Honestly I spent majority of this book confused. I liked that the FMC acknowledged her faults and wasn’t some unbeatable character. She failed spectacularly this book.

I hate how as soon as I started liking the other MC?¿ it all got flipped. I have no idea where the next book could go and I have no idea what happened at the end? But I’m intrigued to find out what happens next.

I liked the magic system and the battle between the two religious sides. It felt like a weird cult mix with the Savior people things? Some of the scenes were VERY graphic in regards to their beliefs and what they tried to do the FMC.

PS dragons are always a win

Sadly. I just can't get into this book. I have tried. Few times to push thru but it's time to call it at 25%.

The start of this book and world building is just heavy and slow. I love fantasy I'm used to a book needing time to set up and get the reader immersed in to a world. Yet this one I just couldn't find my self to really care.

I'm giving book a 3. I think half this washes a reader and it just not fitting my taste. The other half was the book itself. The reviews for this book is pretty polarizing so I think it could either be a new favorite for many and flop for others

I thoroughly enjoyed A Date Forged in Fire. I loved the fact that the FMC was just unapologetically herself and I loved the enemies to lovers trope that was well done here. This was such a fun read!

Thank you for the arc in advance. I had to DNF. Could not get into this. There’s no glossary to help with pronunciation and one is needed. Every other sentence I seem to be struggling. I had high expectations for this book but there was no hook for me and I could not get into it. Others may enjoy this book.

firstly, thank you to the publisher for an arc

unfortunately, dnf @ 16%

i found a fate forged in fire too difficult to get into, and that ultimately made me lose interest. i’m sure this book will find its audience, but i don’t think it’s me.

A Fate Forged in Fire is the first in a Celtic inspired fantasy romance duology about a queen trying to regain her throne from corrupt kings and an oppressive religion.

On paper this checks a lot of boxes for me: rebellion, dragons, magic, etc. However, I really struggled to get engaged with the story. I feel like so many of the characters had a lot of potential to be really interesting, but I wasn’t particularly attached to any of them. For example, we know Sorcha is a barkeep and former lover of Aemyra, but we don't know anything about her personality or how they interacted together outside of that. We see the most of Fiorean and we know he has a troubled past with his father, but I didn't feel any hate or affection for him.

It’s told all from Aemyra’s POV, but I wish I could see better into what she’s feeling. All the events seem to take place close together in time and brief bits of history are mentioned but sometimes I struggle when characters change their behavior without much motivation. She hates him, he tells her a sob story, she likes him, he does one questionable thing but also doesn't kill her even though he can so he likely is brewing something, she hates him. Bonding with her dragon wasn't exactly easy, but it was surprisingly so given people have barely ever seen The Terror before now. In general, I was missing both strong feelings about the characters and investment in the outcome.

This had a really cool premise and I think it just didn’t know what to do with it. Plot points would happen and then just trail off as if the author didn’t know how to achieve their idea. The characters were really uninspired and felt like an unfortunate copy/paste of common characters. The lack of thought out world building was a disappointment too.

I feel like this has so much potential but it ultimately fell so short for me. I really enjoyed it in the 60-70% but the beginning kind of dragged, and then the end made me so mad. I thought we had redeemed this guy and then he goes and does this?? Trying to keep it spoiler free here!

But the only spoiler you need to know is that they are third cousins. It’s just weird to me that he called her kin, and thank goodness a friend told me that (she confirmed with the author) or I’d be guessing the entire time.

Overall there were some good moments, but ultimately I just didn’t vibe with it. I don’t know if I’ll continue to book 2 or not at this point.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an arc.

😬 just because you have an idea for a romantasy book doesn’t mean it’s gonna be good or that you should write it.

The world building was SO heavy in the beginning, and was confusing! I also wasn’t warned that the main character was going to be bisexual. With an emphasis on her relationship with another female character. I wouldn’t have read it if I would have known. You could also tell that the author was bitter or disrespectful of Christianity which didn’t sit well with me at all. This book just fell so flat and was so boring to read, and predictable. There was a paragraph at the beginning that gave the whole book away… basically just skim read this book.

The only good parts of the book were Adarian’s character, when Fiorean said he never knew what it was to burn until he met Amyera, and Draevan telling her he could have been a better father. Speaking of Amyera she was terrible, like a very unlikeable FMC. She kept making bad decision after bad decision that led to catastrophe not only for her but for her people. Also she is trying to convince EVERYONE the whole book that she is the “true queen”. Lady, if you’re spending your whole life trying to convince your people and everyone else that you’re the queen… you’re probably not the person for the job. Also, when all of her people were fighting for the cause she was just moping and goofing off in her room or tent exactly what a “queen” would be doing. 🙄

Also, the menacing and terrible black dragon that no one has ever bonded or even tried, she bonded in like 2 minutes and was a paragraph of explanation in length… and when a dragon rider who has been bonded for 10+ years doesn’t know about the “bond” MAJOR plot hole!

All in all I would not recommend this book. Don’t waste your time. Fourth wing, throne of glass, and a million other romantasy books are better than this.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own. Thank you NetGalley, and Random House Publishing for this ARC.

4.25 STARS

Really enjoyed this one. Some of my favorite elements and tropes including TRUE enemies to lovers, dragons, bonds, elemental magic, political intrigue / rivals, messed up family dynamics, and some good world building. The FMC was her own vibe, very unapologetic about who she is. Some of the pacing with the tension between her and the MMC was slightly off, but still liked their dynamic overall. Scottish/Gaelic influence is always a plus for me. Definitely recommend if you like any of the above and looking forward to see how the story continues.


Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the eARC! All feedback is my own.

I love following Hazel on YouTube and learning about her life as an author!! I read part of this book and loved what I read so far and I can’t wait to purchase and read the entire book once it’s released. We need more books with female rage!!

I picked this one up on several different occasions to give it a fair shot, and every time I ended up DNF'ing.
The pros: Celtic mythology world-building/clans/fire magic/dragons
The cons: Insufferable FMC, misogyny, and a hope the enemies would not become lovers, pacing issues.

I think this new duology will connect to romantasy readers who enjoy darker themes/morally grey characters, and an arrogant MC, is just wasn't connecting for me.

There is a lot to like about this book, unfortunately it just wasn't for me. I loved the mythology connections, but just found the overall story to be pretty similar to a lot of other books I've read lately. The plot twists were pretty predictable, and I found myself uninterested in the story often.

I do think a lot of readers will enjoy this story, and think this book will be popular. This was just not a bookish love connection for me.

3.5 rounded up to 4 stars.

I feel like I've read this book before, but not necessarily in a bad way, just in a... dragon, romantasy, super strong fmc kinda way. But let's take a minute to appreciate the world building. Its clear that author took her time with the world building and storytelling- where it fell short for me was the romance. I'm a fan of enemies to lovers- just not this one, the MMC fell flat for me.

Would I recommend it? Yes, but only to people who exclusively read romantasy. There is room for growth and I'm certain that book 2 will be incredible.

This did take me a little while to get into. As the beginning of the book was a huge info dump and a lot of world building that felt a little clunky and confusing at times.

Around the 40% mark I felt like things started to take a shift and the pacing was a little faster which I appreciated. I enjoyed the lore of the dragons and world, it gave a house of dragon vibe to the book.

However, the main character Aemyria was a little bit insufferable at times. I did appreciate the true enemies to lovers aspect of the book, but I did feel that their love wasn’t totally believable.

This book has a lot of potential to be a great start to a series and of course it ended on a major cliffhanger.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this eARC.

This book was just okay. Unfortunately, it was really hard for me to get into and didn’t hold my interest. The story itself had potential but the delivery wasn’t quite right. The pacing was too fast and it was hard to follow what was happening. A lot of telling and no showing, which is something I personally don’t care for. The main character was also tough for me… I didn’t mesh with her personality and this made it very difficult to get through. I’m really sorry this one didn’t work out.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 35%. I couldn't do it, y'all. I had such high hopes when I read the synopsis on NetGalley, but then a friend warned me about questionable incest, and I was hesitant to even start. When I finally did, I was greeted by the most insufferable FMC I’ve come across in a while. I felt like NOTHING happened, then at 20%, sh*t started hitting the fan, and then... NOTHING AGAIN except Aemyra’s whiny, bitchy attitude. So disappointing.

I found A Fate Forged In Fire to be a well crafted fantasy world brimming with unlikable characters. Sadly, the latter overshadowed the former.

It's so hard to get into a story when you dont feel akin to the MC and Aemyra was a hard pill for me to swallow from the start. Her arrogance and overall naive nature just grated on me from start to finish. I didn't feel connection to anyone within these pages and that is a shame because I did find the world and overall trajectory of the plot to be intriguing.

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I LOVED THIS!

This was such a fun unique plot! The world-building was a bit hard to understand, as I feel we were just given terms but never told what they meant. However, as you go along and use context clues, you just make some conclusions as to what each term is. The twists were so unexpected, and the ending had me jaw dropped. I had a couple expectations of what I thought would happen, but I never really knew.

I didn't reread the synopsis before diving into this, and I highly recommend going into it semi-blind. NOW THIS... THIS IS A TRUE ENEMIES TO LOVERS. I absolutely loved seeing the interactions between our main characters and seeing how their relationship continuously changed. They were times where our fmc Aemyra could be so incredibly frustrating but when you put yourself in her shoes, you understand a bit where she's coming from.

I can not wait to be able to continue on with this series, even though the first hasn't even been published yet... ooops. Also, there are some heavier topics mentioned in this book, so please please look up content warnings!!

Thank you to Ballantine and NetGalley for the eARC of this story. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I am a sucker for anything with dragons and so when I got this arc I was psyched! AFFIF is a fresh new romantansy with roots in Irisih mythology and celtic culture, and as someone of Irish descent I loved to see it.

Did a AFFIF feature anything brand new to the romantasy genre? No.
Was it full of these usual tropes and formula we all know? Yes.
Was it a little cheesy and cliched at times? Yes.

But did I enjoy it? Also yes.

Most of the time lately, when a book is advertised as "enemies to lovers" it is usually more along the lines of "annoyances to lovers." But AFFIF had multiple moments of our FMC Aemyra and our MMC Fiorean trying to kill each other, and we see sword fighting turn into knifeplay so it is allowed to be classified as actually ETL in my opinion. The romance did feel cliched and rushed to me, but I did enjoy their banter and that the whole book wasn't just spice.

I loved the way it used Celtic myths for the worldbuilding and the way the author took inspiration from the rise of Christianity over paganism to drive the plot. And of course, I loved the dragons.

While it is far from perfect, it was fun and I will definitely be picking up book 2 when it comes out!