howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

This was adorable. I love a good, cute, gay rom-com and this definitely delivered! The holiday fantasy elements were a great backdrop to this sweet 'star-crossed lovers' romance, but what really stole the show for me was Hex's character. I mean, anyone who knows me at all would NOT be surprised to hear that I adored the Prince of Halloween, but that's beside the point. 🤣 He was SO funny and precious and soft, and I just loved him to bits! I can't wait to continue the series and I really hope we get cameos of Coal and Hex in future installments.
 

✨ Representation: bi MC, queer love interest, queer side characters, Mexican love interest, Black side character

✨ Content warnings for: loss of a sibling, loss of a parent, abandonment from a parent, grief, insecurity, emotional and verbal abuse from a parent, mentions of physical abuse, mentions of toxic relationships, alcohol, vomit, blackmail 

I loved this. I'm suffering, but I loved this. 😭

I have to say I enjoyed this more than Iron Flame. I'm genuinely at a bit of a loss as to why so many people hated this installment or chose this moment to DNF the series. I respect opposing opinions, don't get me wrong... 😅 I just thought it was a really fun, likeable continuation of the series. It wasn't the best writing I've ever read or anything, but that's not really what I love this series for. I'm here for the characters and dragons I love and the fun battle scenes, and this one provided all of that in droves!

Buddy read with Misty!

This was mostly a pretty cute read, though it definitely wasn't perfect. I picked up this one out of the middle of the series, so there were a lot of characters that I didn't know but I assume I would have; that said, it functioned well as a standalone and I didn't feel like I was missing anything important by not starting at the beginning of the series.

Farrah was a likable enough FMC, though she suffered from the same problem all of the other characters did: she felt flat and one-dimensional at times. I enjoyed her most of all when interacting with her kids, because I felt like Hoss' writing shone in the motherly love depicted there. Gage felt pretty flat at times, too, but like Farrah and her kids, I enjoyed him most when spending time with his family.

I had a handful of minor problems throughout the book, like stilted bits of dialogue, but my biggest problem definitely boiled down to the third act breakup. It absolutely enraged me and I had a hard time forgiving Gage for his actions, even though the story tried to force in this ideal that he was doing it "for the greater good". It was so aggravating and ultimately led to my being unable to care much at all about the end of the book, even though the breakup was such a short portion of it overall.

I hate being negative about indie romance books, especially ones that don't have a ton of ratings, but I didn't enjoy the writing in this at all. It was a classic case of an author attempting to cram a full novel's worth of back story, angst, and personal traumas into a 50-page short story and it did not work.

This was a ton of fun! I don't read a lot of murder mysteries, but when I do, I like for them to be like this: lots of characters with odd little back stories, nobody worth trusting, and a trapped/stranded setting that nobody can leave. Darcy Coates pulled it off brilliantly and the tension was just right! I usually guess twists, but I honestly fell for a red herring and had no idea who the killer was until right before the reveal. I loved this!