The Iron Dagger Review

Scout’s Report

Hara has built a quiet life for herself as a hedgewitch at the edge of the forest, a life carefully arranged to keep her past at a distance. Then a stranger turns up half-dead near her cottage, and she does what any healer would—she saves him. Gideon Falk, raised to distrust witches, wakes in one’s bed desperate to be anywhere else. But as he recovers under her care, he finds himself growing unexpectedly fond of the woman tending to him. And when he learns of her tragic past, he’s the one who suggests she return to the city she fled to search for the mother she lost, offering his protection for the journey.

The kingdom Hara left has been reshaped by prejudice, greed, and the quiet corruption of power. Magic has been outlawed for years, yet somehow the city hums with it, powering inventions and comforts no one can quite explain. As Hara pieces together what happened to her mother, she must face the fears she thought she’d outrun and the people who forced her to flee in the first place. Can Hara uncover the path that leads to her mother before Gideon’s father discovers her identity?

Wayfarer’s Log

I thought I would like this one a lot more than I did. I’m still invested in the characters and the overarching plot of the series, and I’ll absolutely continue when book three comes out. But The Iron Dagger didn’t have the same magic that The Bard’s Bargain did for me. The clearest indicator is how long it took me to finish. I usually have a few books going at once and move through them at a decent pace, but I finished 23 other books while wending my way through this one. That’s not a great sign.

Here’s what I think happened: The Bard’s Bargain worked because the close-quarters village setting forced the two main characters to actually be present with each other. The relationship was given plenty of room to breathe. It was methodical, patient, and built on genuine quality time together, all while the village’s rhythms and the greater plotline wove naturally through their story. The Iron Dagger scatters its MCs for a fair amount of time in service of the plot, and the relationship suffers for it. If you loved book one for the slow, careful buildup (like I did), this one is going to feel thinner. If you found book one too slow and wanted more plot movement, you may actually prefer this one.

Gideon, though. Gideon is the reason to keep reading. He goes from, “I don’t really like this guy, he’s kind of a dick,” to genuinely wonderful and supportive, and the arc feels earned rather than handed to him. He starts out morally grey in a way I actually appreciated. The author lets him be complicit in real harm without flinching, and then makes him work for his growth. I loved watching him become self-aware about it:

There were countless ways to be a fool, and Gideon was practiced in many, but being a fool in love was new. And he was only a little distressed to find that he liked that, too.

On the other hand, I struggled with Hara’s characterization. She embodies the healer mindset beautifully: even in a moment when someone is actively hurting her, she still notices their pain and worries about their injuries. That’s a very specific and accurate way to write someone whose whole identity is caring for others, and kudos to Green for committing to it. But as the book went on, Hara seemed to get less intelligent somehow. Her decisions didn’t track with the capable, perceptive character book one established. I kept putting the book down with a what is this woman doing? face. Maybe she wasn’t actually as smart as I initially thought she was, but I don’t love that this book made me ask that question.

Some of the supporting characters had good foundations but didn’t quite reach “lovable character” status. Sarai, for instance (the researcher character) I quite liked. I enjoyed her quarrel with Gideon’s mother and liked that the scientist we encounter is a woman. I just wish she’d had more room to become someone I truly cared about. She unfortunately felt underdeveloped by the end.

What the book does genuinely well is moral ambiguity in the supporting cast. Without going into specifics, there’s a family member whose past actions are truly despicable, and the book refuses to backtrack on that. There’s no “what you heard were lies, they were good all along” reveal. They own up to what they did, even while making some self-serving excuses, and we’re left with the much more interesting question of whether someone can actually come back from that kind act of betrayal. I found this far more compelling than the usual redemption-through-retcon approach.

The spice is a genuine strength and a genuine frustration at the same time. Green writes the actual scenes quite well—they’re hot, they have rhythm, they land. But the placement and lead-up in this book didn’t work for me. More than one sex scene felt like it came out of nowhere, jumping from regular conversation into explicit territory without the descriptive buildup to make the transition feel earned. Gideon himself acknowledges this at one point, and it’s the best summary of my complaint:

He did not know how they’d gone from talking about boxing matches to having her hand on his cock, but he would not question this dizzying turn of events.

Bro. I don’t know either!

A quick word-choice note: “cunny,” while historically accurate for the setting, was awkward every time. “Swive,” on the other hand, is a delight and I will be adopting it into casual conversation immediately.

The ending is where things really fell apart for me. It felt like the author had specific plot beats she wanted to hit and stopped caring whether they made sense in sequence. Characters make decisions that don’t match their established intelligence. Timing of events just happens to line up in ways that require the cast to behave illogically—not moving when they should move, resting when they should run, leaping into significant magical risks when testing it first should have been the obvious choice. The timing of events felt entirely too convenient to the plot, and didn’t make sense. The whole sequence feels like it was built backward from the climax rather than forward from the characters’ logic.

Thematically, though, there’s real substance here. The book plays with past scars shaping present defenses, identity and hidden truths, and greed and corruption in power. There’s a weapons-manufacturer subplot that echoes real-world debates about who bears responsibility for violence, with one character arguing “Our weapons are only as dangerous as the people who wield them.” If that argument sounds familiar, it should. The book doesn’t preach, but it lets the parallel do its work.

Journey’s End

I enjoyed The Iron Dagger. I’m genuinely excited for book three and want to know how the overarching plot resolves. But unfortunately, this wasn’t the follow-up I hoped for. It tries to pull too many punches and lets a number of them land off-target, and the romance—the thing I loved most about book one—gets deprioritized in favor of plot momentum that doesn’t fully earn its ending. Still, Gideon’s growth is worth the read, the moral greyness is handled with real care, and the spice (placement aside) is well-crafted.

If you loved The Bard’s Bargain specifically for the slow, methodical relationship development, you may find this one frustrating. If you wanted the first book to move faster, you might actually prefer this one. And if you’re new to the series, don’t start here—go back to The Bard’s Bargain first.

I’d recommend this for:

• Readers continuing The Bard’s Bargain series who want to know where the overarching plot goes next
• Morally grey MMCs with genuine, earned growth arcs
• Enemies-to-lovers dynamics that actually evolve
• Witches and elemental magic in a lived-in fantasy kingdom
• Political intrigue threaded through the romance
• Well-written spice (even when the lead-up is sloppy)
• Readers who prioritize plot movement over extended relationship development

Publisher’s Summary

Living alone at the edge of the forest, Angharad has made a quiet life for herself as the village hedgewitch, offering healing spells while still haunted by the traumatic memories of her past. When Angharad finds a strange man on the brink of death near her home, she nurses him to health only to find that he is the son of the man who captured her mother so many years ago.

Gideon Falk has never trusted witches. When he wakes in a witch’s home after being poisoned and nearly killed, he is desperate to leave and never look back. But he develops an interest that verges on obsession for the alluring Angharad, and when he learns of her tragic past, he offers his help and protection in her quest to find her mother.

Soon Angharad discovers how prejudice, greed, and corruption have transformed the kingdom she once called home. Magic still lives on in the city, and Angharad will need to face her fears across multiple dimensions, or else risk being captured herself.