A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire makes betrayal the courtship's first language, then talks long enough to test my patience with both speakers.

I respect a sequel that starts with consequences. Jennifer L. Armentrout does not ask Poppy to forget what has happened or turn her hurt into a decorative misunderstanding. That anger gives the romance its edge. It also gives the book a problem: if two people have reason to distrust one another, they need to talk, and this pair can talk for Britain. At times I wanted to pull up a chair. At times I wanted to take the chair away.

This is book two of Blood and Ash, first published in 2020. It assumes you have read From Blood and Ash, and so do I. The publisher's description opens with the fact of Poppy's betrayal, including the revelation that the man she was falling for is Casteel Da'Neer, Prince of Atlantia. Even staying on the back cover's side of the line, there is plenty to discuss. The first book asked whether Poppy would break out of the role assigned to her. This one asks what choice looks like when nearly everyone around her wants to use it.

The premise (no spoilers past Poppy's uneasy bargain with Casteel)

Poppy's old certainties have collapsed. Removed from her life as the veiled Maiden, she is among people who regard her as a symbol of the kingdom they despise. Casteel, the prince with several names and faces, needs her alive for his own plans. Poppy has no reason to trust him. She does, however, want to find her brother Ian and learn what has become of him, and Casteel may be her route to that answer.

The bargain is ugly enough to be interesting. She has something he needs; he has access she cannot get alone. The publisher also promises growing unrest in Atlantia and a threat of war. That is the early frame. I will not unpack the revelations the book uses to enlarge it, because the fun lies partly in watching Poppy decide which version of the world deserves belief.

What works

Poppy's anger is the best editorial decision in the book. Betrayal has a cost here. She does not receive an explanation and immediately become grateful for the effort. Her refusal to be handled keeps the romance from turning the first book's deception into a cute misunderstanding. The attraction is still there, but it has to survive her judgement. I like a fantasy heroine who remembers what she has been told and asks who gained from the telling.

Armentrout is particularly good at making a conversation do two jobs. A quarrel can be about political leverage and about intimacy in the same breath. Poppy and Casteel argue over what each owes the other, and the question keeps changing its shape. Their proximity is compelled by need, so their moments of softness cannot be read as simple surrender. The book understands that wanting somebody is not the same as believing them. Quite a useful distinction, in literature and at dinner parties.

The second volume also gives Poppy room to be less an isolated symbol and more a person negotiating among competing claims. The language of duty follows her, but the setting changes its pressure. Among people who read her as the enemy's emblem, she has to learn how much of their anger is about her and how much about a system she did not build. That complication gives the broader conflict emotional texture. The book is most alive when Poppy's private account of herself meets a public account she cannot control.

I also admire the way Casteel's multiple identities become a craft problem, not merely a twist. Hawke Flynn was a role as well as a name. What remains of the person Poppy knew when the role is exposed? Armentrout can milk that question because every affectionate gesture now has a second possible meaning. His charisma is very much present, but it no longer gets to close the case by itself. For a long stretch, the reader has to do the same work Poppy does: separate evidence from performance.

What's polarising

The central quarrel lasts. Then it lasts some more. Some repetition is necessary because trust is not a single conversation; the characters have good reason to revisit it. Yet the book can mistake revisiting for developing. A discussion arrives, circles its key terms, reaches an emotional pitch, and then a later discussion picks up remarkably close to where it began. Readers who adore prolonged antagonistic banter will consider this a banquet. I occasionally felt trapped at a table where dessert depended on both guests restating their positions.

The worldbuilding also arrives in dense bursts. Atlantia, Ascension and the competing accounts of history matter, but the volume of explanation can flatten urgency. A scene seems ready to move, and then it pauses to supply another piece of political or supernatural context. Armentrout wants the romance to carry a large fantasy apparatus. Sometimes it can. Sometimes the apparatus asks to be carried upstairs one crate at a time.

There is a more personal objection too. Casteel's leverage is part of the story's design, but it will not read as romantic to everyone. The book knows Poppy can resist him, and it gives her anger space. It still asks the reader to enjoy a relationship formed amid captivity, strategic need and unequal information. If that configuration makes your shoulders go up, listen to your shoulders. A novel can make a dynamic dramatically compelling without making it comfortable.

The Hawke of it

Hawke Flynn is the name Poppy trusted; Casteel Da'Neer is the name the second book places on the cover copy's other side of that trust. I do not think the appeal is simply that he has secrets. Plenty of heroes have secrets, usually accompanied by an exhausting amount of smirking. His appeal here is that his old warmth and his present agenda are hard to separate. The reader can see why Poppy might miss one without forgiving the other.

He can also be infuriating. His confidence often presumes that persistence will be mistaken for proof. Sometimes it works on the page because Poppy refuses the presumption. Sometimes the book lets his charm get there first. The most persuasive version of him is the one forced to acknowledge that Poppy's trust belongs to her. The least persuasive is the one who behaves as though good intentions can be backdated onto a lie. Romance is not an accounting department.

Spice and heat

Heat: 4 of 5, explicit open door, according to romance.io. The heat is more sustained than a handful of isolated scenes because attraction keeps interrupting arguments about trust. That is the book's particular flavour: physical desire as evidence neither character can quite use to settle the moral question. There is nothing discreet about the page-level treatment, so readers wanting a closed door should choose elsewhere.

Content note: the publisher's opening involves captivity and coercive leverage, and reader tags on romance.io flag violence, grief and past abuse. The book's power imbalance is not a footnote. I found the story more rewarding when I kept that discomfort in view instead of asking the romance to excuse it.

Who it's for

Come here if you wanted the first book's emotional bill paid in full, even in instalments. You should like a heroine who argues back, a hero who has to earn the right to be heard, and a long, heated negotiation about what loyalty means after deception. You must also be willing to spend time in those negotiations. If you require brisk movement between revelations, this kingdom may feel like it has installed a committee at every border crossing.

Books like A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

• The Traitor Queen by Danielle L. Jensen, for a romance forced to reckon with damage done between political enemies.
• Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent, for a determined heroine whose search for someone she loves draws her into dangerous power structures.
• A Shadow in the Ember by Jennifer L. Armentrout, for another relationship built around a dangerous purpose neither person can afford to ignore.

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