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My rating: 5 of 5 stars (4.5 rounded up to a 5)
Together We Burn is a stand-alone YA fantasy with romantic elements by Isabel Ibañez. The ebook version is 368 pages. I listened to the audiobook, which clocks in at thirteen hours and is narrated by Ana Osorio. We follow our main character with a first-person point-of-view.
Zarela Zalvidar is daughter of two of the most famous performers in Hispalia; a flamenco dancer and Dragonador (think matador, but with dragons). Their family has run an arena for half a millennium, and she has followed in her mother’s footsteps as a lovely flamenco dancer. During their five hundredth anniversary show, the worst-case scenario happens when dragons get loose and her father is nearly mortally injured. The Dragon Guild sets harsh punishments on the family, though Zarela believes someone set up the disaster. To save her family’s home and arena, she decides to take her father’s place as the next Dragonador. But she needs to find someone to train her. She will do anything to convince former Dragonador–and current dragon tamer–Arturo Díaz de Montserrat to help.
Overall, I had a really good time listening to this book! The world is really cool; I like that it is inspired by medieval Spain. Due to that, there are a good number of Spanish terms used in the book, so if you’re not familiar with the language, you may want to pull up Google Translate occasionally. I don’t believe that a lack of knowledge about these words would lessen your enjoyment of this book.
I really enjoyed our central relationship as well; the chemistry really worked for me. I am a big fan of the enemies-to-lovers trope. If you like slow burn romances, or a “but we shouldn’t” type of feel, this book is for you. There are so many near-kisses I lost count. There’s one steamy scene towards the end of the book but it’s not super detailed.
I would have loved to see more dragons, and to have a wee bit more development with the magic system and worldbuilding.
Tropes in this book include: enemies-to-lovers, hate-to-love
CW: murder, animal death (dragons), immolation, gaslighting
Special thanks to Macmillan Audio, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for providing an audio galley of this book for me to review. All opinions contained herein are my own. Together We Burn releases on May 31st, 2022.
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