Consort of Fire by Kit Rocha

From cult-favorite writing duo Kit Rocha comes a fiery novel set in a lush fantasy world brimming with ancient magic, dangerous secrets, and erotic connections.

For three thousand years, an ancient dragon god has protected the borders of the Sheltered Lands. In return, he makes only one demand: every one hundred years, the mortal ruler must send their heir to serve as his consort… for as long as they can survive.

Sachielle of House Roquebarre is the thirty-first consort to be sacrificed to the monster who guards the mountain passes. She is young, beautiful—and she has three secrets.

First: she’s a disposable orphan trained in seduction.

Second: her handmaid, Zanya, is an assassin and the only person she has ever loved.

Third—and most dangerous: she’s cursed. Sachi and Zanya have five weeks to murder the Dragon in his bed. If they fail, the mortal king’s curse will steal not just Sachi’s life, but her very soul.

The Dragon has only one secret: he is nothing like what they have been told. And he will do whatever it takes to possess them both.

 

 

Book 1
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~ Also Available to Read & Listen with KindleUnlimited ~

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Shelby – ☆☆☆☆☆
I'm just going to come out and say it, I LOVE this book! It has interesting characters (all of them), lots of angst, slow building romance, and did I mention the gods?

We start by being introduced to Sachielle, who is a princess who's being delivered to the Dragon as an agreement that's been carried out for hundreds of years. She is to be his consort, and the bridge between humans and gods. When humans are involved, no one can be trusted.

Zanya, the trusted handmaiden, is Sachi's best friend, confidant, and true love. What could go wrong when watching the love of your life being bound to another? Not only good at saying hair, she has a way with weapons...

Then there's Ash, also known as the Dragon, a god who is fulfilling his duties and waiting for the moment he's been promised for centuries. He's a flawed character yet resilient, patient, kind, and likeable.

I love this world, each domain has its own flavor. The slow burn really built up my anticipation of things to come. The ultimate sacrifice each one is ready and willing to make...

Overall, I LOVED this. The story was awesome: I love the world, I like these characters, the romance was HOT, and I can't wait to read the next book in this series!


Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆
This is the first book in a new series, and I am definitely keen to read on when the next one is available. It is a hefty tome and there is a lot of world building alongside the main storyline. I normally read a book like this in a couple of days, but it took double that, so be prepared for quite a long read. It is dense and full of detail, as well as some of the hottest scenes between the fascinating trio of Dragon, consort, and attendant.

I thought that the characters were introduced well and given shape thanks in part to Ash's bedtime stories. They are a close bunch and there is some particularly fun banter following some of the nights of passion – difficult to hide that you are getting excited when the earth literally rumbles in excitement for you!

I loved the twist at the end – lots of clues but thankfully not too many, breadcrumbs to give us the ideas until the big reveal! Already looking forward to the next installment.


Erica – ☆☆☆
3.5 stars

Consort of Fire is the first installment in the Bound to Fire and Steel series.

I enjoyed the storyline but...

The good: a polyamorous storyline featuring a sort of established FF couple shrouded in a fantastical world featuring gods walking among humankind, filled with betrayal. Anxiety-filled angst. An imbalanced power dynamic throughout all their intermingled relationships. Watching the one you long to have be mated to the one you're destined to end. Forced to end the one you're bound to when they are a part of you now. Angsty deliciousness.

An orphan acting as the heir for a bloodline who is contractually obligated to serve their descendants up to the dragon as his consort every hundred years. The king uses Sachielle and Zanya to end the contract. Sachielle is the imposter led to the dragon's lair, with her lover assassin acting as her handmaid, Zanya. Their souls are at risk if they do not take out the dragon to forever end the contract. Whereas Ash, the dragon god, is merely misunderstood, not the monster the masses spread gossip about.

The highlight of the story for me was in the beginning portion of the novel when Ash would spontaneously combust into flames, then have to burst into dragon form and take to the skies because he was so overcome by the glow of his new "human" consort.

This is a slow burn romance, pun intended. I love me some slow burn to establish a relationship and show all the appropriate feels (see bad section). But there was zero feels from such emotionless characters, only for them to all end up in bed together.

I enjoyed the story but...

The bad: the overall tone, writing style, perspective, and world building.

Consort of Fire hit the trifecta of all three of my top pet peeves. Too many narrators: Sachielle, Zanya, and Ash, which wouldn't have been an issue for me if not for... no chapter headings to let the reader know who is narrating. Shifting narrator mid-scene. Since this was third-person, all three emotionless narrators sounded exactly the same, where I was never quite sure who was narrating until something pinpointed to who, only to be proven wrong a paragraph later, until I realized the narrators where shifting willy nilly for no apparent reason, as it didn't help the storyline along, only caused me mass amounts of confusion.

It took me the better part of two weeks to wade through this slog of a novel. Keep in mind, I can bang out a fantasy trilogy in a day and a half if I'm properly inspired. I honestly thought I was suffering from the dreaded reader's block since I did enjoy the storyline. Reading another novel in one sitting showcased how it wasn't me, it was the book. When I was about to throw in the towel, the novel finally picked up near the end.

Slog is the best way to describe how I felt while reading. The storyline was buried beneath the overly complex world building that wasn't truly complicated. The world building was not organically flowing from the three narrators. Info-dumps of information, most of which just overly complicated matters but wasn't actually necessary. There were times I found myself just zoning out, mind wandering rather than reading, only to skim almost a chapter to get to something, anything happening on the pages.

The tone. All three narrators sounded the same. Ash, while ancient, sounded juvenile like a young adult. I was shocked to discover Sachielle was nearly thirty when the way she spoke and carried herself was also young-adult-like. But it was how emotionless the third-person perspective with roving narrators made the story that was a real issue for me.

I couldn't fall into the story due to the way it was written. I wasn't invested in the storyline with how it was buried beneath the heavy burden with overly complicated world building. And I couldn't root for the main characters since they felt like nothing but emotionless drones playing out the parts written for them.

After inundating the reader with world building, it takes a backseat to erotica featuring the three main characters. All this buildup over the main happenings with the plot, and it just fizzled out and was anticlimactic. It ended up feeling like the two weeks of work I put into attempting to read this novel were merely a vehicle for the three of them to showcase their bedroom gymnastics, so I was salty about it and didn't find any of this particularly titillating or heated. The steam felt out of place after such a slow slog through the mythology and magic system.

As this is a fantasy novel, I expected adventuring, exciting action, and battle scenes. Not much was happening until the very end of the novel to set up the next installment and hook the reader. So it felt like a sale's pitch more so than a plot device to move the story forward. I wanted that vibe revealed in the last portion of the novel to be throughout the entire novel.

Will I read the next in the series? No. This is a situation where it just wasn't my cup of tea, the writing style is not for me. No matter how good the premise may be, I worry the next book will be another slog to get to the meat of the story, only for the erotica to be showcased instead.

Since no two readers read the same book, perhaps the writing style will be your cup of tea.

 

 

KIT ROCHA is the pseudonym for cowriting team Donna Herren and Bree Bridges. After penning dozens of paranormal novels, novellas, and stories as Moira Rogers, they reinvented themselves by writing the nine-book multiple-award-winning—and extremely steamy—Beyond series, which became an instant cult favorite. They followed it up with two spin-off series, including the popular Mercenary Librarians trilogy published by Tor. Now they’re leaping into sexy epic fantasy with happily ever afters.

Their favorite stories are about messy worlds, strong women, and falling in love with the people who love you just the way you are. When they’re not writing, they can be found crafting handmade jewelry, caring too much about video games, or freaking out about their favorite books or TV shows, all of which are chronicled on their various social media accounts.

Connect with Kit Rocha!

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ARC provided by

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided with a free copy of Consort of Fire (Bound to Fire and Steel #1) by Kit Rocha to read and review.