I also love how this series continues to explore grey morality through a variety of perespectives and themes that often conflict the main character and leave you wondering who is truly the villain of the story. I really do like these books. I loved the first one. Winter writes fight scenes really well, I could just use a little less of it personally. Then, the second thing I must do is make the language rush and flow. My intent with these sections is to write the action as I see it and then to go over and over and over them until the words disappear. The scene is not done until I can read it without faltering. I must tumble through it without effort while also being drawn to each subsequent moment, beat, and blow. By the end, I must be breathless. It should feel like I’ve run a heart-pounding race, and, to make that work, the words need to disappear because letting them have the presence they often want will make the scene stumble when it should soar. Image courtesy of Orbit Books This injury is never given time to heal throughout the entire book, and it honestly seemed as though Winter kept forgetting his character was meant to be handicapped.

One of my favourite aspects from The Rage of Dragons was the way Winter explored the themes of power, privilege and prejudice. In The Fires of Vengeance, I was thrilled to discover that Winter deepens these concepts and shows his readers that the history of the Nobles, the more powerful, and the Lessers, the weaker race, is not quite as they have been told. Throughout the beginning Tau, having to now shadow the Queen, is forced to navigate in a world of Nobles where he is constantly reminded of being a Lesser. He is a character you have to admire for his determination to prove to the Nobles that he can be just as worthy, strong and resilient as they are. No matter his birth. For that alone, I rooted for Tau every step of the way. Perhaps, the single largest area of that growth occurs in the romantic arc of this book. While Rage’s romance was acceptable and did its job, the one in this book just sings. It feels real, earned and complicated enough to produce a suitable yearning in the reader. Tau and Queen Tsiora are completely meant for each other and the obliviousness of Tau to this for most of the book is so hilariously well-played. I love that the reader can figure out long before him that Queen Tsiora cares for him far beyond matters of politics. Tau may be mythic on the battlefield, but he is certainly human in affairs of the heart. already blown a hole right through me. But reminding myself that my dad was there to raise me, teach me, watch me get married, and see me have a son of my own keeps me moving forward. He was there for me in every way that he could be, and I know that’s not always possible. So, if this pain is the price for having had and being loved by a father like him, then I’ll pay it gladly. This book is for Neville Leopold Winter, whom I never stopped calling Daddy. A huge one was that we lost our family cat as I was writing Fires. She’d been with us for a decade, she’d sat with me at my writing desk when I drafted Rage and then again for most of Fires. Losing her was hard, and, still, that wasn’t the hardest thing. I mentioned earlier that the world building improved, I love it when authors gets better with each book. The writing not only improved but changed, the first book was written solely in Tau's POV, but this is written in multiple POV with Tau having most of the narratives.The Fires of Vengeance delivers, and it gets the Burning by Evan Winter up to my 4th favorite series of all time, and for the first time since Wheel of Time I am considering replacing something in my top 3. Rage of Dragons was one of the best fantasy books I've read, period. The Fires of Vengeance is in many ways, much stronger, more mature, and takes bigger and bolder risks. It blends genres dipping far into horror elements that gives the threats from both human and supernatural creatures a striking weight they didn't have before. What I loved the most about this book was Tau’s character. We saw him be this callous, blood-thirsty, revenge-driven character in the first book and he still is in this book but he starts to think before he acts, asks for advice where he needs it and is this him taking responsibility for his words and actions? We love to see character growth. Yet, despite the slight changes, he still remains this complete badass ready to tear down the classist institution with his bare hands if need be. I literally got chills during this scene.. It was very frustrating. I have never wanted a fictional character to show signs of being tired more than I did here.

All in all, I have to admit that main characters really grew on me in this sequel and I cannot wait to find out how will their story continue in the next instalment. Highly recommended! Tau,” she said, and Goddess wept, the emotion she put into saying his name felt real and warm and kind. “You are enough.” pace, moving forward as if the door were already open, and the two Indlovu hurried to make sure it would be. owned by the publisher. The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Winter, Evan, author. Title: The fires of vengeance / Evan Winter. Description: First Edition. | New York : Orbit, 2020. | Series: The burning ; book 2 Identifiers: LCCN 2020009321 | ISBN 9780316489805 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316489782 Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. Classification: LCC PR6123.I578 F57 2020 | DDC 823/.92—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009321 ISBNs: 978-0-316-48980-5 (hardcover), 978-0-316-48981-2 (ebook) E3-20200930-JV-NF-ORI The outline made me comfortable with the story I was trying to tell, it helped me see where I was likely to fall down in the telling of it, and it was a source of support and comfort when I was in the middle of a draft that didn’t seem like it was going as well as I wanted it to go.This was my most anticipated read of 2020. Book 1, The Rage of Dragons was my favorite book of 2019 so being able to get an early copy was like a dream come true. I really enjoyed this book. That serves as the primary struggle in this book. Tau must find a way to hold space in his soul for both leadership and vengeance. And as he finds his way to that balance, you can see him becoming more and more of a hero and less of the tragic man seeking vengeance. It’s a clever and skilled bit of writing on Winter’s part that he can keep Tau relatively the same, but still give him these incremental moments of growth. On its surface, it might be easy to dismiss FIRES OF VENGEANCE as just a mere extension of the first book but there’s a lot of craft growth in it. Tau is written really well in that he makes me so angry and frustrated. Sometimes I like him, other times I hate him. I didn't get much sense of the character growth in him or really any of the characters. It's very repetitive in that Tau gets angry. Tau fights and kills demons to deal with said anger. And the cycle continues and we never really see him learn or grow aside from learning how to kill better. Which is cool, but gets redundant.