Publisher: Arcardia (Trade Paperback – 11 November 2025)

Series: The Last Legacy – Book Two

Length: 583 pages

My Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

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Prepare for adventure, intrigue and some fantastic character dynamics in the outstanding 2025 fantasy novel, The Blackfire Blade by James Logan.

Back in 2024 I had the pleasure of reading the outstanding The Silverblood Promise, which was the debut of author James Logan.  A cool fantasy novel and the first book in the author’s The Last Legacy series, The Silverblood Promise followed the banished scion of a noble house, Lukan Gardova, who finds out that his estranged father had been murdered.  Determined to find out who killed him, Lukan follows the one clue his father left him and winds up in an enticing Mediterranean-inspired fantasy city teaming with its own secret problems.  Needing to uncover a conspiracy deep within this setting before he can achieve his goals, Lukan finds himself teaming up with a brave street urchin and a talented master thief to save the day.  I really loved this awesome first novel from Logan, and The Silverblood Promise ended up being one of my favourite debuts of 2024.  As such, I have been looking forward to Logan’s second novel for a while, and I was very happy to get my hands on The Silverblood Promise’s sequel a few weeks ago.  This sequel, The Blackfire Blade, was another amazing read with an outstanding and highly entertaining plot behind it.

Plot Synopsis:

Winter has come early to Korslakov, City of Spires, and Lukan Gardova has arrived with it. Most visitors to this famous city of artifice seek technological marvels, or alchemical ingenuity. Lukan only desires the unknown legacy his father has left for him, in the vaults of the Blackfire Bank.

Yet Lady Marni has secrets of her own. Worse, she has plans for Lukan and his friends. Plans that involve a journey into Korslakov’s dark past, in search of a long-lost alchemical formula that could prove to be the city’s greatest discovery . . . or its destruction.

The Blackfire Blade was another extremely awesome fantasy adventure novel from James Logan, who showcases his growth as a writer with this excellent sequel.  Following three loveable, if chaotic, protagonists as they explore a new intricate urban fantasy setting, The Blackfire Blade was an exciting blast from start to finish, and I cannot get enough of this amazing series.

James Logan produced another particularly entertaining adventure narrative for The Blackfire Blade, which quickly drags you in with its fun excitement.  Effectively reintroducing you to the three main protagonists, Lukan, the former street urchin Flea and thief Ashra Seramis, better known as Lady Midnight, as they finally reach their destination of Korslakov.  Hoping to uncover the clue to Lukan’s father’s murder that is hidden within Korslakov’s Blackfire Bank, the group finds their mission imperilled when a drunken Lukan immediately has the vault key stolen by a mysterious thief, known as the Rook.  With no other way of accessing the vault, Lukan and his companions desperately search for the Rook with the help of some unlikely friends within the city.  However, they soon run afoul of some of Korslakov’s elites and become indebted to Lady Marni Volkova, a minor character from The Silverblood Promise.

This first part of the book nicely sets the scene for the rest of The Blackfire Blade’s plot, and I found myself really drawn into the various political intrigues and complex feuds that make up high society in Kroslakov.  Logan also does a great job setting up some interesting dynamics amongst the protagonists, which allowed the characters to come together as a more cohesive family going forward.  The second half of The Blackfire Blade was all excellent action and adventure, as the protagonists find themselves continuously forced to take on even more dangerous escapades to pay off their debts and recover the key.  This includes a particularly deadly job navigating the most dangerous parts of the city, to find an alchemical formula.  This part of the story was so damn fun, and features a great mix of scary monsters, fast-paced action, and some very interesting details about the city.

The final third of The Blackfire Blade features a range of fantastic sequences that really showcase the author’s imagination when it comes to unique obstacles and threats.  Highlights include an excellent heist sequence, manipulations of the city’s warring elite, and encounters with a secret society determined to keep the formula out of anyone’s hands.  Logan throws in a lot of great twists and turns here, and you are constantly on the edge of your seat as you wait to see what chaos will be unleashed next.  Everything leads up to the entertaining and destructive finale, where all the lies and secrets come to light, and the protagonists are forced to come together against a truly overwhelming opponent.  Logan clearly has fun detailing the resulting insanity that emerges, and it led to an impressive and deeply entertaining continuous action sequence.  The Blackfire Blade wraps up with Lukan finally getting some details about the larger series narrative, which looks set to lead to some awesome additional adventures, and readers are guaranteed to come away from this book extremely satisfied.

I really enjoyed how The Blackfire Blade came together as a novel, and it is very clear that Logan has developed his skills when it comes to writing action-focused, fast-paced fantasy adventure narratives.  Working extremely well as both a standalone novel and a great sequel to The Silverblood Promise (thanks to a great summary of the first book included at the start), The Blackfire Blade continues in a similar vein to the first Last Legacy novel, with the protagonists forced to explore and understand a new city before they can continue their main quest.  While some readers might not appreciate the requirement for each book in this series to devolve into side quests before the main storyline can be explored, I really liked how it turned out in The Blackfire Blade, as the resulting intrigue, exploration of the city, and following deadly adventures, made for some outstanding reading.  It helps that Logan excels at writing awesome and intense action sequences, and there are a lot of extremely fun moments scattered throughout this novel.  Throw in some very moment sequences where Logan continues to develop his protagonists and their unique relationships, and The Blackfire Blade was a very worthy sequel to the author’s first book, and I felt it was actually a stronger overall novel.

One of the things that most impressed me about The Blackfire Blade was the way that Logan built and introduced a whole new unique fantasy city that the protagonists were forced to explore and understand.  Serving as a fantastic contrast to the sunny and crime-infested Saphrona, the setting of The Silverblood Promise, Korslakov is a grim and snow-shrouded city of power, invention and alchemical might.  The gloomy, purple fire covered spires of Korslakov, perfectly matches the mood of the book’s main characters as they attempt to find their feet in this new local, and the subsequent exploration and understanding of this new urban setting, are some of the best parts of the book.  It’s impressive how effortlessly Logan moves his characters through the various elements of Korslakov, from the decadent battles of the high society to the terrifying abandoned section of the city, infested with flesh-eating monstrosities.  All these detailed and well-written elements of Korslakov play a compelling role in The Blackfire Blade’s narrative, and the city feels like a major character in the book, with the protagonists and the reader, needing to fully understand and appreciate its place in the narrative.  It will be very interesting to see what awesome new city Logan comes up with in his third Last Legacy book, but it’s going to be hard to top the setting he utilised here.

The final element of The Blackfire Blade that I want to highlight here are the complex and likeable central protagonists that Logan bases his story around.  The three main characters, Lukan, Ashra and the very entertaining Flea, are excellent figures, each of whom are dealing with their own issues, such as Lukan’s drunken depression, Flea’s fear of abandonment and Ashra’s constant worry about vengeful enemies coming after her.  Logan ensures that all three of these characters are well utilised in The Blackfire Blade, with a mostly equal balance of perspective chapters where they can work out their separate issues.  While in some ways these protagonists, mainly Lukan, have lost a little of the development from the first book, Logan works through that again, which ensures they come out of this latest adventure stronger.  However, the real magic of these protagonists is the way that Logan has morphed them into unconventional and dysfunctional family unit, that never ceases to entertain.  While they may bicker, argue and misunderstand each other throughout the book, the reader is never in doubt that they care for each other, and this allows them to be an extremely likeable bunch who you constantly root for (especially Flea).

Aside from the three main protagonists, The Blackfire Blade is loaded with a highly entertaining and often outrageous collection of supporting characters, all of whom add a lot to the book’s impact.  Primarily focused on the elites of Korslakov, who the protagonists need to deal with to achieve their goals, you are introduced to an interesting array of backstabbing nobles and self-important lords, whose intrigues and squabbles are a key part of the plot.  My favourites include grizzled general Leopold Razin, who proves to be a particularly entertaining, if tragic, ally to the protagonists.  There was also the imposing Lady Wretzky, the Iron Dame, who more than lives up to her title during her interactions with the main cast.  I also need to highlight the deadly Lady Marni Volkova, an ultra-wealthy heiress who Lucan finds himself indebted to and whose appearances are always quite entertaining as she pulls the main character’s strings.  There was also the briefly featured Clank, a great character whose inclusion reveals one of Korslakov’s biggest secrets, while also having some amazing interactions with Flea.  I’m honestly only barely scratching the surface of all the very entertaining and compelling characters featured in The Blackfire Blade, and I was really impressed with Logan’s ability to create and then utilise this amazing cast in his second book.

James Logan continues to shine as one of fantasy fiction’s newest rising authors.  His second novel, The Blackfire Blade, was a wonderful and highly entertaining read, that serves as an outstanding sequel to his amazing first novel.  Exciting, powerful and extremely addictive, The Blackfire Blade really showcased Logan’s amazing ability as an author, and I honestly could not get enough of this incredible fantasy read.  This second book from Logan was so damn good, and I cannot wait to see what adventures, revelations and heartfelt moments await us in his next entry in The Last Legacy series.

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