⚠️ W A R N I N G ⚠️
this post is gonna spoil the entire Kingdom on Fire series

(((also,,, this post is stupid long bc i figured if i vented this all out of my system now that i won't have to deal with it any longer)))

The alternative title for this post: "dumbdumb magic book drives Cora to actual insanity"

Who's ready for a rant/review?? 🤩🤩🤩

Let's start this off by rewinding a few months back to late June? Early July? Something like that. I discovered this online outlet book shop called www.bookoutlet.com and discovered they were selling a crap ton of YA novels for like $6 and under, so naturally, I dropped like $50 to buy like three different series.

Responsible with money who???

Anyways, one of the book series I picked up was the Kingdom on Fire series by Jessica Cluess. After scanning the reviews on Goodreads real quick, I saw it had a pretty positive reception so I was like "oh yeah let's do this" because there's no way these books could be bad if so many reviews said they were good, right???

Right???

R I G H T ? ? ?

...

Yeah, you can guess where this is going 🤠

Allow me to share my ~wonderful~ experience with this series because it was a whole freaking rollercoaster of emotional turmoil for me oh my god

Book One - A Shadow Bright and Burning
alt title by moi - A Novel Dull and Draining

This book series takes place in Victorian England where some humans are born with magic powers. There are 3 classifications of them: sorcerers, witches, and magicians.

The most prominent of the three are sorcerers. They have big magic staves that use elemental magic to bend the world around them. 99.9% of them are male. They have The Order of Sorcerers which serves the Queen where they act as like the magic police of England or something like that idk the worldbuilding in this book ain't that great.

Second of all are the witches. They're 90% female with few dudes. Their powers aren't really specified?? Like they can call on the power of nature and brew potions??

Finally, there are the magicians. Naturally, I was most invested in this group immediately because I'm a narcissist and couldn't help but think of TIOG magicians. However, they are nothing like my version of magicians. In this series, magicians are OP as hell. They can basically do whatever they can imagine whether it's transforming into different objects or flying or teleporting.

Y'all really think these three races could live in harmony??? Heck no

Sorcerers were major dicks and oppressed witches and magicians because they were "inferior" or some dumb shii like that. Then,,, uh,,, they decided to commit genocide against them 🙄

You see, what happened was that like 16-ish years before the actual books begin, there was A Disaster™️. The public was told that a magician named Mickelmas and a witch named Mary Willoughby decided to tear open the fabric of space and summon demons from another dimension called the Ancients because Mickelmas and Willoughby were power-hungry and evil. the sorcerers managed to capture and kill Willoughby, but Mickelmas escaped...

...and then they committed genocide against all witches and magicians because that's just apparently what you do oml

These huge monsters, the Ancients, began to completely destroy England (and only England for some reason???) because they're evil. All of a sudden, these magical fortune-teller sorcerers get a prophecy that's messy as hell and quite ugly like why couldn't the author have worded it better smh:

"A girl-child of sorcerer stock rises from the ashes of a life. You shall glimpse her when Shadow burns in the Fog above a bight city. You shall know her when Poison drowns beneath the dark Waters of the cliffs. You shall obey her when Sorrow falls unto the fierce army of the Blooded Man. She will burn in the heart of a black forest; her fire will light the path. She is two, the girl and the Woman, and one must destroy the other. For only then may three become one, and triumph reign in England."

Ugly, ugly, ugly smh 😤

Anyways, the sorcerers are trying to find The Chosen One, a female sorcerer, and this brings us to where the book actually begins with our main character, Henrietta Howel.

Oh, Henrietta.

She is not like other girls 😤😤 She grew up in this all-girls orphanage in the middle of Rain-and-Despair town with her childhood best friend/love interest, Rook. But she has a secret 🤭🤭

Her amazing, spectacular, one of a kind special ability...

is that she can turn into a human fireball

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

Did I burst out laughing when I saw this was her magic power??? Ofc I did because that's something so dumb I would write it myself lmao. Despite this, Henrietta tries to keep her power secret because of... idk. It's never explained, or if it was it was done so terrible because I didn't get it 🥴

Henrietta goes out on a date(?) with her boring, nice guy, stale white-bread love interest Rook when we learn something interesting. People who were attacked by the Ancients receive wounds that never heal, and society makes them into outcasts for some reason and call them Unclean where they're treated as monsters for the rest of their lives. Wtf. Rook is Unclean, but it doesn't matter because Henrietta still thinks he's hot 😼😼

While Henrietta and Rook are chilling, an actual demon appears outta nowhere and attacks them. The demon is a minion of an Ancient, so it's called a Familiar. Henrietta turns into a fireball to protect them, and what you know it??? There are sorcerers nearby to watch and go "omgomgomg she's The Chosen One"

Aaaaand Henrietta gets whisked off to The Magic School with Rook as her butler or whatever. However, this magic school isn't just any magic school. It's a magic school full of Hot Guys 🤩🤩🥵🥳😏😏🍆🥵

And guess what?? We've got all the YA love interest tropes here to represent 😆😆

I mean, you've got Rook. He's... nice 😺 Apparently he and Henrietta care about each other a lot since they grew up together, but they have no chemistry??? Like the author says they love each other but you can't feel it 😒

Then there's Magnus, The Playboy 😼😼 He's hot, and he knows it. He was instantly my favorite because he was nice and funny. Yes, he does recite Shakespeare at random which is cringy as hell, but that!! Doesn't!! Matter!! He's so much better compared to the other LIs 😭😭

And the third LI, because a love triangle wasn't dramatic enough, is Blackwood 😾 He's tall, dark-haired, and edgy. Mysterious. Snarky with an attitude while also being super-rich and heir to his house. If Rook was white bread, Blackwood is rye because he's boring, too 🤧🤧

Oh yeah!!! I didn't even mention the actual writing in the book yet.

The writing is awful.

There's no descriptions??? The dialogue is cliché as hell. Everything moves way too fast, too. Like Henrietta gets whisked away to the magic school in only like three chapters??? There's no build-up, no nothing. Ugh.

Back to the story, Henrietta goes through your basic magic training montage and names her staff--her most important tool she'll ever own because it literally binds her soul to this piece of magical wood and allows her to use powerful spells--Porridge. She names her staff Porridge because she was eating porridge for breakfast.

...like I said, Henrietta is not like other girls 😝😝😝

You see, what drew me to the series is that the blurb says that Henrietta actually isn't The Chosen One. It doesn't take her long in the book to find that out, either, because she can't use conventional sorcerer magic. Somehow she ends up meeting a powerful magician who tells her she can't use sorcerer magic because she's actually half magician and uses magician magic!!

Henrietta isn't The Chosen One who's strong enough to beat the Ancients, but instead, she's stronger than The Chosen One!! Wow 😍😍

Ngl I forget a lot of these details because I read the first book all in one day like last month 💀

I guess I could talk about plot points, but honestly?? Those don't really matter. For my "reviews" of the following books to make sense, it's more important that I talk about the love interests because that's what we're here for apparently 🤪

Rook: Rook's whole deal is that he's turning into one of the demon minions, a Familiar, because he's Unclean. Henrietta... doesn't really spend time with him. At like all. But he's there!!! I guess 😬  Idk it was just so clear from early on that he's definitely not gonna be end-game.

Blackwood: By the powers of YA protagonist-ism, Henrietta manages to conquer the icy, black heart of Blackwood and gets him to lower his walls and tell her his deepest, darkest secret: his father was one of the magic-people who summoned Ancients into England. It turned out his late father had been a secret third member, a sorcerer, to summon the Ancients alongside Mickelmas and Willoughby, but he kept himself secret and agreed to have his friends' races genocide-d... yeah 😶

Magnus: Magnus didn't get shit oml 💀 He's basically here to exist only as Henrietta's emotional support. I mean they do get to kiss at one part, but then he dramatically reveals he's engaged and that he was playing with her heart this whole time. Ffs ofc my favorite character would pull this 😡😡

When Magnus and Henrietta are fighting over how he's a playboy, he explains to her that he wanted her because she was different. Yes, my favorite character dead-ass says:

I HAAAAAAAAAATE OMFG 😭😭😭😂😂😭😭😂😂😂

I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU, MAGNUS!!! W H Y 😡😡🤬🤬😡😡🤬

ughhhhhhh

Moving past that, some more stuff happens, like magic training and crap, and then it's time for The Big Battle. One of the many side characters who got like one line earlier in the book turns out to be a Traitor who hates Henrietta because... she's a woman??? It was something really, really stupid like that 😭😭

Someone snitches that Henrietta's not The Chosen One, but that she's a magician who was taught by that one super-powerful magician whose identity is actually Mickelmas. Aka one of the guys who summoned the Ancients and is the reason England is being torn apart by demon monsters. Dun dun dunnnnn.

Henrietta is about to be executed or something, but then one of the Ancients attack!!! It's the shadow monster, Kozoroth, and Henrietta uses her super-awesome magician powers to defeat him alongside the help of her sorcerer boyfriends 🤩🤩

Nevermind the fact that the sorcerers have been trying to kill this one Ancient for literal years with their immense amount of experience and knowledge. If you've got the power of friendship on your side and a good set of plot armor, you can do anything 😇😇

The book ends with everyone thanking Henrietta for defeating the Ancient and accepting her into sorcerer society even though she's a witch.

Uninspired, cliché. Poorly written. Awful world-building. Tons of exposition dumps. One-dimensional characters everywhere. Dumb plot twists. Love square. The phrase "you're not like other girls" literally appearing in the text.

The first book of this series gets like a 1.5 out of 5 stars, and I'm being generous with that extra half a point simply because I love Mickelmas and this book has the most of him in it 💩

Even if I only spent a few dollars on it, I felt like it was a waste of money. I'll never get the time I spent reading this back. I almost didn't read the other books in the trilogy because of how bad it was, but I had to finish them since I'd spent my money on them.

So...

Book Two - A Poison Dark and Drowning
alt title by moi - A Harem Gross and Growing

Right away, this book is already leagues better than the first one. The writing style is so much better because Henrietta's voice sounds more distinct, and the descriptions actually allow me to see what's going on. Things are being explained clearly, and the exposition dumps flow properly.

I can't help but wonder why the first book's writing is so much worse than the second's and third's writing? My theory is that they wanted to slash down the word count since ASBaB was her debut novel and shorter content=more digestible, but it's a shame.

Story-wise, this book picks up like a few months after the end of the first one. Henrietta is now part of The Order as a sorcerer who helps guard England from the Ancients. She lives with Blackwood because he's rich and has a mansion, so there's some ~ t e n s i o n ~ brewing between them if you know what I mean 😼

The Order is freaking out because the leader of the Ancients, R'helm, is demanding that England gives Henrietta over to him or he'll... do something. Bad. He doesn't say what he'll do exactly, but it scares people nonetheless because he's a demon from another dimension.

Henrietta teams up with Blackwood to go find some Magic Weapons, and guess what?? Magnus tags along! Magnus and Blackwood obviously butt heads because Magnus is The Playboy and Blackwood is the Edgy Loner and they both like Henrietta 🍆🍆

The trio sail to an island??? Idek where they go tbh like why are they taking a boat tf. When they get off a boat, they're attacked by demon minions, Familiars, but get rescued by a Scottish redhead who's actually not Merida from Brave. No, instead it's the best female character in the series: Maria. And guess what? Maria is a witch.

Actually, no. That'd be too normal, it's not dramatic enough. Maria is actually a half-witch, half-sorcerer because she's the secret bastard daughter of the magic school's headmaster 🥴

Why was Maria wandering around aimlessly killing monsters??? Idk. It's super convenient she showed up with her awesome magic powers to save their asses, though #BestCharacter

Maria joins the trio, and they find the Magic Weapons. It turns out they were locked away in "the father of magic"'s house. The father of magic being the guy who actually summoned the Ancients, by the way. He just had Blackwood's dad and Mickelmas' help or something like that. The father of magic had created these Magic Weapons to tame the Ancients because they were like his pets???? Idk it was kinda weird kinda kinky 😫😫

The group takes the Magic Weapons home, and they try to learn how to use it, but they can't. So guess who they conveniently find to teach them how to use them?? Mickelmas. Like Henrietta just conveniently finds him walking the streets uhhhhhhh

All while they're learning how to use the Magic Weapons, it turns out that her childhood friend, Rook, is turning into an Ancient himself because Henrietta had killed the original shadow monster, Kozoroth. Idk how it works, but because Kozoroth is dead now Rook takes his place?? Maria tries using her witch powers to make a potion to stop the darkness from taking him, but we all know where this is going 🙄

Stuff happens, and then one of the most ridiculous parts of the series takes place: The Ball 🤡

Blackwood's younger sister is having a ball, and by the laws of YA books: if something really, really good is happening then something really, really bad must happen in return. Blackwood straight up proposes to Henrietta basically saying he wants to own her as his wife since he's super overprotective and shii 🤢🤢

They don't make it far, though, because Henrietta runs away (as she should!!) and tries to find Rook because she senses that there's evil afoot. Ofc, Rook turns into a straight up demon in his Ancient form during the ball and starts attacking people. And who does he kill??? Magnus' sweet old mother 😭😭😭

Ngl, I should've seen her death coming since she was introduced as such a loving character only a few chapters before this one, but it still hurt 😣

Once the chaos has died down some, it's time to interrogate Henrietta aka--

"You knew your boyfriend was turning into an Ancient, one of the monsters that have destroyed our country and torn our land to ruin, and you said nothing?!?"

It was at this point that my fondness for Henrietta plummeted since she let a sweet old lady die  😠  Magnus' mom was the only family he had left, too. Ughhhhhh 😠 😠 😠

Oh... as we approach The Big Battle of this book, I forgot to mention something: the leader of the Ancients, the most fearsome monster of them all, is actually Henrietta's thought-to-be-dead dad. R'helm. It was a plot twist I didn't actually see coming because I'm dumb, but yeah it was obvious now that I think about it 💀

Big Battle Time: Henrietta somehow manages to team up with Magnus, Blackwood, and Maria again to save London and the queen from her evil father, R'helm, and all the Ancients. When they're fighting to get into the city, Maria kills one of the Ancients. And guess what??? That's when they realize Maria is The Chosen One!!!

How convenient 🤩🤩

Henrietta fights her dad, literally stabbing him in the heart, and all of London falls into ruin because the Ancients take it over. Since they can't win, Henrietta and Blackwood run away to his secret, magic fairy house so he can force her to marry her 👀

Tbh this is the best book in the series with a good 3 out of 5 stars.

I enjoyed the writing and actually got to feel a tiny bit of emotions (mostly anger) over what happened in the story. Yes, it was stupidly convenient how everything lined up and that forced marriage was awful, but.. uh... several of the main characters grew a lot to have real personalities, including the creepy over-possessive Edge Lord. Also!!! Maria is just the best part of the series. For a fantasy romance YA book this book was decent?? 🤷‍♀️

Or maybe the other two books were just so bad that they made this one look really good 👁👃👁

Book Three - A Sorrow Fierce and Falling
alt title by moi - A Circus Horny and Harming

This book istg 🙃

Remember how in the second book the quality just shot way up??? Well this book returned to those messy, over-the-top in its cliché ways 😭😭

This book is like a soap drama level of ridiculousness. You would think I would like that tho, right? Well, uh, yeah. I did because I thought it was hilarious. But still!! It's a problem when this book is by far the most serious of the three and I'm laughing over tragic events since I think it's so bad 🤡

My first bone to pick with this book: why is everyone SO HORNY????? 😭😭😭

Like oh my GOD. I know YA books love to make the last books of their series "spicy" but I can't with this!! Every single time the characters get frisky, something terrible happens. Every single time. Like, it's so bad that the moment I see them about to kiss I'm thinking to myself "oh god what's gonna happen now??? an Ancient attack???"

And you know what?? I'm always right 🤡

Book three picks up a couple months after book two where the entirety of England has gone to hell and literally no other country gives enough shits to try to help them out against these evil interdimensional monsters (rip England) 💀💀 Henrietta tries to train Maria to fight the Ancients since she's The Chosen One, but that part's kept secret from everyone else for no real good reason at all oml.

But do we care about how England's being torn to ruins??? No!! 😾 The more important thing in the story is Henrietta's and Blackwood's wedding 😽😽

It's the day of Henrietta's and Blackwood's creepy wedding, and he can't stop singing about how he'll finally be able to own her and she'll be his and that she's meant to be his wife. Man, stfu 😭😭 Before the ceremony, though, there's an attack!!! Why? Because things were getting spicy smh

Magnus comes charging into the protected fairy mansion with a butt-ton full of refugees to save them from the Ancients. Blackwood dead-ass almost didn't let them in because he hates Magnus (for literally no good reason like wtf Blacky, Magnus is such a better guy than you), but Henrietta manages to persuade him that sending actual kids out to fend for themselves against the monsters is wrong 🥴

Also, there's this thing where Henrietta has to go sacrifice an animal or some shii to Blackwood's ancestors in order to marry him??? She goes to the creepy pillar place and then figures out that's the magic circle the Ancients were summoned from all those years ago, so they need to open a Magic Portal here to send them back.

Henrietta: Blackwood, my love, my prince, my Edge Lord, please have some common sense and realize this plan is literally the only way we can save England 🥺

Blackwood: Be quiet, you subservient wife of mine!! 👺 You are a woman! 👿 M y wife!! 🤬 I'm the new leader of The Order of the Sorcerers so you do what I say because you are mine! 😡

Henrietta: O-okay 😔

And yes, that is exactly how the text was written with emojis and all in the book 😤

I can't stress how uncomfortable Blackwood made me in this book. Sure, he was a jerk in Book One but that was just because he was edgy. In Book Two, he started acting weirder by becoming more possessive but I thought maybe he would chill once Henrietta agreed to be with him?? But then he acts like this??? 🤢🤢

((Also, uh, I started writing this rant/review like a couple weeks ago and then took a break so the details of Book Three are blurry af in my mind so let's just go off of what I have still memorized 😳 ))

But right away, this whole "something horny happens so murder needs to follow immediately after it" thing kicks off right away and the pattern never, ever falters:

💕 Henrietta and Blackwood make up with a kiss

🔫 They mess with the Magic Portal and open the magic barrier, getting a butt-ton of people murdered, and like half the refugees--including one of their best friends from Magic School who's also the only character in the series who's physically handicapped--get knocked out of the magic barrier and are presumed dead

💕 The night their good friend is basically declared dead since he's outside the magic barrier, Henrietta and Blackwood Do The Dirty to comfort each other and decide to try to get married the next morning for some reason??? Nani tf 🤢

🔫 The magic barrier opens again because it turns out those people survived!! Including the best friend, thank god. But some other super minor character died in the process of getting them back in eh

💕 Henrietta and Blackwood make up

🔫 Maria gets possessed by the ghost of the evil witch, Willoughby, who helped summon the Ancients and murders Blackwood's little sister. He goes crazy and calls Henrietta a slut for sleeping with him even though he initiated it???!!! and tries to throw them into his mansion's dungeon 😡😡😡

I didn't mention this earlier, but for some reason, abstinence is like a big thing in this book. I guess it's because it's set in Victorian England times, but I hate it ffs it makes me angry how so many characters consider a woman "wasted" if she'd slept with someone before ugh 😤😤

Thankfully, this is the breaking point for Henrietta and she decides to break up with Blackwood's angsty, edgy, annoying-ass self to stick up for Maria. They break out of the dungeon right as the magic barrier breaks again, and everything goes to hell 💩 On their way out, they save no one but themselves and it's assumed that Blackwood dies there under attack a;klsdfklasjkdf;alsdf

The middle part of the book all blurs together tbh. Henrietta and Maria run around doing things, and they meet up with Magnus who for some reason still loves Henrietta even though she ruined his life.

Oh!! This is funny--tbh, no it's not but I think it's funny--they meet up with Rook. By the powers of God and anime, somehow he has been able to turn back into a human-ish form instead of his demon form (you know, the one that mauled Magnus' mother) and shows up for only a few chapters. In the few chapters he's in, he spouts exposition nonstop then begs for Henrietta to put him out of his misery and kill him. And then she does 💀💀💀

What's really funny tho is my first thought after this happened was, "Omg 2 of the 3 love interests are dead!! Magnus must be end game!!! 😸😸"

...and then Blackwood shows back up ffs 🤬🤬🤬

This ho still thinks he's endgame!!! Like he shows up all snide and angry and entitled to thinking their engagement is still on because she still has the ring he gave her. The audacity of this man!!! 👺👺

aNyWAYs

With the help of Mickelmas, Magnus, and Maria (wow the author loves names that start with M), Henrietta combines all the remaining sorcerers, magicians, and witches into a single army to defeat her evil dad and save England.

Big Battle time.

Henrietta gets to fight her dad and the evil demon god from the monster's alternate dimension. Blackwood sacrifices himself to save her. And, well, they win. It was really anticlimatic 🥱

Post-battle, it turns out Blackwood is still alive 😑 Henrietta goes to see him and thank god but this ho is about to die from his battle wounds so there's only a few hours left with him. She officially marries him so she can inherit his estate, and then he dies 🥳🥳🥳

But wait!!! There needs to be one last plot twist, right?

Remember how Blackwood and Henrietta slept together that one single time? Well guess what!!! Henrietta 🙀 is 🙃 pregnant🤰

Ngl, I threw the book across the room when I read that because what the actual fck 🤠🤠🤠

And remember how I thought Magnus was gonna be endgame??? In the second to last chapter he just LEAVES!!!! He's like "Oh sorry I gotta go to Italy" and goes???? AKJSLDFLJASLKDFKJASFD

Still!!! There's one chapter left: the epilogue

And oh my god. This ending couldn't be more cliché if it tried.

So Henrietta goes on a picnic with her newborn son to the orphanage she grew up at. It's a beautiful day, and it's sunset time. Guess who rides on an actual white horse with the sun to his back to meet Henrietta after being gone away for forever, returning only because she sent him a letter confessing her love???

Magnus.

They kiss, and the series ends.

...

I...

O k ay .

2 out of 5 stars. It could've been worse. That's literally all that's saving this score. Had there been no pregnancy, it would've been 2.5 but that was so painful it nearly made me give this a lower score than Book One 💀

Ugh.

The whole series?? 2 out of 5 stars. The beginning and ending of it were just so horrible that any of the somewhat charming characters or interesting aspects of its worldbuilding get eclipsed.

This series stole my brain cells away right before the semester started. I would not recommend it to anybody unless you're masochistic and would rather read this ugly mess instead of a funny ugly mess like the Twilight saga 😭😭😭

I can't believe I went from reading the Six of Crows duology to this messy trilogy dkl;fakldsf;kl

What are the worst books y'all have read???