Loved this book.
It sat unread in my kindle library and when I started it I was so annoyed that I hadn’t picked it up earlier.
The balance between fantasy and romance was amazing. The story telling incredible.
Such a fun read, I couldn’t put it down! I read it in one sitting because of didn’t want to leave the world that had been created.

This one expired before I got the opportunity to finish it :( I am definitely going to take the time to buy or borrow this book as it seemed every intriguing!

I thought the premise of this book was quite intriguing. I love South Asian fantasy books that mix in mythology, however, I don't think I was the correct audience for this book. Being a 20-something-year-old, I think this book is catered more to a younger audience. Don't get me wrong, it was still a fun read, however, I found that the fantasy world could have used more building. I find that in many fantasy books, the first book flushes out the world-building details as a stepping stone for the next books, but I was missing details in this one. Additionally, I found the MC to be annoying and immature and the romance felt a bit forced. It's difficult for me to truly enjoy a book thoroughly if I cannot relate or empathize with the characters. I would still recommend this book to readers in their teens who might enjoy it more than I did.

This story was amazing. I could not put this down. I don’t want to leave this world. The story was captivating, the characters were well developed and the world building was spot on.

Beautiful lore, fantastic writing, wonderful world building! I recommend to everyone who liked the Trials series!

I really enjoyed this beautiful story of Zaria. She is lonely, fierce, enraged and tired of being told what to do. Nisha creates an immersive world with a hodgepodge of Indian fashion, culture and names, mixed with fantasy and magic. And it works so well. I am intrigued by Zaria's family history and the potential romance with a certain character...

I am hopeful book 2 explores the vampiric aspects of Vikram and Yasan's "species".

Initially, the plot drew me in and i was excited to read a book with indian/south-east inspired mythology. however, the story itself did not hold up for me.

zarya was kind of annoying. she is supposed to be 20/21, but thinks like a teen a lot of times, for example how she likes to be kissed. but i could have excused that with her upbringing, if she acted more like someone that one knew 2 people her entire life. if would have loved if she was socially awkward and didn't know how to hold a conversation, instead she was naturally flirty. also, she says she wasn't allowed to know anyone else, but then she was able to get laid by a fisher boy. hm. very contradicting in my eyes. she also falls for the first man that she sees and then for one she barely knows. unfortunately, she has chemistry with neither of them, but with her new bestie, who is gay. on top of that, she wanted to find out who her parents are, but after the first clue, this subplot gets abandoned for 200 pages.

the plot itself was a mess and the progress didn't feel natural to me. zarya isn't the driving force and instead just kind of tags along all the time. the first half of the book is packed with too many people and too much information that i forgot a decent amount already. the demons also didn't feel like a threat because after that big fight halfway through, so much non-demon stuff is happening that i low-key forgot about them too. and then the climax happened way to quickly and a dragon appeared? also, two people entered the scene and all the other characters reacted chill?

the mythology was cool and new and aarav and yasen grew on me. i was rooting for yasen to me the slow-burn love interest and even after he turns out to be gay i was like, okay nice, maybe he turns out to be bi/pan and this will be his character development along the series, but nope. his outing was also forced and i noticed that it happened the same way in trial of the sun queen too: we learn about them being gay by them making out in public and with a hand in someone else's pants. these implications sit not right with me, but at least we get one gay character, amirite?
with yasen out of the love-triangle picture, i won't continue this series.

A good strong fantasy.
I always get a little worried with fantasy books. I can be super picky. And I have the attention span of a gnat on a good day haha.
But this book pulled me in so fully that I was willing to lose sleep to attenpt to finish in that precious time between work and "adult responsibilities".

I loved the world Nisha built, and was so impressed by the quickness of her world building and pulling me into the story.

Her characters were unique and original, and had all the best qualities a fantasy romance need could appreciate haha.

I give HEART OF NIGHT AND FIRE 5 stars

Every book I have picked up by this author is amazing! No regrets picking this one up. Simply wonderful.

I am giving this one four stars. I didn’t get to it in time to give a full review and I apologize for that

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy of this arc!

This book done everything it needed to, it wasn’t a 5 star book but I did enjoy it as a whole. It brought in mythology and I felt as though I could find myself thinking of the book throughout the day when I wasn’t reading!

This was a great fantasy romance novel. Steeped in Southeast Asian culture and mythology, it's an interesting tale full of twists and turns. It's an interesting story of friendship, family, and love. It includes an array of characters that you easily grow fond of.

DNF at 52 percent. I am not sure if I was just not in the mood for this but I could not get into this book. I restarted it twice but kept founding myself losing interest and focus. I might pick this up at a later time to try it again.

Pretty cute fantasy book! I didn't feel like the world was super detailed and the protagonist is pretty immature and inexperienced (which makes sense since she was basically in captivity for years). Didn't love the love interest and didn't feel their chemistry but I also think that this was potentially on purpose as the first book felt pretty introductory and setting the scene for the next one.

As a reader who decided to dip her toes into the fantasy world, this novel was not overwhelming to the point it wasn’t enjoyable. I loved the story, loved the world building and I’m excited for the rest of this series.

I absolutely love this story! I had no idea what I was walking into, but I devoured it! I can't wait to see where the story goes from here!

I'm not going to try butcher any names here because I listened to this, but I really enjoyed the FMC being such a resilient character! She never gave up trying to learn the truth of why she was different.

Okay vibes train all aboard. Now. Did I start this in September and then get completely overwhelmed by life and put it down for like five months? Yes. In my defense, I knew the entire time I was going to come back to this book. It was my own brain that gave up.

Ironically, I kind of picked the perfect place to put it down. I was early enough in the book that I'd gotten through the "before" that sets the scene (which I always struggle with), and before the inciting incident. Well, last weekend I'd finished a fluffy romcom and I saw this book in my current reads, and I knew it was time.

And I'm SO GLAD I did. This book is slow burn in every sense of the word. The plot slowly gathers details, the characters are simmering, and it's somehow cozy fantasy despite the ominous details on the periphery.

This book also drew heavily on Indian mythology, which is a sad gap in my education and I found myself looking so many terms up to build my mental image. I LOVED drawing connections to the different cultural mythologies (various cultures' myths and their connections is a special interest of mine) and I haven't had that much fun researching myths to guess at foreshadowing in years.

Zarya, I loved. I wanted to shake her so many times but she makes so much sense from her background. I also love that she's always drawn to help, regardless of what that means for her. She brought the emotional maturity that I'm DYING for more authors to write, while also maintaining an innocence that makes her missteps completely plausible.

Will I be picking up book 2? In a heartbeat. I'm so excited to continue and devour the rest of Nisha Tuli's books!

I loved the magical system in this book! The writing was wonderful and I could not put it down. I loved the strong female main character, Zaraya and I'm loving that there are more books based off of Indian characters and mythology. I cannot wait for book 2!

This is a phenomenal story. The beautiful world building, the characters, the yummy tension. The plot is wild and the twists will leave you floored. I really enjoyed reading a story based on Indian Mythology. We need more of these stories in the mainstream. I was able to learn new terms and was all around enjoyable.

I loved this first instalment and I can’t wait for what’s to come! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.