A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire by Jennifer L. ArmentroutMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
OK, first disclaimer, I have no idea what these books are called, even having just finished one. The titles, I get it, this is the new trendy naming thing, but I’m just going to refer to this one as the “in between” one. I did the thing where I finished this book and immediately read the next one (hello - cliffhanger?) so they kind of blur into one another, except that this one stitches together Poppy & Cas in a “true” relationship.
We join this couple right after the end of book 1, with Poppy reluctantly being kept by Cas, who appears to be a murderous prince of a whole kingdom of murderers. That’s all we’ve seen since the start, so I don’t blame Poppy for wanting to escape, even with very poor planning. This book leans heavy into the banter and relationship angles for these two, with Poppy needing to grieve for, ya know, the friends that these folks killed. Also, she’s left everything she’s known behind to go along with this madness. She doesn’t really have a safe place, but somehow that becomes with Cas.
I get why other reviewers have trouble with him - it almost feels like we get two version of him in this series so far. Poppy waves her hands and calls them different “masks” but maybe that’s just lazy writing. Either way, no problems from me - they sell the romance, smut, and we spend enough time with them that I forgave him early on in this book. I am struggling a little to recreate in my head what went on in this book. It was a lot of traveling, mysterious hints about Poppy’s family/past/powers, and lots of time building that aforementioned relationship to become “real.”
This book ends in a good-ish place, but still left me immediately wanting to dive into the next book, as I said. Things do not go easy for Poppy no matter how hard she tries to be a relatively good, albeit stabby person. If I were summarizing the books, book 1 was the escape, book 2 is building the relationship.
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