Heart on Fire (The Kingmaker Chronicles, 3)

Catalia Fisa has much to accomplish in this adrenaline-charged, emotionally rich and sometimes heartrending, roller coaster conclusion to The Kingmaker Chronicles, HEART ON FIRE. Cat faces fierce battles, not all of which are physical, a challenging quest, and finds herself thrown into one particularly dark and difficult ordeal. Together, Cat and Griffin are forging a new world between the three previously separate and often warring provinces of Tarva, Sinta, and Fisa. Cat’s greatest struggles result not only from her seriously evil and vicious mother’s actions, but her own fears and lack of confidence. Cat desperately needs to figure how to use her frustratingly erratic God-given powers which will enable her to be triumphant. Her path to victory comes with many hard choices. In Cat’s realm, doing what is right and honorable is rarely easy and often dangerous. She has the perfect man at her side in Griffin whose love and confidence helps Cat become everything she is meant to be. With his unconditional love and unwavering support, Griffin shows Cat no matter where the journey takes her, he will be there. Her own worries and self-doubt are perhaps the truest enemy if not the most tangible one. Cat sees herself as too damaged to be the queen she is destined to be. Griffin's love and support empowers Cat to overcome self-loathing and crippling uncertainty giving her the strength to take wing and fly.By embracing her true purpose instead of fleeing it, Cat becomes the embodiment of “Elpis” which means hope; her destiny is to unite Thalyria. She wants the people to see life can be good when lived with joy and peace rather than brutality, neglect, and the abuse they have known. Cat must convince herself though as well that the Gods are on her side. However, the Gods are often far from benevolent; Cat finds their interactions less than helpful and frequently maddening. The capricious meddling Gods have quite a few surprises, not all of them pleasant, in their plans for her and Griffin. Cat’s family, those who are blood and ones claimed as such, also figure greatly into this epic tale. The harder Cat fights, the more her mother, Andromeda, unleashes her immense abilities as Cat’s most powerful and painful enemy. Soon to become a mother herself, Cat has even more reason to fight with every fiber of her being to establish a new world order.Cat embodies my favorite kind of fantasy heroine. I love the combination of her courage, strength, stubbornness, and self-sacrificing loyalty thrown together with a little bit of crazy, but laced with humor to lighten a very heavy load. Cat never gives up or loses hope though she may falter in the darkest places. I thoroughly enjoyed this exceedingly well done book. Truthfully, there are some very painful places further demonstrating Amanda Bouchet’s skills as a writer who can elicit all variety of emotions from readers taking them on a journey to places of deep joy interwoven with heartbreaking agony, and other equally intense feelings along the way. The world and characters Amanda Bouchet has created hit all the right marks of action, adventure, and romance. It is such a pleasure to read a very satisfying and well-wrought end to this most enjoyable trilogy. I am left thinking about the characters long after the story has ended and longing for more. I can think of no higher compliment.

Heart on Fire is the third and final book of the Kingmaker Chronicles. I adored books 1 and 2. I couldn't wait for book 3 to be released and once it was, I re-read books 1 and 2 so that I could read all 3 back to back. This book just didn't measure up to the first two books. It was still good and completely captivating, but I think I liked it as much as I did simply because I was already really invested in the characters and their story.The beginning of this book was pretty intense!! It was a little shocking (in a good way) but had me reading as fast as possible to see what the outcome was going to be. That was a crazy good beginning to the book!!My biggest disappointment from this book is that there is no epilogue! I'm actually a bit angry about that. I am feeling all kinds of ways. There are a bunch of loose ends. We spent so much time reading about Cat's pregnancy and "Little Bean" yet we don't get to actually see the baby born or know anything about it. We spent 3 full books getting to know all of the secondary characters but we have no idea what actually becomes of them or what happens next for them. I, like many other readers I'm sure, am very invested in a lot of the characters throughout reading this series and it is a let down to not see anything more of them. What about Kato? He is "where he needs to be." Well, where the hell is that?? How about Griffin's siblings? What happens next for them? Will Flynn and Jocasta get together? How about the gods? Do they just disappear or are they still going to be in their lives? Especially Aries and Persephone; they have more than a vested interest in Cat and are her family by all right. How about the circus family? What is next for them? Will they go their separate ways or remain close to Cat? What is next for Thalyria? There are so many unanswered questions. Those are just some off the top of my head.In the first two books we got a good mix of our main characters and the secondary characters, mostly Beta Team. This book was mostly focused on Cat and Griffin. I missed having the Beta team and other characters always there throughout this book.It seemed like Cat spent a lot of time having a pity party for herself and although I saw how she was struggling through figuring out her destiny and attempting to grow as a person, it got frustrating at times. She was behaving like a petulant child and there were a couple times where I wanted to shake her and tell her to pull it together.Something that I really loved in this book as well as the prior two is the mythology and gods that were incorporated into the story. It was all really interesting and I felt that a lot of it was pretty on par with what I would expect for the respective gods, goddesses, mythological events or places.I absolutely LOVED how the gods were watching out for Cat and helping her along the way. I really loved the god of war the most though. Aries was so helpful and caring. He definitely had Cat's back. Poseidon came in a close second. I feel like I should mention Cerberus at some point because that wonderful, amazing, sweet, three-headed dog with acid saliva protected Cat so well and, come on, who doesn't love a dog in a story.I really really loved how Thanos and Salena were involved, and how they essentially became the closest things to parents that Cat had and raised her. Speaking of parents, Griffin's parents were pretty great. I adored his family.There is so much that I loved from these books. This is probably one of my most favorite series ever. It was so much fun to read. The books were interesting, exciting, emotional, and had me completely enthralled. Even though I am a bit disappointed by this last book, I am so happy to have read this series overall. I will highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys stories of gods, goddesses, magic, mythology, romance, loyalty, family by choice not by blood, and overall just enjoys a good fantasy story. These books will tick all kinds of boxes.I guess all I can do now is hope that the author releases some sort of follow up novella soon so I can get my questions answered. I am rating this book as 3.5 stars and rounding up to 4 since I just loved this series and characters so much. The first two books were 5+ star books for me. I will re-read this series again. I doubt I will ever tire of the characters.Final thought: I sure live a boring and ordinary life.

I love this series so much!! It had everything: enemies to lovers, found family, smut, swoon worthy romances, kick ass female lead and awesome secondary characters. This conclusion to the series did not disappoint, and I can't wait to read more about the side characters!

Mit Band 3 kommt die Kingmaker Trilogy zu einem Ende. Und es war einfach nur herrlich!Cat und Griffin sind zu einem meiner Lieblingspärchen geworden. Die Chemie stimmt, jeder hat seine Fehler und Schwächen, aber gemeinsam macht es die beiden noch stärker. Das Vertrauen, das Griffin in Cat setzt ist einfach wunderbar und auch ich hab mit Cat gelitten und manchmal gezweifelt und wurde dann doch so sehr von Griffin überrascht. Es gab auch den ein oder anderen Moment, wo ich nicht mehr wusste, wohin mit meinen Gefühlen. Für mich hat Amanda das wunderbar geschrieben und ich war auch in Band 3 noch so von der Geschichte gefesselt.Aber auch die Geschichte selbst nimmt jetzt erst so richtig an Fahrt an. Man ist mittendrinnen statt nur dabei und hofft, bangt, liebt und kämpft mit all den liebgewonnenen Charakteren. Besonders in meinem Herzen geblieben ist Kato – ich brauche unbedingt mehr.Das Englisch war wie immer einfach, flüssig und leicht zu lesen.Jetzt, da ich weiß, dass es bald einen neuen Teil geben wir, zwar mit Flynn und Jocasta, aber egal, freu ich mich noch mehr, wenn ich endlich wieder bald in die Welt der Götter eintauchen kann.Für alle Götter, Fantasy, Romantiker unter euch: schnappt es euch und lässt euch verzaubern.

Well written and exceeded my expectations.

Woah! I’m in love with this series. With a lot of series the next books are never as good as the first but Amanda Bouchet pulled out all the stops and from the first chapter of the first book to end of the last book I was gripped! I could barely pull my eyes away? I would love to see some add ons about Ianthe and her centaur, Jo and Flynn and I just need to know what happens to Kato!! Please please please make some more, I can’t get enough and I think I may combust if I don’t find out what happens to kaia and her gentle giant( you all know who I mean, but I don’t wanna spoil anything)

On attendait avec impatience la conquête du troisième royaume et la confrontation avec la "mère indigne" de Cat. On n'est pas décu, puisqu'au final il y en aura trois ! Catalia prend petit à petit la mesure de son nouveau rôle de reine destinée à unifier les trois royaumes et à instaurer la paix et un monde nouveau et elle prend confiance en elle, en l'amour qu'elle reçoit de la part de son nouveau peuple, en celui qu'elle partage avec Griffin et avec sa famille, elle accepte ses failles comme ses forces. Même si la fin est un peu facile, de nombreuses épreuves, souvent au moment où on s'y attend le moins, lui donneront du fil à retordre dans ce troisième opus et il lui faudra faire preuve de son courage et de sa persévérence habituels pour s'en sortir.Il y a moins de scènes "hots" dans ce tome, me semble-t-il, cependant elles sont toujours aussi longues et ennuyeuses (au secours le tome 2 !!!).C'est certes un défaut fréquent des romans "young adults", mais là l'auteur y va vraiment fort et cela nuit terriblement au rythme de l'histoire : on tourne les pages en espérant que cela soit bientôt fini et paf ! ils remettent ça ! Insupportable !