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As someone who had a really fun time reading Fourth Wing back in May of 2023, I rushed to Amazon to preorder Iron Flame when the official release date for November 2023 was announced. Now, over a year later, after many frustrating hours spent reading about two twenty-year-olds keeping secrets from each other, this is why I’ve caved and preordered book 3 in the series: Onyx Storm.
Rebecca Yarros, author of the Empyrean series, dropped one of the most talked-about new releases on BookTok in 2023. Everyone was raving about Xaden, the dragons, and guessing what Violet’s signet would be. The book’s extreme popularity, paired with the stunning cover artwork, catapulted Fourth Wing to No. 1 on Amazon’s Best Sellers list and No. 1 on The New York Times Bestsellers list for 18 weeks. First editions of the book are still selling for over $100 each on secondhand market sites like eBay and Craigslist.
Fourth Wing includes so many key tropes that any Romantasy reader would fall for:
- Dragons
- Magic powers
- Enemies to lovers
- A dark and brooding love interest with shadow powers and a mysterious past
- An academic setting with competitions replacing exams
- And, of course, a government entity at war and lying to the public
With all these key elements in place, how did Iron Flame turn out to be such a major disappointment?
In my opinion, Iron Flame was rushed to capitalize on the hype surrounding Fourth Wing. After all, it was released just six months later, while most authors typically take about a year between book releases.
Without giving away too much for those who haven’t started the Empyrean series yet but plan to in the future, it boils down to the miscommunication trope. This trope, in my view, is often used by authors when they struggle to come up with another way to create tension in the story.
While an external factor does keep Violet and Xaden apart, when they finally do spend time together, it felt like I was reading about two children making googly eyes at each other, neither one willing to initiate an ACTUAL conversation.
That said, I didn’t pick up Iron Flame because I thought it would be a literary masterpiece. I read it because it was marketed as romantasy with an enemies-to-lovers trope, and there were dragons on the cover.
What can I say? Sometimes a fun read is exactly what you need to get out of a reading slump, and I love a little escapism every now and then.
While this series isn’t heading in the direction I personally hoped, I don’t want to discourage anyone from supporting Rebecca Yarros and reading Fourth Wing. In fact, as the title says, I’ve preordered the third book and plan to read it shortly after it arrives.
If you’d like to join me in reading the Empyrean series, I’ve linked each book below for purchase on Amazon.
•https://talesinmytbr.com/Fourth Wing and Iron Flame
Goodreads rating:
Fourth Wing: 4.6/5
Iron Flame: 4.3/5
Thank you for reading, and to anyone who completely disagrees with me—tell me why in the comments below.
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