Ep 69 GLOW of the EVERFLAME Review, Summary, and Deep Dive | Kindred’s Curse Saga Book 2

"In this episode of Besties and the Books, Liz and Ashley dive deep into Glow of the Everflame, book two in Penn Cole’s Kindred’s Curse Saga. They start off with their spoiler-free reviews, giving the book high praise for character growth, richer world-building, and a masterful slow-burn romance. They give a brief 5 sentence book summary. They also share some fun personal updates, from movie nights to dog mishaps. Once in spoiler territory, they provide a detailed five-sentence plot summary and discuss their favorite tropes like found family, royal intrigue, and strong side characters, all while keeping the tone warm, relatable, and full of fangirl energy."

We interviewed Penn Cole, we took a deep dive into Spark of the Everflame, and today we’re continuing on with our Kindred’s Curse Saga series with our deep dive into book 2: Glow of the Everflame. 

We discuss why this series, and the FMC Diem Bellator in particular, stray away from expected fantasy conventions by defining strength in a myriad of ways and by emphasizing the importance of embracing the power all of us have within ourselves. Emotion is not inherently weak or feminine and logic is not strong or inherently masculine. Diem consistently acknowledges that working in an either/or framework is impossible and harmful, and uniquely recognizes that the only way to truly be the leader she is destined to be is through both/and thinking, feeling, and problem solving. 

We talk about the MMC Luther, and whether or not he’s a feminist, we break down our favorite and least favorite parts, tropes, and characters, share reviews, and discuss whether or not we’re looking forward to reading the sequels. 

And we start out with a movie themed fave and fail and end on a high note with a smash or pass highschool teen heart throb, and influential scientist edition.

Don't be shy, subscribe! New Podcasts every Tuesday!! (And sometimes Friday!…)

Check out these author interviews? ⬇️

Penn Cole talks with us about Strong Female Characters, Feminist Themes, and her debut bestselling Spark of the Everflame Series! https://youtu.be/7ukNImyoObw?si=7C3Y9kOUMN4hfcKb

We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

Check the official Author Interview with Lindsay Straube of Split or Swallow! Now a Barnes & Noble & Amazon best seller titled: Kiss of the Basilisk!  https://youtu.be/fknhocSNIKM

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Chapters

• 0:00 Spoiler Free Intro
• 5:45 Favs and Fails of the Week
• 18:58 Our Glow of the Everflame Book Review
• 22:35 5 Sentence Glow of the Everflame Book Summary
• 26:25 Favorite and Least Favorite Characters, Parts, Tropes and other Things
• 48:18 Glow of the Everflame Quotes
• 58:00 Unhinged Smash or Pass

Transcript

0:02

[Applause][Music][Music] welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast guys i'm Liz and I'm Ashley and today we're going to be delving into book two of the Kindred's Curse Saga which is Glow of the Ever Flame by Pen Cole aka New York Times best-selling debut author of the series that we just got interview for you guys so exciting if you guys haven't caught that yeah we'll of course have it linked down in the description box and you know everywhere check it out on our channel and everything cuz that was cool hearing some behind the scenes action and what made Penhole want to write this story and DM's perspective and everything on that yeah it was a great interview super fun she's just a fun person to talk to for sure so we're going to be discussing all things Glow of the Everflame obviously if you're here we already covered Spark of the Everflame stick around if you're interested in watching us also next time cover the doozy heat of the Everflame which we're still unraveling in our brains yeah seriously um but yeah as we've talked about before you know we had the privilege of meeting Pen Cole at Romanty BookCon um and after hearing her speak on several author panels um you know we really were inspired by a lot of her takes on strong female characters and why she chose to write a lot of the themes that she did into these books and so yeah we're just we love the themes we love the tropes the characters and so we want to do this deep dive for you guys um we do have Fable Chats up for books one and two because our book club Besties in the Book Club did vote for both of them so that's pretty cool um so if you guys want to go in and you know chitchat with other people spoiler-free but then also see kind of what we had to say those will be up probably for quite a long time probably until book four comes out at some point I'm assuming um so today we're going to be doing our usual deep dive video with our response and reaction our five sentence summary we'll start off with a spoiler-free star and spice rating so that if you guys are kind of kind of wondering if you should continue on with the series perhaps um then we'll kind of give you our two cents on that mhm um but before we get into all of our you know least favorite tropes most favorite tropes characters etc we just wanted to say thank you so much for being here seriously thank you guys so much for being here taking time out of your day and your book to join us on this discussion that we are having all about the Kindred Curse Saga make sure to like follow and subscribe anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube we do have a little goal of trying to hit 1,000 subscribers over on YouTube by this fall so it' help us out a lot if you went over there and just like hit that little subscribe button we're hanging out we're vibing you know we're live and in action we always have like book t-shirts that we like to wear and fun stuff like that and uh you can check it out but um we're also on Instagram and Tik Tok at Bessies and Books Podcast everywhere and like Liz mentions we do host a virtual book club which is very stressfree it's very you know choose your own adventure yeah very casual avenger choose your own adventure choose your own adventure tony Stark or Spider-Man i don't know who Avengers are but that's at Fable and that's Bessie's and the Book Club but also of course follow along on Instagram that's where all the announcements and everything are made but lives will be taking place on YouTube very soon for the book club probably have already happened when you're seeing this i I hope yeah we're tired of Instagram eating our lives yeah they just eat it up literally it was It was actually This was the last live that we did before Enchantra was Spark and Glow we did a combo since those were two months in a row and I was went to like post everything hit post it just disappeared gone boom nothing nowhere to be heard of from again it's like an hour of talking and a lot of you guys you know you don't always have time to jump on the lives so it's nice to be able to jump on into it later so that was frustrating but YouTube usually is pretty good about keeping everything you know it just automatically saves so yeah yeah so go subscribe over there that way you get all of the updates yep for that um yeah i mean we've got a lot of fun stuff going on i'm like I feel like we should just mention we've got Ann of Green Gables is going on full It's moving on forward in full force i'm reading it with my nine-year-old she's loving it too and I'm reading it for the first time a lot of people are DM'd us that their kids are reading along with them and I love that that's so exciting i love it it's a reread for me for the first three books we are reading all eight so that's been a really fun adventure um so we've got that going on and then yeah obviously Besties in the Book Club we've got going on right now we're reading Shield of Sparrows uh which obviously has been getting a ton of hype so there's that so yeah we've always got a lot of different Irons in the Fire lots of books that you could hop on something for everyone if Kindred's Curse you know is not your thing or maybe you're reading it and you don't want to know anything about it yet then maybe go check out one of the other reads we've got going on too so there's that okay so should we just kick today off with I feel like we haven't done just a regular old like faves and fails in kind of a while i know all right guys we're going to trump it up ready go no there's no so much has been going on so lead the way you boo what's your fave and fail you want to talk about today yeah so I just picked from like the last month because I was like you know whatever fail fave and fail of recent lives of us days of our lives yes days of our lives yes um so my fail was okay so it kind of ties into my fave so one of my faves from the last like little bit here is that um I saw Book of Mormon for the first time um and it was so freaking good we went out to Denver to see it at their theater there i think it's like the Bule Theater in downtown Denver which was a great theater it was awesome um the location was great like we had perfect seats um and I had never seen Book of Mormon and it was excellent so nice if South Park kind of humor is your vibe then you definitely would like it for sure um but it's also just really clever great you know like I feel like the songs like just go listen to the soundtrack you know what I mean like see if that's like something that you'd find entertaining but so that was definitely a fave for me um my fail was that I ended up getting super sick on that trip um just like really bad cold and so then I spent like the next couple weeks just like in the trenches because of that cuz you know it's like when you get sick on vacation and then you like come home and everything just like falls apart so I'm like okay now that we're like midway through June I'm finally feeling kind of normalish yeah oh man like I felt well for a while but it's like I get behind in work and then I get behind at at home with like you know the house starts getting crazy and the laundry gets out of control and like all that kind of stuff so it's nice to like be a little bit more on track but I also wanted to give a shout out to I feel like movies are like making a comeback finally in a lot of different ways like there's some good movies that have been coming out which I feel like there was a really bad time for a while yeah or like nothing good was coming out at all um so we just went and saw Ballerina which is like the John Wick spin-off if any of you guys are into John Wick we definitely are um I liked this movie way more than I anticipated like we kind of went and saw it because we've seen all the other John Wick movies and we like them and we're like "Ah we'll see how the spin-off is." I liked it just as well if not better because it all focuses on an FMC instead of Kiana Reeves which we all love Keanu like don't get me wrong but she definitely has like badass FMC from like our book's energy yeah that's nice so definitely really violent pretty gory if that's not your thing I get it but definitely recommend if you can handle that kind of like action gore you know what I mean because it was so good it was so good so there's that nice and then I went and saw The Materialist last night oh how was it so it's not a romcom guys yeah no I know i didn't think it was a romcom but like old school romance vibes yeah it's more of like old school romance like a little old school like what genre what gener what generation like ' 90s 2000s maybe yeah like late 90s kind of I feel like it had that vibe a little bit um so this for anyone who doesn't know this is the one with Dakota Johnson Pedro Pascal and uh Chris Evans and so the previews and like ads and stuff I had seen for it made it seem like it was going to be more romcomy and so that's what I went into kind of like thinking it was going to be yeah um and then I I'm a huge Dakota Johnson fan i like Chris Evans because of Captain America and whatnot but like Pedro Pascal like he's fine like I liked him in Game of Thrones but I'm not like obsessed with him like so many people are but I was like "This is a good cast like this is probably going to be entertaining." And it was really good like I really enjoyed it but just know it's not funny it's not meant to be funny it's very it's a drama basically with like a couple little laughy moments kind of here or there um but I really liked it and I felt like for our contemporary romance readers they would particularly enjoy it I think so um I was a little bit like thrown because I was expecting it to be to be kind of funny and I was like hm okay like this is really serious like I don't know um but it panned out great it had an awesome like it just the plot was really well thought out i felt like the dialogue was really good the writing was excellent like both of the main male characters gave written by a woman energy um 100% and acted it really well so yeah I will definitely watch it again for sure both of them I'll probably watch again good so go see a movie because that way the movie industry won't completely die out yeah seriously my goodness yeah so those are my faves of the recent past and then yeah obviously my fail was just uh sickness which sucks no matter what yeah for sure it's for sure well I'll segue into that with one of my recent faves is also a movie so my husband and I had a date night which like rarely happens these days but his birthday's coming up and I'm like "Let's make it happen." and he's like "Oh I really want to see this movie Friendship." Which I had never heard of paul Rudd and Tim Robinson which you might know from all the memes and all the reals like he's the one that I mean what's the like famous one like I got to make money on this thing it's so good like and then the other one I don't know i always forget i always blank when I'm telling people but anyways it's very weird humor and then Paul Rudd if you know Paul Rudd of like when he started in the movie industry kind of like with comedies it's that kind of humor that awkward kind of humor and like I like I love you man like I love you man kind of awkward and um like there's another movie there's like two movies that this kind of like is together but like that awkward sarcastic kind of humor so if you like that Oh I got it okay friendship is like a blend of I love you man and cable guy oh my god but not it's so funny i don't want to like hype it up too much like go into it blind like only know that and then go because you know sometimes if you hype things up too much then it's a let down but it was we were the whole theater was busting up laughing the whole time because it's but you have to like that humor so know that going into it you know if you like that yeah i know you'll like it but those listeners out there if you don't I mean if you like our weird humor you you'll get it you know those who get it get it those who don't don't sorry but it was so weird and so funny so we like can't wait to watch it again i'm hoping that it's out if you don't watch it before we see you I'm hoping it's out that we can watch it when we go to your house i'll just watch it when you're here yeah that sounds good i don't know that your husband will love it i don't know if he likes that kind of humor but he's a tough he's a tough nut to crack i will say that when when he does laugh at a movie it really surprises me like if we're in the movie theater and I hear a little a little laugh from him I'm like "Whoa whoa this must be like really funny to him." Yeah it's very like that slow not Napoleon Dynamite i don't want to say that but how it's slow you know but it's also not and if you have to listen to the like it's a lot of facial expressions there's physical comedy but not like the stupid Paul Blart physical comedy no offense Paul Blart but like that you know what I mean yeah okay so yeah we had a great time i love it and then also you know it's summer now kids are off school so we've made it a point to go to the beach a couple times so that's been awesome my fail okay buckle up guys cuz I got to paint the picture i got to set the scene so it was just Father's Day and we went fishing okay i'm gonna preface this by saying this is a very traumatic story but good news is my dog knows how to swim so okay liz hasn't heard this yet no I have not this happened yesterday so we're at this little lake and we have to pick this spot to fish my husband does I should say and cuz there's only so many places and the lake is a little low so it's pretty slopey where we had to go because the good spots already picked you know we got there kind of late we're not early risers by any means so we're in this area by ourselves and there's a bit of a slope i took the dog i'm responsible for the dog i don't have a fishing license that's all them i just deal with the dog and so I take her up to go to the bathroom out of the way of everybody and it's super slloy and I'm wearing stupid shoes cuz I'm an idiot i don't know and she is like she listens to me but she's obsessed with my husband in like a weird way so anytime we're like away from him for like 5 seconds it's like oh my gosh where have you been so she sees him and I'm walking her down the mountain and I'm she's on a leash obviously and I have to just let her go because she's going to pull me down it's going to be bad news bears so I just let her go i'm only like 10 feet from them so I'm like he'll grab it or I'll be right behind her i'm not like slow you know i'll catch her it's fine and she just goes and sits next to him so I'm like going I go to grab her leash she it happened in 5 seconds she looks at my husband looks at the So the lake it has about maybe 5 ft of the like algae and maybe like a little bit of reads but it's not too high it's just a few inches of reads but it's very green so and when I take her around my neighborhood if there's a bunch of green tall grass she just goes nuts in it and gets the zooies so that's what I think she intended because she doesn't usually care about water she's not really interested she'll like dip her toe in but she at the beach she's not in the water like the dog she's just like I'm staying back with you guys and pool so it's not that she's against water but she doesn't really care right now and we hadn't take her swimming specifically yet cuz we haven't really had an opportunity so she I went to go grab the leash she looks at my husband looks at the grass jumps full speed into it which I'm thinking is like two inches no sinks into the water howsty but floats back up and she just instantly like thank God dogs have like the natural ability to swim because she just starts paddling and then it was like a little sleep but we're like "Come on like try not to freak out." Like "Yay Molly." Like "Come on let's go." And my dog by the way is a horse dog you know she's just tapped at 85 pounds at a year old and a giant puppy and she's been really good she's made like a lot of progress in training and stuff but she has those puppy moments where it's like I'm going to go get the zooies in this grass that's not grass that is water so and so I'm trying to like encourage her to come out cuz she's p I can tell she's paddling fine it's just trying to figure out a non-slippery spot so she goes right forward out it's too slippery and then she starts coming to the other side i'm like getting ready to take off my shoes to pull her out but I also don't want her to drown me because she's 85 pound wet dog and so I'm about to like get in and grab her but she pull she's able to p herself out but I literally you guys what childhood trauma flashed before my eyes in that like 5second span that she was in the water i'm like this is like never ending story with the horse because she has like her her chest harness on with the leash and I'm like I'm going to have to pull her out of this muck it's not really muk but you know I'm gonna have to pull her out of the water like the horse and never ending story but she got away but freaking fog of sadness yeah my dog but luckily we didn't overreact internally i was overreacting but outwardly you know cuz I don't want to traumatize my dog either we're around water a lot and so it was fine everything was fine but it was a fail and you know what lessons have been learned so hey that's all we can do right and then we just like got her obviously she shook all over me but I'm like "Hey whatever." And we all just started laughing and we probably like people across the lake saw the whole thing it was not a very big lake it just was not expecting none of us expected it to be like 5t deep oh wow that's so funny it reminds me of those like have you seen any of those like reels or whatever of like the newscaster who's just talking and there's like a sinkhole behind him or like something like that and then someone just like goes across the street and falls in he's like "Oh another one have you seen him?" That's what I pictured it's just like Molly going in and just falling down in there if you ever see anybody's you know Instagram stories like mine I was posting about you know look at our lake day so fun that's the stuff you don't see behind the scenes like being drenched cuz our dog got in the water and she's muddy and then my kids are complaining cuz they're hot and there's tons of bugs so you definitely it's a good reminder that you guys you know you're watching people's Instagram stories or reals Tik Toks you're seeing the highlights most of the time although I did wish I had it on video but that would be Okay so should we get into Glow of the Everflame and our spoilerfree review let's do it it's time that's what the people are here for let's go okay you want to go first or do you want me to go first go first go ahead okay i rated Globe of the Everflame a five star M because I felt like the things that Spark of the Everflame was in my opinion lacking a little bit um like it definitely like built up from there so it was a good book too if that makes sense like I obviously knew that it was like part of a bigger series so I'm not expecting everything to get wrapped up or anything like that but I felt like it was a really good way to build on all the characters and the plot and everything like that from book one to make it more complex and interesting and to keep that slow burn going um while still keeping our full attention and then creating even more of a complex world to go into book three so it was a five-st star read for me for sure nice good yeah what about spice i think I rated the first one a one spice yeah i would probably say that this one would be like a one spice as well yeah yeah i'd agree yeah it's a It's a lot of slow burning stuff guys like just know it's like the slow burn of the century yeah definitely takes the cake so far takes the cake so far but like in a good like in a good way so if that makes sense it's not a It's not a slow burn to nowhere and it's not annoying either you just have to have faith in the process mhm what about you you know a month ago when we did the live for this one I was struggling with a four or five stars and I can't say it's changed i'm still struggling between four and five stars i'm just being honest if I believed in half which I don't I'd give it four and a half but just because the only reason why I right now after only let's say reading Glow of the Everflame that's what we're saying right now um it's just not one of those books that I think I'm going to like lose sleep about in a good way and is lifechanging however I'm very much enjoying it and I do like it a lot i I I liked the first book a lot and I do like this one just as well yeah yeah so um I'm liking all the dynamics i like that things are definitely not as more not as predictable as a fantasy reader as they could be i think that the choices that Pen Colt is making is not what you would think that she would make with different characters so that's kind of refreshing mhm so that's all I'll say about that without giving anything away without spoiling anything yeah no I like that good assessment yeah i feel like it's a really It was a in my opinion a really great book too like cuz that's what I thought when I read book one and rated it four stars i was like I would love for this to pick up a little bit and turn into a five star yeah and so that's what this did for me so yeah it definitely did pick up with all of these star ratings when it comes to especially fantasy such as this with the fourth book not even being out yet at the time of filming this sometimes we've found when we do rereads it totally changes because there's different tie-ins and then you're more connected and things like that but as of right now that's where I land so fair yep so should we get into our spoiler section and our five sentence summary let's go glow of the Everflame that was a good one yeah thanks spoilers up ahead guys watch out enter Gong Man let's go i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready good five sentences Liz cuz I need a refresher too here we go okay glow of the Everflame in five sentences or less dm refuses to acknowledge that she is the new queen of Lumnos insisting that she is hallucinating due to her refusal to consume the flame route with Teller and Lily support DM retreats to the royal hunting lodge which her blood unlocks further proving she is a royal and in fact descended causing her to mostly accept her destiny one luther comes to the lodge to retrieve her accusing her of killing the king while she accuses him of doing horrible things like killing half-blood children she eventually conceds in order to keep Sarai her gyver who she instantly bonds with from coming to find her but also because secretly she has decided to use her power to take down the descended from the inside mhm two luther ever the loyal soldier introduces DM as their new queen to everyone in House Corbbois and suggests that in order to keep the other houses from challenging her crown that she form an alliance and pretend to be of the Corvois family ultimately DM agrees and spends much of the time before her coronation ball getting to know all the relevant political players of the house including Eleanor her first official adviser Elix her war general and Taran Luther's cousin while Luther who has gained her trust by admitting he has been aiding in the half breed children's escape and helping the guardians and her mom manages to use her emotions to pull her magic out of her revealing her strength three longest sentence ever i was going to say bits of a long one but we'll allow it we'll allow it it's hard when we start getting into the books that are like 600 plus pages yeah good luck with heat it's like a thousand and so much is happening oh my gosh good luck okay uh DM decides to make her dad one of her top war advisers but does not take into consideration how much the descendant hate humids and he is murdered by a stranger i put that in air quotes cuz we don't really know causing DM to fall into a dark depression only Teller and Luther help to pull her out of before she has to complete the challenging at the challenging all houses band together to prevent her from becoming queen but she accepts that her power is part of her fights the challenger of her choosing with her immense power and wins ultimately sparing his life and showing mercy until he turns on her so she has no choice but to kill him what a dumb dumb he had it coming he had it coming dm decides not to marry Henry because he was not there for her when she needed him most and travels to also Yeah and travels to the island of how do you say it curiel cur Oh dang it i forgot i don't know yeah but you guys know right the island with Luther who promises she'll get to see her mother soon where she meets with the other leaders of the realms to officially become queen but when her blood touches the ancient god stone as part of their ritual it and everything around it explodes five and a great job to you Liz woohoo ends on a pretty good uh cliffhanger yet again so we love that i feel like I feel like that one of the things I do really enjoy about this series is that Spark of the Everflame obviously ended on a really uh interesting cliffhanger so did Glow um but I do feel like they're also wrapped up in a really nice way too like it's not like like I didn't feel like the ending of either book was like needlessly chaotic or like I closed the book and was like great now I'm so confused I don't know what happened kind of a thing yeah um so I did appreciate that for sure yeah definitely agreed okay so what were three tropes that you loved from Good Old Glow of the Everflame found family with Yeah that's on mine too yep the royal court too she's finding out people are cool man also not cool but like obviously the ones that she likes are cool yeah witty banter and court and political intrigue within the different royal families yeah so I put found family i love series that make the side characters just as interesting as the main characters totally i think that's one of the reasons why Throne of Glass is such a like beloved series because it's like we loved so many characters and I feel like you know with Taran with Elise like even Sarai like I feel like we're getting that and um or even you know with her brother with her brother with Luther's sister she's a badass yeah yeah there's just a lot of great characters so I definitely put found family um I also put political subtrifuge and scheming so you know that's something that I find super fascinating big Game of Thrones fan over here for that reason um because I don't know it makes it like a little bit more realistic in my opinion cuz it's like a constant vibe for power you know um and then I put slowb burn slash man yearning took me a second to figure out what that meant but yeah slow burn but um yeah basically you know that Luther is just like he's tormented you know and I love that that back and forth that they've got going on throughout this whole book and you know arguably some of the last book too so yes what about a trope that you did not like locked into like a bad blood magical agreement yep yeah did you put the same thing yep literally cuz I'm tired of it it's like stop doing that like have you ever read a fantasy book before come on DM haven't you ever learned anything golly don't you know yet that it's a bad idea to enter into a blood bargain with literally any other magical being or other or demon or any other entity at all you know what I mean it's like come on like we know it's a bad idea yeah yeah but hey I guess it has to happen yeah it happened I guess yeah um what about a micro trope that you either liked or disliked well it stood out to me this time so I'll mention it uh training sequence you know of some sort it just was only kind of touched on so I would have wanted it to be done a little differently for my personal opinion just seemed like she could have been better prepared for things and her magic because we only kind of touch on it but but I also am one to hate a training montage so I'm conflicted on this one it stood out to me for for whatever it is well I think what makes it unique is that by definition DM is the most powerful descended in the realm right so theoretically I think that it's like how do you train the most powerful descended in the realm right and so I think that's why like pretty much all we get is Luther like basically needling her until it comes out you know what I mean because he it's like it makes her a little bit different of an FMC which I kind of almost appreciate because it's like she has to learn it on her own and Luther kind of gives her the space to like do that you know what I mean like because I feel like in a lot of other books it's like I almost feel like the male main character is like the superior warrior who has to like quote unquote teach the FMC how to fight and I think Luther's like "No I'm here i'm I'm here to support you." And Alex and um Taran are as well but like not in that kind of way you know what I mean like they're there to support her but not necessarily to like teach her the ways yeah well and I appreciate that she already has training from her family you know how to be a good warrior so it's really just pulling out her magic but yeah I just felt like that definitely stood out to me the training sequence but only because it felt like could have been a little bit more but hey yeah like it was minimal it was very minimal for how big of his epic like challenge this is is what I mean yeah yeah totally totally um my favorite micro trope was dragon bestie a Yeah i love Sarai i have from the very beginning and she's one of my favorite characters for sure so I just I really appreciate that like dragon bond that they have yes agreed so obviously these books are exploding everywhere they're getting super popular you can find them I mean I think I've seen them at Target now like you can find them kind of everywhere i think they're coming out with the the limited edition paperbacks right now that have the beautiful stencileled edges i just got an email from Arcane Society that our box that's coming is special editions and I am so excited cuz they're so pretty oh my god they're so nice I will say most of the books cuz I get an Arcane Society box I want to say like every two months and most of the books that I get in there um I have already but they're usually ones I liked a lot but then in like a fancy new version so it's fun um but do you feel like these books deserve the hype and popularity yeah definitely especially reading them and how it's not like I said you don't you expect her to make decisions a certain way and she doesn't so that's refreshing yeah as frustrating as sometimes it can be it's just very realistic um FMC I think because we are kind of getting a different DM in this book than we got with the first because she's a different person like she had all of this power magic political so much change in a blink of an eye how would any of us handle that she's well and she's literally and figuratively less muted right mhm she's like doesn't have the flame root in her bloodstream anymore like muting all of her feelings emotions and magic but then I think as she experiences more things and um just goes through more of this crazy stuff she's growing as a person obviously so she's learning how to be herself more and like wield that power literal and figurative um yeah I really appreciate that too yeah it's like the best way I can describe it is like I feel like people lots of times want to criticize like some of our favorite FMC's but then it's like do you remember what it was like to be 20 yeah you know it's like watching that show that I love on HBO that came out forever ago but I watched it somewhat recently called Girls you know I know a lot of people love that but it's like literally about these young women probably ages 20 to 24ish um just living their lives and it's like watching it can be so frustrating because you're like why are you making this decision you're so dumb and then you'll sit back for a second and I'd be like well when I was in college I probably would have done that yeah well yep so hey so yeah um like I feel like that's kind of how it is with DM where it's like we can get frustrated with her choices but it's like she's making the choice that she sees to be the best option given her her minimal experience and age I think you know and trying trying to still stay true to herself while making adjustments to her new world i mean and they she didn't even like the Descended before and now she's basically one of them you know and having to grapple between two feet in both states i don't know like straddling the line and what would that look like so I really appreciate that Penn is exploring this in a different way because I think there is a lot of there's a lot of people probably listening too that DM drives them crazy they can't stand her they don't they like this book but they don't like her but you know I just feel like it's kind of a lose-lose at this point where if she just made her another Al um Allen Allen Galifanakis Alen Galifinius is that right did I say it right if they made if she made it just another one of her you know then you're going to get criticized as being that you know so this is definitely a different take on an FMC and I just appreciate that because what would you do if you suddenly had this power well and that's incredibly difficult because it's like you know one of the things we talked to Penn about that I think is really awesome about this series is like that redefinition of like strength and what that means and in DM's case you know her hill that she's ready to die on is the fact that she doesn't want the descended to suffer and she doesn't want the mortal humans to suffer either like she wants to figure out like how can we cohabitate in this world in a way that you know is mutually beneficial for everyone or as many people as possible with as little bloodshed as possible and so you know I mean she's essentially trying to like do her absolute best to like minimize the the hierarchy that they've had going on for the last several hundred years so that's a huge task to place on the shoulders of like a 20-year-old who with an identity crisis essentially yeah and there's so many opportunities for her to be stabby which she chooses not to be which is something we're not really used to in fantasy right mhm it's very easy to just throw the blade around you know well because I feel like that's complicated it's complicated to be a female main character who shows mercy because that's very very easily um reduced to weakness yeah mhm mhm so I feel like the balance there is really great i feel like a lot of our favorite FMC's are stabby because you know that's something that they're really not supposed to be yeah and so that shows strength but I think this is going out on another limb saying like"No I'm trained and capable of being stabby but I'm choosing not to be." Yeah that's a big deal exactly very well said exactly mhm so let's see here what was your favorite part of this yeah basically everything that we just said like her very real struggle with being good you know whatever definition that is what her version is and just being like everybody else you know being stabby not choosing violence I think in a world that is very violent is challenging so I like that lens that Penn is bringing to this what about you yeah i mean even even just her sparing the life of her challenger there at the end you know and then only killing him when basically she had no other options you know what I mean um it was either her or him so yeah I really liked that my favorite part was when the inner circle or for the this conversation I've been call my notes I've been calling him the cadre right the inner circle vow themselves to DM at the challenging that was one of the best moments in my opinion cuz it was like that second when DM realizes and the reader realizes too that they're like in it for the long haul like they're dieh hard like it's officially the found family that we're going to be working with through the duration of the series um so I love that and then I I also put down when Luther says this and then I put this quote here i should put all four of your heads on a sp or on a pike for treason i just assaulted the queen and you cowards stood there and watched me do it the next time someone lays a hand on her and you don't kill them where they stand i'll carve out your eyeballs and feed them to the hounds it doesn't matter if it's me or the regent or blessed mother Lumnos herself do your damn jobs and protect our queen yeah so that's when like the guard outside of her room lets him in and I was like I love that so much cuz he's just such a grumpy but like at the same time he's so in love with her yeah yeah that's so sweet so sweet yep um what about your least favorite part well Dia making that stupid freaking deal with Ramos come on i was I know we talked about it but you know I was literally screaming like "What are you doing?" But hey it worked out it did work out so hey I was surprised i was like "Oh this is going to butter in the butt." And Pen Cole was like "No it didn't." Yeah did it work out which is refreshing it is it's kind It's kind of like I don't hate it as much as miscommunication but it's up there because it's like you see the conflict happening before it happens and it's frustrating cuz they're making the mistakes that you don't want them to make you know what I mean but then and then it worked out so I appreciated that it wasn't cuz when it I think so often times we've see we've seen these deals being made with the fay and everything we talked about in a recent book we covered i don't remember which one it was that you said that was like your you hated that because it makes it predictable you know if it because you're like "Okay well this is going to be a problem you know and then it because it wasn't it redeemed it." But still in that moment I was like"No." Yeah well that's why I said it gives like miscommunication vibes because I get so frustrated when that's happening and whenever you have an author who throws a curveball in there and you think it's going to be a miscommunication but then they choose to talk and work it out and it's not it's like such a relief it's like "Oh thank God." Yeah i didn't have to go through that again i think cuz it's happened so often that it feels lazy when it's like you know just they got to throw something in there so it's nice when it's not um my least favorite part was this is what I put when all the stupid kingdoms banded together to challenge her essentially out of pure pressure like dummies that's what I put i hated that i was like really come on like we weren't supposed to like that so obviously meant for us to dislike it um and then when Luther tries to sacrifice himself that frustrated me i was like dude we get it we get it but like come on you know that thing about all the royal houses banning together though because of peer pressure sounds like art imitating life don't it interesting interesting interesting interesting guys interesting let that marinate for a sec books are political stop it okay okay so who is your favorite character sarai the Gurn yeah you talked about that so agreed she's great loved her yeah that's what I put everyone i literally put everyone i said I love the inner circle so much so Taran Elise Elanor and Sarai is who I specifically put down yeah yeah yeah but I feel like we can't forget um what's her brother's name i'm literally forgetting his name oh can't forget it already forgot it uh Henry no not Henry no um no will William Alan Gelfus i don't know i don't I don't remember we already forgot her brother her brother someone's screaming it right now tell her tell her tell her tell her yeah yeah yeah yeah we can't forget close will tell we'll tell william tell her there you go okay well there you go kind of uh what about your least favorite character remis even his name yeah remis sucks yeah it's hard because it's like I forget that he's freaking Luther's dad that's why I suck you know what I mean i know but it's like I'll be like "God this guy sucks like can't they get rid of him?" And then I'm like "Oh my god it's Luther's dad." I forget like constantly that it's Luther's dad i literally picture the hunchback of Notre Dame guy too so it doesn't help he's the worst not the hunchback but like I thought you meant the hunchback i know that's pretty funny though no the like creepy the creepy church guy with the hat i got it too i was like I don't understand why what's wrong with him yeah he is nice no um I picture I was going to say I picture more of like a Jafar type yeah yeah you know um kind of like waiting in the wings all creepy you know just like opportunist for sure an opportunist yeah uh my least favorite character was Oral Lee come for me I don't care she's pissing me off in this book and I feel like she is causing more harm than good by being by doing what she's doing and being who she's being she's basically living a double life okay and so it's like I feel as though she just pissed me off because she could have clued DM in to some of these things so that we didn't end up with all these issues yeah and we see a glimpse of actually her at the end there too it was like the epilogue maybe mhm oh my goodness so she was my least favorite character like at this point because she's like the frustrating one who I'm like what are you doing like I think the right thing but it could have been avoided yeah or at least panned out differently okay let's see here um any feminist themes that stood out to you in this book i mean we kind of already talked about it but that strength in nonviolent ways yep yeah that was the main one for me this round yeah i put strength and compassion and empathy mhm yeah mercy over vengeance uh being inherently worthy to wield the power that is inside of us all along beautiful mhm oh I also put uh the push against societal expectations especially in the royal court so advocating for Luther's sister and Ellen is that her name and Elanor uhhuh and teller and just different relationships and things like that and encouraging all of them to kind of push back a little bit yeah yeah resistance for sure resistance um I put emotion is not weak or inherently feminine logic is not strong or inher in inherently masculine mhm so I think it's like that um DM is a really good example of turning those kind of very binary belief systems on their head so I appreciated that for sure let's see what about ways that perhaps DM stands out as an FMC or anything that you really appreciated about her character in this book honestly all the things that we've kind of already discussed we kind of went in there a little bit i can't think of anything else off the top of my head or in my notes that we haven't already touched on today okay um yeah I just put that she isn't rejecting her power and is standing firm in her belief that she can bring peace and justice to both sides and minimize casualties so she's thinking in a both and in both and terms instead of black and white terms yes um so she's using both logic and emotion to guide her position so I think that that's really useful because obviously you know if you're a woman growing up in this world you understand uh how that works but you know because of the fact that often times if we choose to show emotion it is equated with weakness or you know being illogical or incapable of like solving a problem because we're too emotional right quote unquote um so I think that what's great is that she's very emotional about these topics as she should be but that's not that's she's allowed to hold that as we all are with logic and decisionm to be an even better leader yeah for sure definitely so I really liked that and then we got to bring Luther up do we still feel like he is being a feminist yeah absolutely he had every makings to be able to throw a hissy fit about not being the one chosen to hold the crown right yeah and instead he steps back and he props her up and he pushes her to be to fall into that power you know encourages it not pushes but supports very supportive support luther is for sure one of the most He's like Rowan level supportive yeah you know I feel like that is Yeah that definitely makes him a feminist for sure there's just no other way around it you know yeah definitely yeah I really appreciate his character a lot um what about any quotes that stood out to you do you have any written down i have if a man made you doubt whether his love for you would survive anything he does not deserve you mhm yeah good old Luther mhm oh I wrote down so many quotes guys and this was like my paired down um so this is one that came from her dad if you are outnumbered or overwhelmed or if all seems lost just keep moving onward until the very last breath that ends up being one of her mantras throughout so I did really like that mhm uh I did not need to surrender to my power and helpless submission nor did I need to beg it to come save me all this time I had been waiting for the godhood to embrace me when what I really needed to do was embrace myself yes yes indeed let's see what else once upon a time I had been a person of happiness and joy i'd laughed as deeply as I'd loved i'd made light-hearted jokes instead of cruel insults or threats i'd been patient and compassionate quick to forgive this woman I had become now I despised her she was strong undeniably so but in all of the wrong ways strength should be fueled by love just as easily as hate i had known that once and I desperately wanted to find that part of myself again so it's going back to kind of those same themes that we were talking about before and I could go on all day like literally as you were saying before this book is like 600 plus pages and I highlighted a million things um you know Luther also has a lot of good lines so he does he does um how would you say that the spice was in this book do you have any notes on that it's got that slow burn it's burning in a good way like we said so I'm enjoying it well I put you know spice is good it's because we know we know that they have some other deeper connection you know I don't know we don't know what that is with the descended right like are they faded mates are they like we know that they've had those visions of themselves yeah on battle fields you know was it in the past is it in the future we don't really know but we know that they have a greater connection luther knows something like we know Luther knows something that he's not telling us about um and he's fighting it so it's like very It's like that perfect balance cuz he wants her to choose yep you know since especially since she's half you know mortal might feel differently so he wants her to come up with it on his on her own so I appreciate that another supportive you know check in the box yeah absolutely yep um what about will you read sequels already am yeah yes absolutely like even if we weren't doing this series for the podcast I would still read sequels because there's so much I need to know like there's so many more things like that I want to find out you know so like I put here like WTF like what happened with the Hearthstone who who is her father what is her mom's plan what are the depths of her powers and what does this have to do with Luther like there's just so many like unanswered questions but not in a bad way but just in a way that like is building this really intricate world and so yeah even if we weren't reading it for the podcast I would absolutely still continue on for sure absolutely yeah what about the audio book did you read the audiobook at all or did you just do Kindle or what did you Yeah so for Spark I physically read it glow I switched to audio book loved it great voice 10 out of 10 mhm going good i agree i bounced back and forth for both books I think um if I'm remembering correctly and yeah I love the audiobook narrator is great for sure um not cringe whatsoever like she does all of the voices really well yeah I would highly recommend the audio book if that's more of your jam for sure okay any final words on this before we get into some reviews no don't got them all right all right so reviews from the people of Globe the Ever let's go i did good reads where did you pull yours from i got good reads i have the bad reviews you have the good reviews uh yeah okay okay you want me to start with the bad yeah let's start with the bad we'll end with the good all right we got what's our total here we have 100 158,577 ratings mhm that's a lot y overall 4.35 stars so very good very good very good this book hasn't been out that long even though it was published first indie right and then re maybe a year yeah if it she first published it indie then pulled it to you know relaunch traditional something like that so that's good that's a lot of reviews but we're going to start with the bad star so one star here we go that way we get a nice pooling of everybody's opinions it says"Thank God that's over by far my most disappointing read of the year dm takes my number one spot for least favorite FMC of all time the most upsetting part was about this to me is that there were things I did like about the book but in the end DM was the series demise for me and was incapable of looking past being one of the most insufferable characters I have ever read that's kind of a lot of what I saw people saying you know I was watching like some Tik Tok reviews and stuff it's just people really don't like DM um that and struggling with the slowburn so you know hey one star i promise no one is as utterly disappointed in this as I am it just did not hit at the end of book one I was really eager to see how the story continued felt that the story was only just beginning and could catapult itself to top tier romance romanty status but unfortunately I was not obsessed with the direction of the plot events to put it lightly dare I say and please no one be offended because this is genuinely genuinely saddens me but a lot of things were coming across as cringey to me dm's decisions were constantly so out of pocket i was literally the meme of this woman with a math math equations floating around in her head yeah someone says "Just hot garbage fmc is trash." Really i read the book three only because there aren't any good wikis to tell me what's happening well they continued one star but you still continued interesting that's kind of weird to me mhm like you're being dramatic with the one star yeah like seriously have you kept Yeah if you kept on reading okay yeah i mean honestly over and over like I said it's a lot of people do not like DM which like I get she's very frustrating but I think if you know that it's deliberate it helps you know what I mean so maybe maybe I'm biased in my take on DM because I know that Penn very purposely wrote her the way that she did and I can see her as someone who's struggling with all of this pressure that she's going to be under now everything in her life changing yeah having those emotional aspects changing cuz not having the flame route I give her more grace than it than if it was just like a frustrating FMC yeah i guess I just I appreciate a realistic FMC as well it's like oh I'm sorry what would you do in this situation i'd probably just die you know what I mean like I would just be dead like instantly like okay like I didn't make it through any of the stuff you know um but yeah so I definitely I agree with you i think maybe maybe have a little bit of grace for these characters not being lit like literally perfect like perfect yeah or stabby or stabby mhm um okay so lots of five star reviews of course keysia rated at five stars wow a book that evokes every emotion imaginable is a rare find and this one did just that what an exhilarating experience it was to dive into these pages after the first book set such a high standard my expectations were through the roof and I'm thrilled to say that the sequel didn't just meet them it exceeded them spectacularly so nice yeah I loved that this one Flora rated it five stars everything hurts so bad after this god this one was great too charity five stars wow pen cold just create a cliffhanger and push me off of it why don't you um Josie five stars oh my god I'm screaming this book was pure perfection i am so impressed by the series it just keeps getting better and better the slowburn romance the plot the twists i cannot wait for more DM and Luther in the next book i am absolutely feral over them this will forever be a favorite of mine so nice you know you're either here for the slow burn and for the fallible FMC or that makes you mad it kind of seems like you know and that's fine there's something for everybody yeah for sure definitely okay so I think that we pretty much covered everything from this book two Glow of the Everflame that way we're nice and prepared for the doozy of Heat of the Everflame i'm like wondering how long book four is going to be too i'm like "Oh my gosh." I know there's still so many there's so much stuff so much stuff we need to figure out okay so if you feel like we've covered it should we just wrap it up with a smash or pass unhinge smasher pass let's go so this is if you were in high school so don't make it weird okay yeah got it if you were in high school smasher pass you have to pick one do you pick Zach or do you pick Slater i don't even remember which one's which zach is the blondhaired one slater is like the dark-haired one who kind of had like a Yeah you know I think I saw pros and cons to both back in the day you know i don't really remember anything about their personalities cuz I only watched Save by the Bell like a few times um so I guess based off the look I don't know i gotta choose hm well I think high school me probably would have picked either one they're they're neck and neck wait I don't know ashley is fully Why choose at this moment so that's fine oh yeah yeah cuz I wasn't like fully like all right for either of them but I wasn't like no either you know does that make sense so it's like oh either is fine yeah help me out here our high school experience h cuz it's the dimples that want to get me but but the man it's very Insync vibes to the blonde one so knowing the the boys I would choose in the mainstream media back then I'm going to go with the blonde one with the blonde one yeah he's very in sync uh Justin Timberlake vibes and I was all about that yeah he was he was kind of like the good guy you know Slater was a little bit more of the bad the bad boy i would have picked Slater for sure yeah that's just Yeah see if I knew more about their personality it probably would have changed things but I don't I'm curious and you know hopefully we've talked about doing an episode about this in the future but I think we may have talked about it a little bit on the podcast the reason why this came up for me in a smasher past is because of that book A One in a Millennial where she has a whole chapter dedicated to like millennial popular TV so obviously Save by the Bell is on there she talks about how problematic both characters are and now I'm like interested to go back and like maybe watch some a little bit just to find out so either way it sounds like it's not a great idea but hey who would you guys yeah uh okay for me I have another '9s throwback for you okay i love it unhinged smash or pass okay bill Nye the Science Guy i mean this is Wait this is because I just saw someone make a thirst trap video that came across my feed and it was hil and I was like "Well maybe then." It was so funny what did it look like when he was young do we know yeah cuz that's what it was it was like the you know how they do it like the weird like edits that they do people they did it a lot with the guy that does Snow in Ballad of Songbirds okay like the zooming in and the slow they made him more angsty looking like rebellious um good bone structure that's so funny i'm Yeah he does have good bone structure i just I did a quick Google and apparently people are saying that young Bill Nye looks shockingly like Daniel Tosh and I'm like that is true so Google that if you want a little treat yeah he does um I'm going to say pass on looks but smash on personality because you know he changed all of our lives yeah mhm knowing what I know now smash smash just straight away was a good advocate for PBS and everything as well too that's true public funding yeah i get on board with that nice all right you guys well I think that about does it for this episode of Kindred's Curse coverage back to you in the studio felt like a news reporter there for a second thousand thousand pages when you get back to us okay yeah get to your homework because not next week but the week after will be our third episode installment not in counting the interview we're trying to do it every other week as you notice in case uh you know those who aren't reading it they a little break you have time to make sure you read Heat of the Everflame before the next one comes out make sure to like follow and subscribe anywhere you like listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube and you guys we'll see you next Tuesday next Tuesday bye[Music]