“The Dagger and The Flame” will be live in October 1st, but I am glad Netgalley approved my request. In the City of Fantome, two groups rule the city’s nights. While there is a king and guards, the citizens fear the Cloaks and the Daggers more. The cloaks are the thieves while the Daggers are the assassins, separated by how they use Shade magic.
Seraphine “Sera” Marchant and her mother Sylvie are Shade smugglers, living peacefully in a farm with a three-legged dog Pippin. Her whole crumbles when she comes home one day to find her house burned down and her mother dead.
World Building and Magic
The author Catherine does her world building and magic system well, and it is woven into the history of Fantome. Rather than an info- dump, the system distils through either Ransom (the cute male Dagger) and Seraphine (the cute female Cloak).
Well… this is a YA fantasy. What do you expect?
“The Dagger and The Flame” is about enemies to lovers, and it is a romantic fantasy; but I am here for the stabby and snarky part. There are plenty of characters in the book, like friends on both sides and the occasional victim.
My Little Gripe
While I enjoyed the whole banter/ lover’s spat (actually more like stab)/ mystery solving quests, the only disappointment I have is the supposedly grand reveal. I think it is lazy to just drop a bombshell because it is convenient. Everything else has a link, except this one tidbit, that annoys me.
I mean, if you have done so much work with world-building and history, it wouldn’t kill you to drop A hint ( I’d appreciate 2) and not hey~~ here’s this secret at the last quarter of the book! The entire book was flowing nicely without it, anyway? This is not a good way to drum up drama, not that you needed any more of that.
Verdict
Aside from that, “The Dagger and The Flame” has a lot of good things going. I like the struggles, and the mystery the Sera has to uncover. Ransom’s hopes and dreams: he’s not just a pretty and angsty dude. Only one friend is a douchebag.
I also like the ending. It is not a real cliffhanger, but it clearly shows that the author intends to return to the series and I am excited. If you like a magical romance that isn’t too cloying with romance, the book releases Oct 2024!
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The mystery sounds good and I like the cover.