Review: A Fire in the Flesh (Flesh and Fire #3)

A Fire in the Flesh (Flesh and Fire #3)
By Jennifer L Armentrout

Published By: Blue Box Press
Publication Date: October 31, 2023
Date Read: October 31, 2023
Genre: Adult – Fantasy
Source: eARC from JLAnders Reviewers
Format: E-Book
Pages: 560

From Goodreads:
The only thing that can save the realms now is the one thing more powerful than the Fates.

After a startling betrayal ends with both Sera and the dangerously seductive ruler of the Shadowlands she has fallen madly in love with being held captive by the false King of the Gods, there is only one thing that can free Nyktos and prevent the forces of the Shadowlands from invading Dalos and igniting a War of Primals.

Convincing Kolis won’t be easy, though – not even with a lifetime of training. While his most favored Revenant is insistent that she is nothing more than a lie, Kolis’s erratic nature and twisted sense of honor leave her shaken to the core, and nothing could’ve prepared her for the cruelty of his Court or the shocking truths revealed. The revelations not only upend what she has understood about her duty and the very creation of the realms but also draw into question exactly what the true threat is. However, surviving Kolis is only one part of the battle. The Ascension is upon her, and Sera is out of time.

But Nyktos will do anything to keep Sera alive and give her the life she deserves. He’ll even risk the utter destruction of the realms, and that’s exactly what will happen if he doesn’t Ascend as the Primal of Life. Yet despite his desperate determination, their destinies may be out of their hands.

But there is that foreseen unexpected thread—the unpredictable, unknown, and unwritten. The only thing more powerful than the Fates…

A Fire in the Flesh is the long awaited third book in the Flesh and Fire series. I honestly can’t put into words just how excited for this book I was. Jennifer L Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash world has really boomed on BookTok and Bookstagram over the past few years, and while it is so deserving of that, I honestly feel like the Flesh and Fire series is even better. Maybe it’s my love of Sera and Nyktos and the fact I love them more than Poppy and Cas but this is my favourite series in that world, and so I was so excited to finally dive into this book.

At the end of A Light in the Flame, Sera was taken captive by Kolis and so this book focused a lot on Kolis and let me tell you… he is the most messed up character I think Jen has ever written. He is not right in the head. And because we get to see a lot more of Kolis that we ever have before, this book get dark in places. Honestly, the first half of the book took me a long time to get through it. This is the slowest I have ever read a JLA book, and for me it’s because of the darker themes surrounding Kolis. I struggle quite a bit with dark themes. I don’t read dark romance, I don’t read horror because I get so involved in books that I genuinely feel what the characters are going through. So the darker nature of Sera’s time with Kolis made it a difficult read for me. There were times I felt sick by the things Kolis was saying that I had to put the book down and have a break. And it really is a testament to Jennifer’s phenomenal writing skills that she genuinely made me have that strong of a reaction. She’s such a phenomenal author and it really shows in this one. Her writing is probably the best that we’ve seen so far from her. And that’s saying something, considering I’ve been reading her work for over 10 years.

A Fire in the Flesh really has so many reveals intertwined throughout the entire book. It was utterly fantastic to see all of these new bits of information that are important not only for Sera and Nyktos’ story but also for the upcoming books in Poppy and Cas’ story. This book will have you thinking overtime and trying to analyse absolutely everything. I loved this element of the book. I just love that Jen always drops these little nuggets of information for us all to piece together ourselves and this book is no different.

This book was honestly amazing. It was a fantastic instalment of a great series. One tiny little gripe that I do have is, because we saw a lot more Kolis in this one (which let’s be honest was needed for us to start getting towards the end of this series), I missed a lot of the other characters that I’d come to love so much in this series. So for me, there just wasn’t enough of my favourite characters. I wish there had been a little bit more of a balance of them. But other than that this book is fantastic. If you think you love Ash already… you know nothing. He just gets better and better with each book and I cannot wait to get my hands on the next book and see how their story reaches its conclusion. This is an absolute must-read and it has just made me so much more excited for the fourth and final book in the Flesh and Fire series! Go read this one… now!

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