Shadow & Flame (Rime Chronicles #2)

First book sets up this amazing setting with characters that are well rounded and seem real. First half of this book does a decent job of continuing the story. Falls completely apart in part two. The most exciting part of this series was the idea that there were these many gods that were doing various things to influence humanity and the main characters doubts were what made them feel real. The fact that the moral of this story is just have faith is a major disappointment. There is no explanation of why the night drakes were released from the hell gates. There isnt even any sort of conflict with the gods theres just this minor bit of questioning at the beginning of the book and then everyone lives happily ever after once Kate and corwin give themselves over to this deity. I had such high hopes that these characters were going to tire of being pawns of these fickle gods but nothing of the sort happened. Wouldnt recommend getting into this if you expect anything outside of people realizing they need to trust in whatever god you have access to.

Shadow and Flame is so much darker than the first novel and I tore through it. If I could say anything: I went into this series expecting it to be more about the messenger service and the horses. As much as I love these books I still have a large messenger-horse sized hole in my heart. Right next to Bonner’s giant hole. Basically I have no heart right now.

Shadow and Flame branched a span of almost two years, and it was weird to have that kind of time go by from the prologue to the rest of the book. It was a much darker book but was generally interesting and kept me engaged thru the whole nearly 500 pages.

As the events filled themselves in between the prologue and the book, my heart just crumbled and only ever got put 2/3 of the way back together. It was sooooo wrong what Rendborne was orchestrating through Gavril. I think the characters that I liked all got good endings, and one of my favorite aspects was the black&white uror legend. That part of the storyline had a wonderful ending, and it made my day that the Uror horse had a role in the ending.

I developed an irrational hate for Signe’s character though, how dare she withhold information that is vital to the resistance, then have the nerve to go off on a high horse at Kate? If she wasn’t so valuable, I bet someone would have considered her treasonous. You don’t get a choice when it comes to putting others in even greater danger. I didn’t ship her romance at all either, and it seemed that a lot of her bitterness had rubbed off on Dal

Otherwise… I mean I would have liked to see more of the rebuild, but it seems like the world was left in an okay position. There is nothing wrong with a little happily ever after, and I like being able to feel reasonably satisfied at the end of a series. I would 100% recommend these if you like fantasy and magic and darkness

Everything that I enjoyed about the first novel, Onyx and Ivory, was utterly lost in the first 50-75% of this book. The end was the only redeeming factor.

*Minor plot spoilers*

The pacing gave me serious whiplash. Chapter one was brutally fast, yet the entire hard-fought “war” and unsteady peace achieved was entirely skipped over. Then we skip ahead even farther. Corwin’s chapters were borderline-painful to read, and Kate became as cynically moody as a teenager. I slogged through the first half, waiting and waiting for it to get better. It did cobble together in the end with an exciting battle scene and happy-ish ending.

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Its not bad. Its just not worth $10, when books of similar quality are 4.99 or less. In both, there was a tendency to make the situation overly dire just for a turnaround. Even at the end, the writer did such a great job with the problems in Kate and Corwins relationship that it didnt feel real when suddenly everything is fine again.
If this book were half the price, Id have given four stars (meaning well-written, but with a few irritating problems). As it is, its just a lot to pay to be irritated.

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