This is my favorite B.K. Borison book by far! I read First Time Caller and it kind of fell flat for me so I didn't know what to expect coming into this one.

The main characters had a lot of depth and I fell in love with them immediately. The plot was really engaging as well so even outside of the romance (which was amazing), the plot was strong enough to keep me interested. B.K. Borison's writing was descriptive, cozy, and introspective in a way I wasn't expecting for a book like this. The book explores themes of death, grief, and human connection in a way that I really enjoyed. The ending really was the best part for me, it was sad, happy, hopeful, and though provoking.

I did not read Good Spirits (yet), and while there were some obvious nods to that book I didn't feel like I missed out on anything by reading this one first, it really does stand well on it's own. I'm fully ready for fall now and I might have to pick this up for a re-read when it comes out in September because the vibes were perfect!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC!!

The only other book I've read by Helen Scheuerer is Blood & Steel and I loved it! It had romance but it was much more fantasy leaning and had a great plot and characters. Kiss of the Black Flame has all of the same great elements from Blood & Steel but is way heavier on the romance. The plot and the romance are sort of fighting for prominence throughout the whole book and for me the romance really overpowered everything else. There was an amazing cast of characters which I think Helen is great at writing, but again, I didn't fall in love with the side characters the way I did in Blood & Steel. I do like our FMC and MMC but the big 'revelation' at the end really through me off. It kind of ruins their romance for me and I'm not sure where they can even go from here.

Overall, I love Helen's writing and her characters, but this one was a bit of a miss for me just due to the romance taking center stage and the plot not really being strong enough.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria for the e-arc!!

I'm obsessed with this duology and this book. This has to be one of my favorite fantasy romance series. Will definitely be in my top books of 2026.

The first book was amazing, but a lot of the terminology, names of places, people, creatures, was really confusing and took me basically that entire first book to get used to/remember. I jumped into the second book immediately after finishing the first one so this book was so much easier for me to follow.

I LOVE the romance in this series, it has the perfect amount of spice / intimacy and it doesn't completely take over the story like it does in a lot of romantasy. This is really an enemies to lovers and the yearning is just perfection. The ending is heartbreaking and hopeful all at the same time.

This is a multi-pov story and I really enjoyed the various narrators in the audio book. I loved getting some additional perspectives from characters we met in the first book.

This is one of those books that you finish and just need to sit with for a while to process. So I may come back and edit this review later to make it a little more coherent / helpful because right now I'm just.....obsessed......in love.....devastated....