The Fiery Crown by Jeffe Kennedy – Review & Guest Post

 

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Description:
Following The Orchid Throne, Conri and Lia’s marriage of convenience has turned into an uneasy alliance. If only the two leaders could agree on something. Driven by revenge, Conri wants to attack Emperor Anure before the tyrant gets to them first. But Lia needs to keep Calanthe safe, and refuses to sacrifice her kingdom. Their ongoing battle for control has built up tension they’re both more than happy to release in bed, the only place where they find common ground. But Conri and Lia are developing deeper feelings for each other that are complicating matters. In the second book in the Forgotten Empires trilogy, Conri and Lia find their loyalties torn, and with Emperor Anure’s threat growing, will they be able to risk everything with each other before it’s too late?

 

 

Review:

The Fiery Crown by Jeffe Kennedy is the 2^nd book in her Forgotten Empires series.  The story picks up immediately following the ending of the first book, The Orchid Throne.  Lia and Conri are now married, and though they are both attracted to each other, especially in bed; they both have their own differences how to move forward to fight the evil Emperor Anure.   Conri continues to want vengeance against Anure, who destroyed his home (Oriel) and his family.   Lia, knowing that Anure wants her and her powerful Orchid ring, is determined to keep Calanthe safe, even if it means her life.  The two of them continually argue over what is best, though when it’s bedtime, their sizzling chemistry takes over.

With word passed on to Anure about the marriage, he is now bent on coming to Calanthe to take the Queen, even if she is now ‘spoiled’.  Despite his unbending determination to enact his vengeance against the emperor at any cost, Conri begins to have strong feelings for Lia, though using her as bait, could cost her life.  Lia, is a fantastic heroine, who is tougher than she looks, and her bravery, especially nearer to the end was amazing. Slowly, she reveals a little bit throughout the book about her magic (she is an elemental), especially why there can be no blood on Calanthe.  A surprise twist here. 

What follows is a fantastic fantasy set in a world of magic, a flower island, and queen who puts her island first. The Fiery Crown is a much faster paced story line, with a lot of plotting and plans early on, and then the last half of the book was nonstop action, tense fighting, some of which held my breath. I will say that some torture scenes were painful to read.  Besides Lia and Conri, Kennedy created some wonderful characters, including Ambrose, Sonia, Ibolya, Kara, Raven, Vesno, just to name a few. 

To tell too much more would be spoilers, and I do not want to ruin this book for you.  You need to read and enjoy every moment.  Jeffe Kennedy did a masterful job writing this story, and I for one cannot wait for the final book in this trilogy.  If you enjoy fantasy, romance, great couple, wonderful characters, including an evil villain, you should be reading The Fiery Crown.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher

 

Writing from Two Different Viewpoints by Jeffe Kennedy

When I began writing the early drafts of THE ORCHID THRONE, I thought of it as Lia’s story. I wrote it in first person point of view (POV) because it was her tale to tell, the perspective of an embattled queen awaiting the arrival of a dread enemy upon her shores. I knew Con first as only “the Slave King” in my mind, this brutal rebel who Lia would have to battle. In fact, I titled my first working draft “The Slave King and the Flower Queen,” which pretty much sums up the story right there.

Then I showed the first fifty or so pages to my agent, Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency, and Sarah loved it—yay!—but she also wanted moar Con. She suggested that I write alternating chapters from his POV, to give us more of his side of the story.

Okay then! So I began writing Con’s chapters, detailing the events that led up to him arriving on the shores of Calanthe. I wrote them in third person POV, to distinguish his voice from Lia’s. I wrote about a hundred pages of the book that way and we sold the Forgotten Empires trilogy to St. Martin’s Press based on those pages.

Before I finished writing the book, I asked my editor, Jennie Conway, if she had any early editorial input before I went any farther. Guess what? She wanted even moar Con. Jennie suggested that I write Con in first person POV too, so we’d grow to know him as well as Lia.

Let me tell you, folks—no matter what anyone claims—changing a POV from third to first person takes a great deal of work. It’s not a matter of changing pronouns. I ended up rewriting all of Con’s chapters, and writing from inside his head did change things drastically. While it wasn’t always easy—and I sometimes had to fix it in edits—I tried to differentiate their voices by keeping Lia eloquent and intellectual, while Con is more working man and staccato.

By the time I came around to writing the sequel, THE FIERY CROWN, I had the rhythm of writing Con and Lia’s perspectives. And, of course, now I can’t imagine the series being told any other way. I love going back and forth between their perception of events—and their struggles to understand each other. THE FIERY CROWN is a story about the personal war they’re engaged in with one another as much as the greater battle they’re facing. Their conversations are like sword fights in my head: with Con swinging his heavy two-handed blade and Lia delicately and precisely wielding her rapier wit.

Between the two of them, they just might save the world. If they don’t kill each other first.

 

Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include novels, non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. She has won the prestigious RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America (RWA), has been a finalist twice, been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) as a Director at Large.

Her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms hit the shelves starting in May 2014. Book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books followed in this world, beginning the spin-off series The Uncharted Realms. Book one in that series, The Pages of the Mind, was nominated for the RT Reviewer’s Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2016 and won RWA’s 2017 RITA Award. The second book, The Edge of the Blade, released December 27, 2016, and was a PRISM finalist, along with The Pages of the Mind. The final book in the series, The Fate of the Tala, will be out in January 2020. A high fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Dasnaria, taking place in The Twelve Kingdoms world began releasing from Rebel Base books in 2018. The novella, The Dragons of Summer, first appearing in the Seasons of Sorcery anthology, finaled for the 2019 RITA Award.

She also introduced a new fantasy romance series, Sorcerous Moons, which includes Lonen’s War, Oria’s Gambit, The Tides of Bàra, The Forests of Dru, Oria’s Enchantment, and Lonen’s Reign. She’s begun releasing a new contemporary erotic romance series, Missed Connections, which started with Last Dance and continues in With a Prince and Since Last Christmas.

In September 2019, St. Martins Press released The Orchid Throne, the first book in a new romantic fantasy series, The Forgotten Empires. The sequel, The Fiery Crown, will follow in May 2020.

Her other works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion; an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera; and the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, which includes Going Under, Under His Touch and Under Contract.

She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.

Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.

http://jeffekennedy.com
https://www.facebook.com/Author.Jeffe.Kennedy
https://twitter.com/jeffekennedy
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1014374.Jeffe_Kennedy