House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas – Review

Published: January 30, 2024

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Series: Crescent City #3

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 848 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis:
The stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath.

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that’s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.

Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he’s in the Asteri’s dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce’s fate. He’s desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri’s leash, his hands are quite literally tied.

In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City series reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt’s world is brought to the brink of collapse-with its future resting on their shoulders.

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The hype for House of Flame and Shadow was unlike anything I’ve seen since probably Harry Potter. I mean heck, midnight book releases and themed parties were popping up all over the place which I thought was awesome. Naturally, I began reading this at oh…. 5:00am on release morning because I couldn’t sleep anymore due to the excitement. The rest of this review does contain spoilers for both of the previous books in the series and possibly the ACOTAR series as well.

The entire reason for the hype surrounding House of Flame and Shadow was due to the crossover everyone knew was going to happen. At the end of House of Sky and Breath, as Bryce is escaping the Asteri she opens a portal to what she thinks is Hel and falls into Velaris where she’s promptly found by Azriel and taken to the Inner Circle. I think I actually shrieked when that happened and I’ve been waiting two years to find out how this situation was going to play out. Naturally, out of an abundance of caution they take Bryce to the Hewn City and question her about where she came from and why she’s now in Prythian while Bryce tries to avoid giving away too much information that might hurt her. 

Back in Midgard, the three stooges (Hunt, Ruhn, and Baxian) have gotten captured by Rigelus and are in the dungeons being tortured gruesomely. I didn’t think this part would extend all that long because SJMaas likes to put her characters through the wringer while avoiding things becoming torture porn. It was brutal – be warned – but it’s not nearly so bad as some of the books I’ve read. And don’t forget, Lidia is actually an Ophion agent and she’s quite smitten with Ruhn. It was obvious what path their POVs would probably take. Lidia and Ruhn were one of the best parts of this book and I hope they get so much more page time in the fourth installment!

And then, lamentably, we have the chapters following Tharion, the dumbest fuckboy alive and Ithan, sad sack wolf extraordinaire. I liked Tharion in HOEAB, but his POV chapters have steadily declined in quality and interest for me since then. Tharion makes one bad decision after another and while he redeems himself somewhat toward the end, I desperately hope the fourth book doesn’t follow him. Ithan didn’t really become a main POV character until HOSAB and I really liked him in that book, but he became tedious to read about and while it improved towards the end, so much of his character arc was pointless. The whole thing with Sigrid was a waste of time that could have been cut and the story would have actually improved.

I overall had a really fun time with this book, but it was certainly not without its flaws, some of which I could easily look over and others I could wax poetic about for days. It seemed like SJMaas had a series of events she wanted to happen and the stuff in between those events was just filler and not all that great. Fortunately one of my friends also read this and we’ve been able to vent to one another – it’s basically a form of therapy. I could easily wrap this up here, and this is actually a great place to stop if you want to avoid spoilers for the book, but I’m going to keep going and break down what I loved and what I didn’t love.

What I Loved

Yep, we’re starting with the positives. I loved the crossover with the ACOTAR world and I loved how long we got to spend with these characters interacting with one another! This was probably the thing I was most excited about and while it didn’t pan out in a way that I expected, it worked. I think Nesta and Bryce were great together, though I wish the interactions with them and the rest of the Inner Circle were more positive overall.

Lidia and Ruhn were amazing – I was rooting for them so hard! And it was great to see some of her backstory on how she came to be an undercover agent for Ophion in the first place. I think this installment really fleshed out her character well and her chapters were some of my favorites in the whole book. When she’s helping Hunt, Ruhn, and Baxian escape and she jumps off the cliff my heart was in free fall!

The Autumn King gets what’s coming to him. And so does King Morven of Avallen. Both of them were shitbags and I’m actually kind of glad that the Autumn King didn’t get a redemption arc because he didn’t deserve it. I’m simultaneously bummed that he wasn’t secretly working for Ophion or doing his own interdimensional travel though.

The final battle was pretty dang epic.

We finally get answers about Jesiba! I was honestly not expecting this, but I liked the backstory she was given and also how that played a role in the ending. 

The ending was solid – the scene with Bryce and Jesiba was really moving and when Bryce saw the Pack of Devils and Lehabah I shed a tear. I also think the implications of all the things (infrastructure, political, etc) that will change due to absence of the Asteri was fairly thorough. That’s a lot of material that could be covered in another book and I’m the kind of nerd that likes thinking about all that stuff!

 

What I Didn’t Love

Why, oh why, did Bryce have to spend so much time trudging around in a dank, horrible cave in this book? What a wasted opportunity! It was a little boring, despite my excitement for the crossover. And it was not one, but two identical caves. Bleh!

Also, why did Bryce come off as such a whiny, spoiled little ass for so much of this book? She was such a fantastic character in HOEAB and HOSAB but she was completely awful sometimes in this installment, particularly to Hunt. Poor Hunt gets told to basically “get over his trauma”.

Fury Axtar is completely underutilized in this book. She gets to do NOTHING cool and we get ZERO answers about her past. Same for Ariadne, the scary dragon shifter.

As mentioned before, Tharion is an idiot and I hated reading about him. SJMaas sabotaged his character and then offered fans a token redemption arc when he selflessly marries Sathia Flynn to save her on Avallen.

The Sigrid plotline was useless and could have been left out entirely. The whole point was to steer Ithan into becoming Prime, but honestly I think it could have been done much sooner in the book and in a more believable fashion without Sigrid.

The blackhole. Oh my god the blackhole. It was just… stupid. Google tells me you’d die in 90 seconds in vacuum due to asphyxiation and it seems like Bryce was there for longer than that. That whole scene will live forever in infamy in my brain – good thing the parts right after that were better.