This is an incredible start for a series. It had kept my attention and intrigue throughout the whole story. This book has a way to grabbed my attention at the very start and it amazes me. This book has a slow going pace, I love how the author drag the plot as slow as possible but it did not made the book boring. In fact, it kept me entertained until the last pages. I did not even realized that I've finished the entire book.

Meera as a main character is fascinating to read. I love how compassionate and empathetic she is. Her evolution throughout the book is interesting to follow. She's very kind but not in a way that naive. It's so heart-warming to follow her as a character. Despite being kind, Meera has also her own strength in dealing with obstacles. The contrast between her being kind and being clever is mixed well.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with this book. It's a a bit lighter than my usual fantasy reads, but kept me entertained until the very end. I am so interested to explore more of Meera's adventures in the next book of this series. Highly recommend this one!

This book feels to me as though it’s still in its beginning stages, which is to say that the writing could use some polish. The concept is an interesting one, but the writing and character interactions are clunky.

Meera is a young servant girl working in the palace kitchens when she finds herself volunteering to care for a raek — a dragon-like creature that was captured and has been contained on palace grounds.

From page one there are many issues I had with the writing style. It goes from action to action, never giving the reader any time to sit in the environment and atmosphere of the story as it jolts you along. Stylistic prose starts off as virtually nonexistent within the narrative. To be blunt, there is no thought as to how to grip the reader and pull them into the world. The entire focus is on achieving XYZ within a scene, rather than interweaving that goal into the world and plot. The prologue opens with Meera being jostled through the castle as everyone rushes outside to see the raek; nothing beyond this happens. The next chapter opens with Meera in the kitchen and we spend the entire time in her head, thinking of her father and peeling potatoes. In fact, another major problem with this book is that Meera doesn’t speak at all until we are twenty-one pages into the book (about 6% deep). Much of it is telling and not bothering to show; we’re told about Meera’s relationships with the other servants, but are rarely shown through character action or dialogue. Instead, we’re given unnecessary information – for example: “When she left, she used a chamber pot in a room at the end of the hall dedicated to their use then made her way down the narrow spiral stairs toward the kitchen.” The audience does not need to know she used her chamber pot before going down to the kitchen. The book is bogged down with the weight of scenes that should have been cut down and tightened. We spend a page and a half or so of Meera peeling potatoes at a point in the book where she has not even so much as uttered a word. There are many scenes like this within the book that make it feel slower than it actually is.

Tonal issues are another challenge the story faces as this does not read at all in the beginning as though this will be a dark story; that is, until we are reading descriptions of mutilated corpses. I want to say that I have no issues with darker or more gruesome stories, not at all. It's not so much the content as the way it is presented when the opening felt like an introduction to a lighter fantasy world. There’s a sudden shift in tone that is jarring to read when you get to the portion about the corpses. (This is a sidebar, but another thing that bothered me was when Meera began gathering the corpses up. I mean…I know that the author is trying to convey a sweet and empathetic character, but this was a very strange way of doing it. Not only is the tone off and weird, but she is touching these bodies with her bare hands of her own accord. I understand that she may not know how diseases are spread as this is a fantasy world, but I would still expect her to not want to touch bodies with blown open heads directly. There’s only so far I can suspend my disbelief. If the goal was to have Meera want the corpses to be buried – which is a fine motivation – then I would expect her to try and question the guards who are standing watch nearby as to how to transport their bodies first at the very least. If the corpses were left because they are too close to the raek’s cage to retrieve, then I would expect her next rational thought to be to reason with the raek again to allow people near to move them.)

Moschella has an idea of what she wants to do with her story, but Iron-Bound Flames is all over the place. I think there were certainly positives – I love seeing Meera as a softer protagonist who sees the good in all. I liked that there is a nonbinary character, even if I don’t quite adore the execution. When there is personality within the prose I enjoy it. In my opinion, there could truly be potential here if this story were to go through a few more drafts. As it stands now however – this book is confusing and jumbled, full of unexpected shifts in tone, and sagging with the weight of unnecessary information and writing cliches.

Exciting start to what I hope will be a grand adventure. This book was a lot of world building and set up for the rest of the series. We got a taste of the different characters and the excitement to come. I look forward to reading what comes next.

“Being a scholar doesn’t mean I know everything or even many things, it means I’m painfully aware of how little I know”

Storyline: 4
The story was compelling and well paced, there are characters and events that appear to be well placed foreshadowing (I hope).
Enjoyment: 4
I really like led this book, enough so that by the end I was glad that there was a snippet of the next book, because I was ready to dive in to the rest of the series!
Readability: 3.5
Easy to follow. I hope there is an additional editorial pass before final publication as there were some spelling and grammatical errors that pulled me from the story. Also, overuse of exclamation points outside of dialogue.

Thank you to Netgalley and Melanie Moschella for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book!

I've been reading a lot of "rider" stories recently (mostly dragons) and this one finally gave me what I wanted! Raeken aren't dragons, technically, but they are mostly dragons... but feathery! The feathers do actually make an exciting difference for me visually.

The story kept me engaged the whole way through and the protag, Meera's, relationship with the captive dragon/ride pair was heartfelt and well realized. You don't get to see a lot of the wider setting outside of Meera's book learning, as her view of the world starts off fairly small, but it was enough for me to want to hear more. The bond between the Raek and Meera felt real and earned, even though most of it was wordless on one side. I felt for Meera's sense of loneliness throughout the story and I honestly can't wait for the series to be released so I can find out where her development goes.

There's a lot of what you could call "hurt/comfort" in this story which I ate up. Meera is caring, but not in a way that she feels boring or one note. She's an interesting mixture of thoughtful and impulsive, and the book stays close to her emotional journey. which really worked for me. Even when she was being a bit silly, you could feel where she was coming from. Her victories feel earned.

Also, Raek are very cool fantasy creatures, and the rendering on the cover is beautiful. Cerun sounds like such a pretty boy and I loved him. (Cerun is the Raek... I guess his rider is okay too.)

I feel like I'm descending into rambles, but I was just quite happy with this. The only part I didn't like she when she felt ambivalently hot for the King (girl, I CANNOT relate) but that's just me. Thankfully, that wasn't lingered on too much.

Meera Hardship is a lonely kitchen maid, and when a very intimidating creature (the raek) is imprisoned at the castle she volunteers to feed it - which kicks off an adventure of spying, interrogating and treason!

Once this book found its rhythm I couldn't put it down. I really like the premise/concept of the book, and I like where the plot is going. (Super excited to read the next one.) The pacing is well done, once I was through the first few chapters it settled into a solid medium pace. I appreciated that the info dumps were very limited, we're learning about the world as we go.

I did find the first few chapters difficult to get through, the pacing was a little off and I didn't feel like they ultimately added much to the story overall. I also found the dialogue between characters a little stiff at times. But overall I still very much enjoyed reading this, I think this series has a lot of potential and I can't wait to see where it goes! If you're a fan of Fourth Wing, I think you would enjoy this.

Very exciting note: The whole series is releasing on the same day. If you're like me and struggle to find the line between supporting an author and not torturing yourself with cliffhangers... this is a totally bingeable series.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the early readers copy!