If you need vibes and little substance, this book has got your back.

Finally, after two years of waiting, I stood at the bookstore as they were unlocking the door and got Burn of the Everflame. The ending of Book 3 left a lot of questions and I was very excited to get to them. This book had me feeling emotions, yelling at the book, crying. I experienced a full range of emotions and I love a book that makes me feel. If I judge it only on my emotional impact or on how much I love the series, I’d be rating it a 5. It’s rare that a book makes me feel such strong emotions, or stays with me so strongly after reading it. In many ways, this was the exciting finale to the series with characters we grew to adore. The pace of the drama is so incredibly addictive. Nothing is happening without drama sprinkled in somehow. In my opinion, the finale is the most important book in any series. It tells us whether all the work we put in with the other books was worth it. Some of the author’s decisions were heavy investments and we need to see if they will pay off. So, I did cry and feel such feelings for the end. However, there were some choices that the author invested heavily in that I felt didn’t quite have the payout. I could feel how long-winded the book was and how much she trimmed it back. But I feel like there were some structural changes and that would have improved the story. I was hoping for the characters to be more fleshed out in the finale than they were. I was looking for more emotional payout, more revenge, more growth, more substance. I also felt like the author imagined the audience as stupid. The characters were stupid and it was frustrating at times.

So, since I CANNOT stop thinking about this book, this concludes the spoiler-free portion of my review. Below is the very spoilery post where I go into some of the problems the book had. I apologize, it's long.

SPOILERS BELOW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seriously mega spoilers. I will ruin things for you. Like major plot points.

What Worked for Me: Like I said above, if I just read it without my brain attached to my body and only my emotional responses, I loved the book.

1. The drama - it was addictive and kept me flipping pages to see what was around the corner
2. Getting answers - like meeting the Kindred and finally hearing about Ophiucae
3. Luther’s devotion - mmm so delightful. We also finally got some decent sex scenes.
4. The Emotional reactions - I felt so strongly during this read and that is always fun.
5. The Fun times - eg. Taran’s mating ceremony, the cabin, the goat named Taran and the donkey named Aemonn.

What didn’t work for me

1. Character development
2. Emotional Payout
3. Plot Holes
4. Overarching themes

1) Character Development

A lot of the problems in the book come back to Character Development. Penn isn’t particularly gifted in this aspect, so there are a lot of problems that result from it. A) Diem She doesn’t feel like she grew much between the self-sacrificing woman who ran into a burning building and the woman who walked onto Luther’s sword at the end. In fact, her lack of growth creates a lot of tension through hiding the mating bond. Diem needs a lot of therapy. She cannot tell a person she can trust from a person she cannot. She constantly trusts people who are untrustworthy and hides herself from those who have been in her corner since day 1. This means that she puts herself in danger in two ways. She is kidnapped and betrayed by trusting the wrong people. She is also not smart and therefore needs her friends but her inability to trust her friends means that she constantly puts herself in danger. Like when she is leaving Luther and takes the compass just for her to trust someone she shouldn’t and end up being kidnapped by Henri after he revealed himself as her father’s killer. I lost it her, fam. She had not trusted Luther yet with the truth about the mating bond and was still trusting Henri when he proved himself a spineless little shit since book 1. Diem also does not have a single female friend who can tell her things like ‘just fucking tell Luther’ or ‘Henri is a piece of shit’. She needs ride or die female friends who can help her reflect more accurately on her life. I would have also liked Diem to feel upset that she needs to sacrifice herself when she has such a perfect mate. Where’s her sense of injustice for her own life? B) Luther It’s even acknowledged in the book that Luther doesn’t have much of an identity outside of Diem. Unfortunately, he never really develops one. Look, I love his devotion, but he pretty much holds himself back and does whatever Diem wants him to do. I love his devotion, I just also want to see some of his personality. C) Auralie Her rebel edges are softened away by the end and I feel like she lost a lot of her personality. I’m sorry, but she should have sacrificed herself for her kids. I’m just saying, it’s her lies that resulted in her kids being in this situation, it should have been Auralie, not Teller. It would have helped the overarching themes.

#2) Plot Holes Characters should influence the plot, but instead it felt like the plot was influencing the characters. A) The Hidden Mating Bond This should not have taken nearly the amount of the book that it did. When we found out at the end that the family knew, I laughed. Then, I thought about it for a second more. Why would they assume that Luther and Diem were both keeping it from each other? Are accidental mating bonds so common? It is more likely Luther and Diem were keeping it secret for some reason from their friends. Why would their friends and family assume they were both being stupid and self-sacrificing? Why did Luther even hide it to begin with!? This just didn’t have the payout to deserve all the fucking time we spent in that trope. Straight to jail.

Why did Luther not bring her any food? Luther could presumably feel that she was starving to death. She refused to touch Arboros’ food, (relatable) but Luther doesn’t bring her anything!? I don’t wanna hear “oh, he couldn’t step foot on the soil”. He could have built a cart, tied it to a string with an arrow. He shoots the arrow onto the soil and she reels it in along the dock. What’s the problem? Luther did not act like he had a mating bond, outside of touching his chest. He didn’t actually ACT and have agency to act like a person who had an unfulfilled mating bond outside of just touching her a lot.

B) Diem has to Die Arguably, no she did not. I don’t understand why it needed to be done for the over-arching theme of the book. I don’t understand why we didn’t find a way around it. Here’s how it would play out. Auralie remembers that she has a personality and is an evil genius. She is going to finish what she started and do it right this time. Insert the flameroot and the sleeping draft. Now, we have a sleeping Ophiucae with no powers. We somehow got him to Coeurile and now Auralie, badass that she is, dismembers Ophiucae. She leaves the sword in his chest so he can’t regenerate. She takes all his limbs and puts them into godstone boxes and either distributes them across Emarion or puts them all in the cell down on the island. We DON’T FEEL PITY for a man who killed HALF of EMARION! We don’t feel pity for Hitler because he was a painter who loved his family. We don’t feel pity for war criminals. Period. C) Sorae’s injury I’m sorry but did we not just stab Ophiucae with flameroot. How is this fucker able to hurt my precious baby, Sorae? He was JUST out of powers and then he has them back long enough to nearly kill Sorae.

#3) Emotional Payout A) Luther and Auralie They built a bond in the beginning and it never really went anywhere. They were not enemies, but they also weren’t friends. They didn’t really conspire to save Diem. Why did Auralie not do something for her daughter!? She literally knows what it is like to be there and how much she relied on the food. Luther and Auralie also didn’t conspire to save Diem from sacrificing herself to kill Ophiucae. What’s with that? B) Vance’s Death WE WERE ROBBED! I cannot believe we didn’t get a torture scene. Robbed. Instead, they tried to redeem him by saying he used to love his family. Vance didn’t have to own up to an ounce of his responsibility in causing the deaths of half of Emarion!? BULLSHIT. Where are the Nuremburg trials? C) Henri why is Henri still alive, other than to piss us all off? Why? Henri should have sacrificed himself to save Diem. He is such a piece of shit. I hate him so much and I’m convinced that the Henri storyline is just rage bait. D) Gryverns whether it’s killing off the Umbreos gryvern (why?) to freeing all the gryverns, I get the feeling that Penn has accidentally written herself into a place where she didn’t know what to do with all these Gryverns. So, she just either killed them or freed them.

E) Stronger Denouement I think a lot of my feelings come from the fact that we needed a stronger denouement. I’m of the opinion that modern books are losing their denouements. We need the plot to be fully wrapped up but also, for us to be emotionally in a place where the story feels complete. Sure, we see Diem and Luther happy by the very end. But we went through 600 pages of a miscommunication trope to get like ONE HAPPY CHAPTER. Are you kidding me?

4) Overarching Themes A) Diem must sacrifice herself Women losing their powers is one of my least favourite tropes. So, when Diem lost her powers and had to find a way to kill Ophiucae without them, I can see that Penn wrote herself into a corner with this one. On one hand, killing Ophiucae at 60% would be too early (no, it’s not) and on the other hand, she had that bonded bargain and it would have left a big gaping plot hole. So, Diem loses her powers. At a distance, the overarching theme of Diem losing her powers to end up sacrificing herself says to me - “women, when you are at your most powerful and cannot emotionally be ruthless, you lose all your power and you must sacrifice yourself for the good of others.” I’m sorry, I’m just not about the women need to sacrifice themselves bit. It’s not cute. I don’t like it. To add to it, when she lost her powers, Diem did not suddenly grow a brain and become a great strategist or have some great character growth. She was a lamb being led to slaughter and didn’t even have the guts to feel mad about it. The great strategist ended up being her brother who, in Bellator fashion, also did it in secret and sacrificed himself. I hate this. No one else tried to save Diem. Her mother tried to save Teller, not Diem. It would have been a poetic moment to see people get together to create some great master plan that would save Diem. Diem is very unperceptive, she would never have noticed them planning something. We didn’t do that, though. So, Diem lost her powers. She is kind of saved by her brother and to a lesser extent, to her mother. She still has to kill herself on Luther’s sword. Why? What’s the overarching theme? Guilt-filled Diem is the one who has to sacrifice everything that she is to get a semblance of peace. Diem was never surrounded by friends who tried to save her. This is just… not it. I am also an eldest sister. I feel the need to sacrifice my feelings, my power for others. I also have the audacity to feel like others take advantage of that sometimes. I wish people would show up for me. So I hate that this is how Diem’s story goes down.

B) Feeling Pity We do not feel pity for war criminalsbecause they are people who have families. They murder thousands and they must die. If we have a rabid dog, do we keep it alive? If we have a serial killer, do we keep them alive? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? Vance and Ophiucae, I’m looking at you. You both needed to die so long ago and Diem either needed to just do it. OR someone needed to do it for Diem to spare her fragile heart. We did not need to drag this out or try to humanize them. I get the whole complicated bad guy. But it’s better to set that up in the beginning, than to try to humanize them after they’ve been complicit in genocide.

C) Democracy The push from monarchy to democracy was a very strong theme in the series. How do we move from an oppressive society to one where the people control their own fates? However, 0ne council does not make a democracy. Why didn’t we get to see how Montios ran their democracy for more detailed notes on how to change it? Her council is ripe for abuse. Replacing the bad people with good people does NOT make a democracy safe from future abuse. They didn’t swear any oaths, enter any blood bargains, nothing to ensure that the people act in a certain way. This would have been a strong piece of the denouement. It would have even been a way for Luther to express his own personality.

D) Land Back One of the reasons I love the series is for its comment on colonization. One of the biggest conversations in indigenous nations across North America is ‘land back’. Giving the land back to Indigenous nations because the land is currently being wildly mismanaged by the colonizing society. I would have loved to see that in the denouement. How can the mortals teach the Descended how to live in better harmony with themselves and nature? How can the mortals be the ones to establish the council and decide how it is run? In the end, the mortals are still held back by the need to get along with everyone else, instead of being the leaders in their own world. They are allowed a seat at the table, in equal representation with their oppressors. There needs to be a LOT more fleshed out in this and it’s a bit of a cop out.

What I Would Have Changed

A) The Beginning I would have re-arranged some chapters so that it was revealed that Diem was still alive only AFTER Ignios admitted to stabbing her in the heart. Then, I would have had it start up from when she was waking up for more tension.

B) The Hidden Mating Bond We open the book with Luther being drawn to rampage because he can feel Diem starving to death. He finds out from Ignios that he killed her but he can feel that she is still alive. He is the only one who has hope she is still alive. He visits the island and leaves her food and talks to her but Diem pushes him away. So, he goes on an absolute killing spree to punish her oppressors. He’s driven mad by his unfulfilled mating bond. We get a glorious Vance torture scene, he tracks down Doriel and then, Diem feels Luther. She wants to stop Luther’s violence, and finds her way off the island by talking to the Kindred. Then, neither of them know that the other is mated. However, they are both acting like they can feel each other. There is tension because he was violent, and we get some good old fashioned revenge while Diem can act like she is above it all. I also would have had a Zal POV where he is like, they are both clearly mated. Why are they so dumb? That was earlier in the book. Bonus points if it is when Diem is opening up to him and being vulnerable and having a friend. From there, we talk about how non-violence can sometimes be a privilege that is not afforded to those who are being oppressed. That violence needs to be thoughtful and strategic. However, violence can be necessary to free people from oppression. Unchecked violence against innocence is never allowed and can perpetuate harm. But sometimes violence is necessary for freedom.

C) Killing Ophiucae How to kill him without killing Diem Someone stabs him takes his power while also putting him to sleep with the flameroot and Teller’s concoction (which should have been introduced in the very beginning of the story). Then Auralie is the one to stab him with the big ass sword, she has the evil genius plan of dismemberment. Then, they take his body apart into pieces and put them into godstone boxes. It took him awhile to regenerate. What happens if you literally cannot regenerate in that size of box? Leave his torso with the blade stabbed through his heart, mother dearest can take care of him for eternity. Then, we get the different regions of Emarion to store him. Ignios stores him in eternal flame. Montios stores him in the bottom of a mountain… etc. I don’t feel bad for him, he killed like HALF of Emarion! Are we supposed to like Hitler because he was a painter and also loved his children? NO! WE KILL HIM! We don’t know what might happen, but isn’t it worth trying when Diem’s life is on the line? If someone needs to be sacrificed, take Henri. Seriously, that little shit fucking owes her. EVERYONE owes her.

Also: D) I would have killed Aemonn. No explanation needed. E) When Alixe died, I would have had her make an even grander gesture. About how she hoped that this final sacrifice meant that there was no High General even needed in the new world. F) I would have pushed Henri off a cliff in the denouement, for just any reason whatsoever. Lana can do better. I cannot believe Teller died but Henri lived. G) I wanted to watch Garath’s painful death. Let Aemonn do it. Then, kill Aemonn. H) I would have killed Ophiucae sooner and left more space for denouement.

TLDR: I loved the book for the emotional reactions it extracted from me. However, at closer inspection there were some problems that kept this for being a slam dunk. Namely the character development, the plot holes and the fact that themes of self-sacrifice and mercy for our enemies didn’t pay off under closer scrutiny.