The Cursed King by Abigail Owen – a Review

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Description:
Airk Azdajah, the rightful King of the White Clan of dragon shifters, spent half a millennium being tortured by the false High King Pytheios. The only reason he’s alive is a curse— the man to kill Airk will be consumed in his own fire. Which is why Pytheios kept Airk alive, barely, unable to shift in his prison cage, driving the creature half of him into madness. Airk escaped, but he’ll never be truly free. What good is a king who can never let his feral dragon loose, never fly, and never lead his people? He’s better off dead.

Angelika Amon is the last unmated phoenix. The problem? She has no powers. Zip. Zilch. Angelika hates being dormant, especially now that her three sisters are blissfully mated to powerful dragon shifter kings and are very much part of the fight to take down the rotting king Pytheios, their parents’ killer. What good is a useless runt of a phoenix in a battle to save the dragon kingdom?

Desperate to find some way to help, she offers herself to Airk as a mate — just for political leverage. But a dormant phoenix is no damn use to him just like a dragon who can’t shift is no use to her. Until Pytheios sets his sights on Angelika for himself…

Each book in the Inferno Rising series is STANDALONE:
* The Rogue King
* The Blood King
* The Warrior King
* The Cursed King

Review:

The Cursed King by Abigail Owen is the last book in this wonderful series (Inferno Rising). I’m happy I’ve read it, but I’m sad that this amazing journey is over! You could read this story without reading the previous books, but there is so much going on throughout the series, it would definitely give you a better grasp on what’s going on.

In the last book we get a snippet of how things will go with Arik and Angelika, and it’s going to be a bumpy ride!! Angelika is tired of being useless! Hidden away from everyone, but especially the high king (he wants the last Phoenix to retain his throne) she needs to feel useful. She wants to help bring down the dragon that killed her parents and enslaved the man she’s falling in love with…. Being free after being held captive by the High King Py for centuries should have been a joyous time for Arik, to see the blue sky without bars should have made him smile. But a feral dragon lived inside him (this was caused by the centuries of incarceration) they battle on a daily basis, he can’t let him out as Arik is positive the dragon would kill without distinguishing friend from foe!

Forming an alliance with Arik makes perfect sense to Angelika, they could persuade the White Dragon Clan to defect to their side and abandon the High King. Py always seems to have the upper hand in battles, is it because of numbers (white, red and green dragons follow him) so they need to even up the score. But convincing the stubborn white dragon of that fact is proving difficult for Angelika! With Arik it was one step forward, six steps back!! We all know he wants her, she’s made it clear she wants him. So let’s get it going Arik!!

I absolutely loved this one, we have danger, intrigue, twists and battles. We have a stubborn white dragon afraid to get close to the only woman that has held his and his dragon’s interest. And we have the youngest of the four Phoenix sisters trying to find her place in this dangerous world! And we have so much passion and romance between the two main characters that it almost steamed my glasses up? Drawing in the sisters and their mates, we even get to catch up with a powerful wizard and his mate (book)

The author drew up all the loose ends and left nothing dangling. All avenues were explored and all allies were included. So can Angelika and Arik convince the white dragons to rebel against Py? Can they really defeat him with a defective dragon and a useless Phoenix? And the ending…. It just had to be that way ?? ? 

Reviewed by Julie

Copy provided by Publisher