The Fire Queen by Emily R. King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This review will contain spoilers, if that bothers you stop reading here.
I liked this book a lot more than the first. The first was all insta-love and angst between Kalinda and Deven, wanting to be together but unable to because of Raja Tarek. The tournament added drama but it felt secondary to their love and fighting tournaments have become such a staple in YA it just wasn’t exciting because it wasn’t anything new.
What made this book better was the love between Deven and Kalinda took a backseat and it was much more about Kalinda fighting for her kingdom and her throne. The tournament itself was a more interesting concept as well, though I thought all the challenges were a little rushed, I didn’t feel much tension build. Each had a moment that Kalinda was on the brink of failure then she of course turned it around and won, however the near defeat and the turnaround all happened pretty quickly.
All in all this was an interesting enough second book to make me continue on to the third, and as long as the fourth is available on KU I will most likely finish this series.
R.K. Gold 