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and DAW for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

Idolfire is about two women, Kirby and Aleya, and their quest to reclaim icons stolen from their homelands by a conquering nation, a nation that has since withdrawn into isolation and become fodder for ghost stories. The two are eventually joined by a directionless mercenary, Nylophon, who surprisingly ended up having the most moving character arc to me. I also liked how he and Kirby had the same shared dream of retiring to the countryside with your beloved and growing plants. The universal queer fantasy?

This novel has one of the most fascinating magic systems I've read recently: being able to imbue/bring to life religious icons, with the icons' power based on how long and how many people have prayed to them. And how this builds the backstory: a foreign empire absorbing neighboring lands, literally stealing their gods and turning the gods against the people to fuel their own imperialist crusade...

The vibes were an interesting blend of gentle but cutting, horrifying but heartwarming. It was a little dissonant at times but also made the emotional beats hit harder. The ending wasn't particularly happy and I'm not sure how to describe my emotions, other than the tears and snot were flowing.

There's a scene later in the book that'll stick with me for a while, in which the three characters come across a tablet in the ruins of a large city. The tablet depicts people -- the former inhabitants of the city -- plowing, eating, talking, dancing... the only thing left intact amongst "bone-littered rubble." Something about that, about those long-dead living in art when everything else they touched has been destroyed... I cried.

I loved this. It introduced an entirely new magic system, and then mostly ignored it, focusing on the characters and their journey. I'd read Curtis's Floating Hotel, so I was expecting something not quite like this, but this was delightful. I only wish I'd been able to access a bigger version of the map.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for an early copy of the book for review.

The story was setup in a unique way, with different POV and narrators driving the story.

This is simply an adventure, a quest, with a sapphic love story. The world building was satisfying and allowed me to feel immersed in the scenes as the story unfolded. I found the writing easy to follow and the story itself was engaging, the characters likeable in their own ways.

I would say this is more of a gentle unfolding of a story rather than an epic tale of war and romance. It was satisfying nonetheless to see the characters arcs through to the heartbreaking end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Oh my god. I am so overwhelmed with how much I loved this. I laughed out loud as I read and by the end I was full on ugly crying. Snot and all.

THIS is what fantasy should be!! But also maybe I’ve reached the pinnacle of fantasy and I’m ruined for all other books.

Also:

Nylophon of Carthe, son of Daxxies, lover of Nachi 🥹😭🥺🥹🫶🫶