Tag: violet sorrengail

Book Reviews

Book Review: Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you’re all having a good day today and that you’re ready to jump into a book review as today I am bringing you my review of Iron Flame by rebecca Yarros.

Blurb/Synopsis:

“The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.” —Xaden Riorson

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.

My Review:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This is the second book in the series so I will do my best to not spoil anything from this or the first book, Fourth Wing, in this review.
The first thing I will say is I gave this book five stars because of the way it made me feel. I loved being back with these characters and in this world, with the dragons. Honestly, I love the world so much I had dreams about being part of it and I bought clothing to dress as Violet when I go to Comic Con in London in July. Leather trousers, ME, in leather trousers. If you know me you would think pigs would fly before I’d wear something like that. So, that is why it was a five star. It made me feel at home. Now, technically, I would not rate it a five star. It was definitely longer than it needed to be by about 200 pages I would say, as much as I loved getting to explore places outside of Basgiath and getting more information on the politics and state of the world, the relationships between places and all the plot points expertly woven into the novel, it was too long, it felt long. I enjoyed that there were some parts that weren’t all action and let us have some downtime almost with the characters that was a nice change of pace and not something you get a lot in fantasy books, especially the second in a series. Also, it did feel a bit rushed in terms of plot like maybe the author wasn’t fully sure where she was going with it but let me say, the plot twists! They were good. They were so good I went straight into Onyx Storm. Review coming Friday…

Book Reviews

Book Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

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Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all having a good day.

Okay, so it is time. If you’ve seen any of my blogs since the beginning of 2025 you’ll have seen that I finally read the Fourth Wing series by Rebecca Yarros. I know I’m later to it than most people and I will explain. When this book first came out I thought it sounded okay but the idea of a war college kind of put me off, then there was all the hype around it so I swore I wouldn’t read it, it wasn’t for me blah blah blah. Then the more I saw about it I realised I actually did want to read it. Then Iron Flame came out so quickly afterwards and I put it off. Then finally, the paperbacks of the first two went on sale so I bought them and I wanted to make sure I read them before Onyx Storm came out so I could get the hardback of that. I ended up reading Fourth Wing a week before Onyx Storm came out.. and of course, I loved it. So, here is my review – and if you are wondering it will be as spoiler free as I can make it and my review of Iron Flame is coming on monday, and Onyx Storm review next friday so watch out for those if you are interested!

Let me know in the comments what you thought of Fourth Wing!

Blurb/Synopsis:

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders…

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die

My Review:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I want to start by saying, yes finally to some representation of chronic pain. I hardly ever see that in a book and never have I seen it done this well, you can see Violet struggles with it but it doesn’t stop her, other characters making allowances – it’s just great. Now onto the actual substance of the book. It has dragons, it has deadly trials. It has a friendship group I’d sell my soul to be with. What else can I say?
Violet is the character you are in the perspective of. I like Violet, I think sometimes her thoughts and actions are a bit messy and perhaps a bit young for her age? But also I can give her grace because she’s a warrior and she was meant to be a scribe so suddenly having to train in a different quadrant with all its secrets will have upended her life and I can understand that would make a person a bit messy. In this first book my favourite character was a tie between Rhiannon, one of Violet’s friends, and Xaden the wingleader. (Actually I’m lying – it’s the dragons but I can’t choose between them so I’m keeping them as a seperate level of character). I loved the uniqueness of the magic system, not the actual magic abilities themselves they were some tried and true favourites so were great but the way characters accessed their magic and the limits it gave them I found very intriguing. This first novel didn’t feel like it was there just to set up the world and the characters, there was so much action I sat there and read the whole book in a day. I instantly moved onto the second book Iron Flame, review coming Monday.