INHERIT THE FLAME – Megan E. O’Keefe

I haven’t been particularly enamored with the first two books in the ‘Scorched Continent’ series by Megan O’Keefe but I had already requested and received this third book in the series before I had gotten through the previous books or I likely wouldn’t have put in the request. However, this volume rises up just enough to make it worth the read.

Lovable rogue Detan Honding has successfully retrieved Nouli from the clutches of the empire and now they return to his ancestral home. But the city is under siege by Thratia’s army. Detan convinces Nouli to help stem the tide, but the empire is also on the march to strike against Detan’s home and his aunt is forced to enter in to a temporary treaty with Thratia to defend the city. Detan, meanwhile works to find a way to fight alongside Thratia while ensuring that they are on the outside of the wall when the empire battle is finished.

O’Keefe appears to have toned Detan down a bit. That or I’ve grown used to him. He was much less obnoxious in his attitude – less smart-ass wise-cracking and more determined. He wasn’t a comic-book character finally, but more the reluctant hero.

Ripka plays a strong role in this volume and I definitely enjoyed following her exploits much more than Detan’s or Nouli’s in this book.

The story moved well and the different sub-plots converged nicely to finish off this series nicely.

And yet I still never really cared too much. While I understand the importance of the city and why it is strategically important and Detan would want to defend it and others would want to take it over, nothing about this story caught my interest and so this just became a very average read – nothing that I can really recommend and nothing that I’d encourage people to avoid. There were some clever ideas here, with some nice world-building in the series, but it just wasn’t put together well enough to be the choice above so many other books out there.

Looking for a good book? Inherit the Flame by Megan E. O’Keefe is the end of the ‘Scorched Continent trilogy and ends the series nicely but it doesn’t help the series stand out in a world full of epic fantasy books.