Phoenix Flame by Sara Holland (Havenfall #2)

Hey guys!
I read Havenfall earlier this years and tremendously enjoyed the book. You can imagine how excited I was to pick up the sequel. Let’s see if it holds up what I was led to expect after book #1!

Phoenix Flame on Goodreads

The Plot (according to Goodreads):

Maddie thought her problems were over. She saved the Inn at Havenfall—a sanctuary between magical worlds—from the evil Silver Prince. Her uncle the Innkeeper is recovering from a mysterious spell that left him not quite human. And there are still a few weeks of summer left to spend with her more-than-friend Brekken.
But there’s more work to be done to protect the Inn—Maddie must put an end to the black-market trading of magical objects and open the Inn’s doors to the once feared land of shapeshifters.

As she tries to accomplish both seemingly impossible tasks, Maddie uncovers secrets that could change everything. What if saving everyone means destroying the only home she’s known?

The Rating:

I wanted to love this. So much. I tried really hard. But this sequel has a great number of flaws that disappointed me a lot. The first novel was brilliant but Phoenix flame doesn’t really deliver on anything set up in Havenfall.

First of all, we need to talk about Maddie. She’s the main charactera and she’s annoying af. I was prepared to overlook it in the first novels as the book simply had so many strenght it easily managed to tide you over. She makes nothing but rash decisions, there never seem to be any reprecussions or punishment. Somehow she manages to cruise through this book weathering all the challenges despite zero knowledge or expertise. This girl is surviving on sheer dumb luck alone.

Speaking of sheer dumb luck. In this story just one thing too many seems to conviniently fall in place. I get that authors do this, but in Phoenix Flame these incidents are piling up. This takes away so much from the story’s initial appeal and thrill. It weakens the plot, eradicates a big chunk of depth this could have had and made me roll my eyes on more than one occassion.

I don’t know how we got from a fascinating book like Havenfall that had me hooked to this. I was so excited to see the story continue, the set up plot points find resolution. How did all of that manage to fall so surpremely flat? This wasn’t interesting at all. It was bland, boring and times and often even oversimplified.

This could have been great. I don’t think that my expectations were too high. Even if I had lowered them a fair chunk, Phoenix Flame would have missed the mark. I’m so sad the sequel turned out like this. I was excited and ready to love this book, but I guess it is what it is.

Did you read this book? Let me know in the comments what you think!

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