Heat of the Everflame by Penn Cole
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Heat of the Everflame is the third and most recent book in the Kindred's Curse series by Penn Cole. It was released in 2023 and fans have been eagerly awaiting the fourth and final book of the series. It is rated in Amazon's Best of Booktok category and deals with animal cruelty, child abuse, death, violence, blood, bullying, grief, murder, fire, war, and classism. This is a review for Heat of the Everflame and there will be spoilers for the first two books in the series, but if you are looking for a summary or study guide of this or the previous books, check out our Kindred's Curse series page.
Diem Bellator is not having the best time. After she failed to be coronated properly, she was kidnapped by Guardians - who are holding her hostage and trying to trade her to the Emarion Army, whose leader definitely wants Diem questioned. He's going to have a lot of questions, actually. But Diem does not have time for any of that. She needs to return to her realm of Lumnos before civil war breaks out between the mortals and the Descended. In order to get back home, she is forced to take an long and unexpected journey through places she is most definitely not welcome and the secrets of her heritage start to unfurl. She has always wanted to know who her father was, even more since discovering she is Descended herself, but will she like the answers once she has them?
After reading the first book, Spark of the Everflame, I was cautiously optimistic about this series. It was not the best book I'd ever read, but I thought it had potential. The second book was more impressive. Glow of the Everflame started to build the world out and introduced us to more characters, and I generally thought the main character Diem was less annoying although still impetuous. Heat of the Everflame continues in that vein. Diem does begin to think a bit more before she acts, although I'd still like to see some growth on her part. The first part of the story was enjoyable although I didn't love where we see Luther in that half. It was pretty well paced, I felt like we were learning quite a bit about the world surrounding Diem's realm of Lumnos, and I loved the world building that we were getting. As for the second half, it was packed. We could easily have taken the second half of this book and made it a book of it's own. But what would we have called it? Blaze of the Everflame? We could workshop it. We get a lot more world building, we get several more characters, it had a lot of action and a lot of secrets revealed, a lot of tensions released. There was a ton going on and at times it was hard to follow. But I enjoyed it all the same and am very excited for the last and final book!
I'm giving Heat of the Everflame by Penn Cole 4.25 stars and a spice rating of 1.5. I would be hard pressed to say if I like this book or the second one better. I think there was maybe too much going on in this book. I would have preferred it to be a bit shorter and maybe been split like I mentioned above, but there's no denying that it kept me on the edge of my seat. For a summary or spoiler free study guide for any of the books in the Kindred's Curse Saga, please see the series page.
For more from the author, check out her website at https://www.penncole.com/
Pairs well with honey walnut cream cheese and respecting your intuition.
My favorite quotes:
"'Don't you dare mistake compassion for lack of courage, [...]. Hate is easy - it's mercy that requires the greater strength.'"
"'... an education is the most powerful weapon of them all.'"
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