From the BLURB:
Who is Catalia Fisa?
With the help of pivotal figures from her past, Cat begins to
understand the root of her exceptional magic, her fated union with Griffin
Sinta, and Griffin's role in shaping her destiny.
Only Cat holds the key to unlocking her own power, and that means
finally accepting herself, her past, and her future in order to protect her
loved ones, confront her murderous mother, and taking a final, terrifying step
- reuniting all three realms and taking her place as the Queen of Thalyria.
What doesn't kill her will only make her stronger . . . we hope.
‘Heart on Fire’ is the third
and final book in American author Amanda Bouchet’s fantasy romance trilogy,
‘The Kingmaker Chronicles’ released in 2018.
Bingeing a completed
series has its up’s and down’s. Instant gratification is always nice, and being
able to feel intimately connected to the characters and story for an intense
period of time … but unlike reading at the real-time release-pace, it also
probably affords you more scrutiny of the series, when you’re able to take in
all the moving parts as a whole and see how the long-game mapped out. In this
sense, I’ve got to say that Amanda Bouchet’s third and final book in ‘The
Kingmaker Chronicles’ trilogy falls maddeningly short. It’s not enough to taint
the previous two books (I maintain that Book 1 ‘A Promise of Fire’ also works
as a brilliant stand-alone!) but there’s no satisfaction in the end here, and
that’s a frustrating note to leave on (for now).
One of the shortfalls of
‘Heart on Fire’ is actually that Amanda Bouchet has done too good a job with
her secondary characters, and its highlighted in book three especially when I
often felt more inclined to go off on their tangents rather than keeping with
Cat. For one thing – it’s the Beta Team trio that I’m sure fans have come to
love in Carver, Flynn and Kato. All of these men have had really full
characterisations and future-journeys set-up, and they never work better than
when off with Griffin and Cat on an adventure. So it’s maddening when Griffin
and Cat go off on their own for a majority of this book, breaking the brilliant
spell of camaraderie that had so endeared it previously. Never mind that the
set-ups for Flynn, Kate and Carver are never followed-through, left dangling
for readers to hope for a promise of spin-offs and more …
It was also the addition
of a new secondary cast in Cat’s sisters Ianthe and Bellanca who joined at the
end of Book 2 – these two are so fascinating, and while Bellanca’s set-up as a
possible match for the world-weary brother Carver was a hopeful glint in the
distance, Cat’s younger sister Ianthe strikes a truly fascinating bargain with
leader of the cantaurs, Lycheron that is 100% worthy of its own series. Bouchet
must have realised this somewhat too, because we get (a somewhat unnecessary)
independent scene of Ianthe and Lycheron interacting and clearly loving that
had me so desperate for the possibilities. And probably a sign that things
weren’t concluding satisfactorily enough for me in ‘Heart’ was when Ianthe rode
Lycheron off into the distance; I desperately wanted to follow after them and
their story …
The last-half of ‘Heart
on Fire’ was actually this really strange story of isolation for Cat, that
introduced another new character who felt like there was more to them and he
was being introduced so as to launch into something new … it’s maddening to
meet interesting characters in the literal last-half of a final book. It’s not
a cliff-hanger at that point, but a dangling annoyance. And further adding to
this was the sad and frustrating end to one character, that also hints at more
to come.
And while Bouchet has
said she does intend to revisit the ‘Kingmaker’ realm with spin-off stories in
future (something I wholeheartedly welcome!) it will be a while before readers
get any kind of satisfaction, since Bouchet is launching a new series next year
in the urban fantasy ‘Endeavor’
(described as Robin Hood in space). I would have been fine if Bouchet had left
readers with such an unsatisfying conclusion if there was definite promise of
those spin-offs launching from next year onwards … but instead we’re all
painfully aware that she has a new series to invest her time in, so it’ll be a
long time before we get any true satisfaction from the ending of ‘Kingmaker
Chronicles’ and that’s not the half-full feeling you want to leave readers with
in a finale.
It’s also that the Big
Bad Arc was underwhelming executed in the end too. More a whimper than a
scream, and it’s probably partly wrapped up in how many new characters had
nabbed my attention, and how frustrating not knowing where favourites ended up
that also dulled the final blows … but overall this was indeed a maddening
wrap-up of poor pacing and patchy characterisation that doesn’t quite taint the
series whole, but also doesn’t leave readers with a great taste at the end. A
shame.
2.5/5
