Review: Fire and Brimstone by M. N. Beck
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Introduction:
Kai is a skilled demon-slayer who possesses the unique ability to control holy fire, and she has devoted herself to protecting humanity from supernatural predators. Despite her exceptional powers, her peers view her with suspicion, while the organization that trained her, Coetus, regards her as a valuable asset.
When a new enemy threatens Coetus and begins to eliminate its members, Kai is tasked with stopping him. Her success in this mission will determine her standing within the organization. However, the foe she faces is Death himself, a seemingly invincible adversary.
As Kai approaches her quarry, she finds herself attracting the attention of the Prince of Death, who has his own agenda. Caught in his web, she must fight to free herself and save those she loves. She will need to form alliances and draw upon inner reserves of strength and courage to vanquish the Prince of Death and triumph over the challenges that lie ahead.
Review:
When I read the book blurb of Fire and Brimstone I was really intrigued because I am always in for a good monster slaying book with church sanctioned slayers who are embroiled in church politics. Unfortunately, Fire and Brimstone turned out to be none of that.
I do understand writing a book is no easy feat but this is my honest opinion about Fire and Brimstone. So with all due respect to the author, I found the writing to be bad and choppy. The chapter separations were extremely bad and the world building almost non existent. Characters were stereo typical and had no depth and the plot was extremely weak. Also the plot twists were glaringly obvious.
There was nothing novel or creative about the mythical creatures or the concept of heaven and hell and their eternal war. At times I felt as though I was reading a summary of a ‘Supernatural’ TV series episode. The research that had gone into executing the plot seemed to be bare minimal.
I am not religious at all but I know for a fact that The Church is one of the oldest, richest and most powerful organizations on earth. Hypothetically if they were to have a subsidiary of church sanctioned slayers, they would would have a wealth of information at their fingertips (Hello Vatican Archives!) and will be equipped with the best weapons and training to achieve their missions, no matter how misguided those missions might be, as was the case in this book. Therefore the Coetus just shoving Kai into such a dangerous mission without no information, back up or guidance provided was very unconvincing.
For a battle hardened experienced slayer as the book claimed I found Kai to be very naive and immature and there was no character growth at all. I didn’t find Brahm interesting at all. For such a powerful entity, his character falling flat was very disappointing to me. Also the side characters felt superficial and provided no purpose in the story.
Overall, I found Fire and Brimstone to be dull and lacking and it didn’t manage to hold my interest at all. My heartfelt thanks to Netgally, Green Elk Publishing and M. N. Beck for providing me the advanced reader copy of Fire and Brimstone.
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