Book Review: A Kiss of Iron

I’ve had A Kiss of Iron, book 1 in the Shadows of Tenebris Court trilogy by Clare Sager, on my tbr for a while especially after reading and loving her Beneath Black Sails series over the summer.

If you’ve read the Beneath Black Sails series, the fmc in A Kiss of Iron is Katherine or Kat Ferrers, Vice’s sister. After being forced into an arranged marriage when she was a bit younger, Kat has been struggling to maintain her husband’s estate as he gallevants around Europa and spends all their money. In order to pay the bills and pay for the two remaining servants at the estate, Kat becomes a highway robber and steals from wealthy people on the road. One night she robs a fae and when she realizes she quickly runs away and tries to lose him before heading home.

Shortly after all this, she is summoned by the new Queen to become one of her ladies in waiting. Unable to turn down the queen, she goes. The Queen is entertaining a lot of visitors from other kingdoms as she is supposed to marry so there are suitors from all over. The Queen’s spymaster secretly enlists Kat to become one of his spies and in return he will give her all new clothes (hers are outdated) and money, which she desperately needs to save her estate. Her target? Lord Bastian Marwood, the Night Queen’s Shadow. And guess who he is? The fae she robbed on the road! Kat has to somehow get close to him, even seduce him, to find out information. But the two have a ton of chemistry and the line between real and fake begin to blur. This becomes even more complicated when the two decide to fake date.

Is Bastian as good of a man as Kat thinks he is? Will he feel betrayed when he finds out Kat has been spying on him?

I loved this book and loved Kat and Bastian! There wasn’t a whole lot of action in this book and it does move a little slow if you were looking for an action packed book, but I liked the storyline and characters so I didn’t mind. If you’ve read the Beneath Black Sails series then this will feel slower paced since it primarily all takes places at court as opposed to the other series it’s connected to where they are pirates and traveling all over. Anyway, it is slower, but I think it’s all to set up for more action in book 2. At least that’s what I’m assuming!

Read this if you want a spicy fantasy romance with lots of tension and the fake dating trope.

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