Cabbage the Sheep’s Reviews > Jeweled Fire > Status Update

What a dramatic ending! But more importantly, Corene & Foley are adorable & I love them. So good. Everything wrapped up nicely. Evil advisor was the mastermind, as expected. Not really cool with Garameno faking his legs disability. I get he was exploiting the ableism in his society to survive but it's still a bad taste. Nice to know Jiramondi is getting out of that trash country at least. But ambassador Corene! Woo!

That affirmation of all people of any affinity was really nice (an understatement). Which makes me want to put this in fun time fantasy but I think it should be almost fun time since there are several triggers in the first half. But they most definitely get better & that's the general theme of the story again, like Royal Airs, of finding good supportive respectful people for your crew & finding yourself & striving.

Intrigue~ but it's kind of chill? It's almost fun time fantasy. Given all the build up, Corene will 100% need to flee the palace before the end, possibly with her new friends. & since Alette is a target from her father, I wouldn't be surprised if they need to get her to safety from assassins. Also the empty 6th floor is going to be important. I like Leah & look forward to her full story next book.

Dun dun duuuuuuuh. Intrigue~. Unfortunately there is too much of it to be fun time fantasy, plus Malinqua is homophobic & ableist & low key sexist so not a fun time, though it isn't a constant badgering, perhaps more like real life unfortunately. I want to go back to Welce where they literally don't have a word for same sex romance bc why ever would there ever need to be any differentiation when loving someone?

Oh I am 1000% on board with the Corene/Foley romance. It is so incredibly obvious given the way they interact together. It is going tobe beautiful watching them fall in love given their friendship. Leah is a intriguing new character & I hope the best for her, though given she gets the next book, her problems won't be resolved until she returns to Welce. But she is hard-core & will be fun to read. Intrigue~

I am 100% on board now with the Corene/Foley romance so I look forward to that. Met the 1st princess. Hope she & the 2nd princess will be friends rather than enemies. Too soon to tell but we need more female friendships in stories. It would be nice to have a united trio in the foreign court, especially since it seems none of them are desperate for a marriage, but who knows yet. Intrigue~.

Suspect this is going to be much more political intrique than slice of life romance given the situation. Hope Corene falls for Steff rather than Foley since Foley is twice her age & I am so done with age gap romances. Not my cup of tea. No idea how things will turn out. Will she win Steff & become next queen, or something else? I want her to become queen but bc she cares for the country & people & it becomes home.