Thursday, February 20, 2020

Heart of Flames (Crown of Feathers #2) by Nicki Pau Preto

Clocking in at over 600 pages this was quite the read. This is worthy followup to and picks up shortly after the end of Crown of Feathers.

**Spoiler free unless otherwise noted**
With a year or so until another edition I now add this to my list of series to which I am anxiously awaiting the next installment. And anxiously it really is. Let's start at the end. That ending was tense and set the stage for the next book in a way that made me hold my breath for a moment, like wait what now!!??!!

As in book 1 this book alternates POVs in its chapters. They aren't told in first person but rather just from where/when that character is, what they are experiencing, what they are thinking/feeling. It is a great way to give us these different perspectives without the hazard the changing voices can create. I have found in all my reading that the nailing of maintaining different voices isn't always successful and when it fails it really takes away from the enjoyment of the read no matter how good the story is. This solves that and in a way that really worked.


In this outing we learn more about Veronyka's lineage, the history of the world she lives in, the Phoenix riders,  and who Val is and what she is up to. We also meet Alexiya and Sidra.

Back with us- Kade and Sev, Sparrow, Elliot, Tristan...Kade gets some chapters this time which made me so happy.


**Minor Spoilers Possible Here**
Sev really comes into his own, finds his footing if you will and it is amazing character development. We find out who Veronyka's father is. We learn more about Shadow Magic. This was a long read, but not in a bad way. It was a lot and was enjoyable, but it was a big book. The imagery is impressive. I love the weaving of the history of the world and the way the bonds work verse the way binds work. And of course being the HP geek I am I love the power of love in all its true forms.


I want to say again that while I mostly add to my goodreads LGBTQ+ shelf books that feature nonfictions about the LGBTQ+ rights movement and own voice stories (memoirs etc) and fiction books that have LQBTQ+ main characters and/or story lines, I sometimes add something like this, where there are characters who are part of the LGBTQ+ community who while not main characters are well written and beautifully represented and/or the world the story lives in presents being outside the binary gender or cis gender and/or being something other than heterosexual as a normal and wonderful part of the world. I feel like a great story deserves to be read and if there is something that makes the world and/or characters more inclusive than this world we live in than I want to mark it as such. I hope that makes sense, that I am explaining this well.

(Finished February 20, 2020)

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