Hi friends, happy Friday, I hope you’ve all had a good week. Today I’m posting my review of Julie C. Dao’s novel, Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix, the second novel in the Rise of the Empress trilogy.

You can read my review of book one: Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix by: Julie C. Dao: It’s been roughly twenty years since Xifeng has come into power as Empress of Feng Lu, but because of her ruthlessness the kingdom has fallen into desperate times. The only one who can dethrone her is Princess Jade, the true heir of the empire and Xifeng’s step-daughter. Jade doesn’t want the crown, but in order to set the world right, she knows what needs to be done; raise the Dragon Lords and defeat Xifeng and the Serpent God. It won’t be easy, and she must pull at all her strengths to succeed. This trilogy has gotten very intense. The reader wasn’t prepared for the twists and turns that this novel had in store, but they were on board for the ride. This was fast-paced and the plot was super interesting. The reader liked this one better than the first book because it felt like the stakes were higher and we knew exactly where our characters stood. Our morally grey Xifeng completely turned evil in this novel and it was brutal to watch her, but it also brought out a lot of emotions in many of the characters. The ongoing journey that Jade had to embark on was fun to read, not only was it fast-paced but the folklore stories that came to life throughout left for such a pleasant reading experience. It was good to see characters from the first book sprinkled into this one for different purposes, some we didn’t know who they were until after and the reveals were perfect. The growth of not only our main characters, but even our side characters were so well done, especially ones we saw in the last book; they became stronger. The power of love in this was beautifully written; it felt real and raw and showed that love isn’t always sweet and touching, but showed how letting go can be a sign of love; very well written. In the end, this was such an action-packed, thrilling novel that didn’t fall victim to second book syndrome and truly elevated plots and characters and brought them to new heights. We’re not sure how this trilogy is going to end, but the reader is excited to find out.