A review by coffeekat3
Cursed by Fire: The Immortal Brothers by Jacquelyn Frank

2.0

I picked this book because I was looking for a fantasy romance, it’s not YA which is my usual choice for fantasy romance, but I wanted a more developed romance and thought I would find that in this book. The over-all writing is not bad, but the plot is not my favorite. The “bad guy” is easily known, and the main female, Selinda, is portrayed to be delicate and weak. There are moments where she exhibits strength, but she has lived a life where others seem to make decisions for her. Personally I prefer more fire in my female leads, but the structure of gender roles were well known from the start that a woman is for making children, not ruling. That being said, the king was not a great ruler and weak as well. The male lead- Dethan- seems to support giving Selinda more power, while at the same time making demands of her (and she often obliges) which I found at odds with one another. He makes demands of her while telling her she is strong? What? I guess I would have preferred the approach as: “Selinda, what do you think a ruler should do in this situation?” But he doesn’t do that, he really is often the one making decisions or suggesting things to Selinda. Note that there is also physical abuse in this book and taunting with rape from the “bad guy”, which can be off-putting in a romance.
I found the POV structure to be odd. It was always told in third-person omniscient (I believe) because in one paragraph we could see Selinda’s POV and then it would switch to Dethan’s in the same paragraph. It made for some confusing POV switching.
The ending was meh. There was a battle. There was some magic. Some “I can’t lose you” talk. I gave it two stars because at least I finished it, but there was something missing from this book that left me uninterested. Perhaps I just wasn’t invested enough in the characters.