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RedditIn this Lord of Embers book review I’m sharing my thoughts on the second book in The Demon Queen Trials series by C.N. Crawford. As usual I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum but there may be a few small spoilers in this review.
“I plan to ruin you with a kiss.”
C.N. Crawford, Lord of Embers
This series is an adult fantasy series that I saw the authors Tik Toks and decided to give it a try. They are quick reads, I read the first one in a night and the second one in about 5 hours. It’s a low fantasy series that is pretty good for people who like stories of demons based in our world. This series is available on Kindle Unlimited.
You can check out my review for the first book in the series, City of Thorns, here.
Trigger Warnings
Since we don’t always get trigger warnings on books I like to give trigger warnings in my reviews. This can help people avoid certain triggers that could hurt their mental well being.
Possible Triggers in this book are:
- Alcohol
- Anxiety
- Blood
- Death
- Demons
- Fire
- Murder
- Occult
- Profanity
- Sexually Explicit Scenes
- Snakes
- Violence
For a list of the triggers I look for you can check out this link here. This may or may not be a complete list of triggers for this book, I do my best to make sure I mark anything that could be a potential trigger but I may accidentally miss triggers.
Synopsis and Author
After Rowan played the role of Mortana so well it came out that she is actually a demon. She left the City of Thorns escaping death at the hands of Orion who has a blood oath to kill Mortana and her whole family. He believes Rowan is actually Mortana.
Rowan now has to figure out who she is, who her parents were, and solve the mystery surrounding her identity. Once again we are thrown into a world of demons and demon hunters as Rowan figures out who she actually is.
C.N. Crawford has done an excellent job about blending our own world and fused a history of demons within our own history. This is the second book in the Demon Queens Trials series and things are heating up.
Lord of Embers Reading Experience
In Lord and Embers we go from outside of the City of Thorns to inside and even into Hell itself throughout the book. I personally love the description of hell as it’s not exactly what may be imagined typically. C.N. Crawford does an amazing job with this world building.
Our main characters, Rowan and Orion, each get their own point of views in this book which is a nice change from only having Rowan’s point of view in the last. The two different points of view actually enhance the tension we feel between these two characters.
I like the turn that this book took, however, I do feel that we lost a bit of what made Rowan such a unique character. It’s almost as if her anxiety and awkwardness just disappeared in this book and it felt off.
However, what she is facing and what she goes through may cause her to change drastically out of necessity. So I’m not going to decide if this is a completely bad thing until later on in the series.
The main themes in this book are dealing with identity and revenge. While we are watching Rowan figure out who she is we are seeing both her and Orion seeking revenge for wrongs done to them.
Writing Style
Lord of Embers is actually relatively short with only 290 pages and 34 shorter chapters. I would have liked to see a bit more description in character development and world building. While I feel Orion was written really well, Rowan was a bit under developed and just turned into this confident badass with no real path from where she started to that.
Outside of the description of Hell I didn’t really feel that we got a lot of descriptions in this book and while there was a lot of information given I feel the story lacked. It wasn’t necessarily predictable but it also wasn’t surprising or filled with lots of emotion.
The spicy scenes were great and had a lot of tension which was very nice. However, it almost felt like that and the ending were the only parts of the book that moved at a steady pace and pushed you to read more.
While I read this book in about 5 hours I did so because I wanted to finish the book. It wasn’t solely because I couldn’t put the book down. While the story was ok and moved the series forward with a lot of answered questions it leaves me a bit scared for what we can expect from the third book, Garden of Serpents, when it’s released in June.
Lord of Embers Book Review
Orion absolutely topped the list of favorite characters. Was he being an asshole through most of the book? Yes. However, because we get his point of view it all makes sense. He’s supposed to be the enemy but I’m almost rooting for him.
Rowan’s change of character felt really abrupt but I still like her. I just wish we would have gotten more from her in her character development.
King Cambriel is just awful. Absolutely someone who thinks he should have anything he wants just because he exists.
Ok so I probably shouldn’t like the dying god but Tammuz grows on me quite a bit in this book. He’s so dramatic and loves drama. He’s the type of demon god that you could sit down, drink some tea, and gossip with. He probably wouldn’t really like that description which makes it better.
Overall this book was a lot of information gathering that will likely lead into an action packed conclusion in the third book. I liked the enemies to lovers to enemies to lovers back and forth between Orion and Rowan, which meant it has a lot of tension building and I like that.
Like I previously mentioned I would have liked to have seen more character development with Rowan because she just drastically changed from an anxiety ridden awkward woman to almost a badass and without a lot of description in that.
Regardless of my dislikes though I am super excited for Garden of Serpents and cannot wait to read it.
If you like fantasy based in our world with demons, the occult, mystery and enjoy some spice this might be a book and series that you’d be in.
Star Rating
Before I rate this book I want to give you a bit of background about what my rankings mean. I typically read books that I check out through the Libby app with my local library or through Kindle Unlimited.
I rarely buy ebooks unless they are cheaply priced or on sale. I also very rarely buy physical copies of books. I’m a bit of a minimalist so I have to absolutely adore a book to buy a physical copy that will be proudly displayed in my home.
So my ranking system is as follows:
- 5 Stars equals I am buying a physical copy of this book. I will read this book at least 10 more times, it is the best ever.
- 4 stars equals a great book. I might buy an ebook version when it’s on sale so that I can re-read it at least one more time.
- 3 stars equals a good book. I likely won’t read again but I appreciate the story.
- 2 stars equals “Meh.” I will not read this book again, it had a lot of problems and I did not care for it.
- 1 star equals a bad book. I barely finished this book and I will never recommend anyone waste valuable book reading time on this book.
- 0 stars is a did not finish book. I will never finish that book and it is banished.
Lord of Embers gets 3 stars from me. It’s good and necessary for the series and does leave us wanting more. I wish there had been a bit more in character development for Rowan though.
Likes:
- The tension building between Orion and Rowan is fantastic.
- Orion’s point of view is really good.
- I like that Rowan finally finds out what happened the night her mom died.
Dislikes:
- Character development had no natural progression.
- Shai’s involvement in this book was almost like she was forgotten and then just randomly appears again.
Final Thoughts on Lord of Embers
I’m still looking forward to the third book in the series and boy was I disappointed when I finished this book and realized it wasn’t out yet. I’ve been starting a lot of series that aren’t quite finished yet and finding myself upset when I realize it. Lord of Embers was good, I would have liked to see more but it wasn’t a bad book.
Have you read Lord of Embers? What were your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. Follow me on Pinterest for more like this and pin this to your favorite book boards.
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