An incredible enemy to lover YA romance fantasy novel that is dotted with magic, monsters, and revenge via swashbuckling characters and powerful imagery. Bestselling author Catherine Doyle’s The Dagger and the Flame (The City of Fantome Book 1) is an outstanding page-turner.
Every beautiful city has its dark underbelly and Fantome is no exception. The story is set in a Fantome, where rival gangs (Cloaks and the Daggers) mutter and the streetlamps sputter in the warm glow of the cobbled streets and vanish in the darkness of secret catacombs (just like Paris). When the main heroine, Seraphine Marchant’s (18) mother is murdered, a terror-struck Seraphine runs for her life from her countryside home. She seeks refuge from Cloaks in Fantome. The Cloaks would crisscross the city in the magical shadowy Shade garments made by Seraphine’s mother, while the assassins (Daggers) breathe life out with a single touch.
The irresistible and charming Ransom is the heir apparent to the Daggers’ order. There are rumours of monsters stalking the streets in the darkness and nobody is worth trusting.
In this kind of sinister setting, Seraphine is determined to take revenge and kill her mother’s murderers. However, when she meets Ransom, Seraphine is attracted to him like a moth to flame. He is her sworn enemy, but her heart refuses to follow her brains. Before you know it the two are attracted to each other. But in this Kiss or Kill YA romantasy read, the surprises and twists keep changing.
The readers are torn between Seraphine and Ransom’s past and the possibility of them coming together in future. But will the two young enemies turned lovers forgive and give love a chance to blossom or will vengeance and hunger for power reign supreme? Doyle has managed to weave a thrilling YA romance story in a deadly game of revenge and power struggles.
