THE FIRES OF VENGEANCE – Evan Winter

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Tau and his Queen, desperate to delay the impending attack on the capital by the indigenous people of Xidda, craft a dangerous plan. If Tau succeeds, the Queen will have the time she needs to assemble her forces and launch an all out assault on her own capital city, where her sister is being propped up as the ‘true’ Queen of the Omehi.
If the city can be taken, if Tsiora can reclaim her throne, and if she can reunite her people then the Omehi have a chance to survive the onslaught.
Wait, am I on a roll with reading sequels? I made some half-assed promise to do this in September, and now it just seems to be happening kind of organically. I read THE DRAGON REPUBLIC (THE POPPY WAR #2), and then THE FIRES OF VENGEANCE (THE BURNING #2), and I’m currently reading CALL OF THE BONE SHIPS (THE TIDE CHILD #2). I’m pretty pleased about this, and it’s been amazing diving back into these different worlds!

So, THE FIRES OF VENGEANCE!! Evan Winter’s debut novel, THE RAGE OF DRAGONS, was for sure one of my favorite books of 2019. It had basically everything I’d look for in a Book One, and then some. And this second volume (I believe this is scheduled to be a four book series) builds on that momentum, immersing the reader further into this world, deepening all of the existing character’s development, and introducing some new characters to the mix. And as with THE RAGE OF DRAGONS, Winter delivers some of the most frenetic & violent action sequences I’m likely to read. Like, ffffffuck…

Tau Solarin continues to be the main POV of the story, though there are some chapters here and there in THE FIRES OF VENGEANCE that branch out away from him just a bit. As engaging a protagonist as Tau is, I think these small breaks from his narrative really strengthened the book overall.

And with Tau now firmly in place as her champion, we get to know Queen Tsiora quite a bit more. The story is centered around her attempt to retake Palm City, and there is a fair bit of military strategizing that goes along with it. We also spend a lot more time in Isihogo, the world of demons where time gets all wonky. Tau is responsible for training his men in Isihogo as part of their overall strategy, which results in some truly WILD action sequences.

We’re also introduced to two new characters who I fucking LOVED, Auset and Ramia. Up until this point, we haven’t really seen many women in this world in direct combat (although the women factor into the battles in a huge way, obviously), but Auset and Ramia change that completely. They are handmaidens to Tsiora, and while we don’t spend a ton of time with them, they are both absolute BADASSES and (for me) wicked scene-stealers. Absolutely riveted by these two characters, and super excited to see more from them going forward in this series!

THE BURNING is just brilliant. An epic, blood-drenched, revenge-driven fantasy series….massive in scope, with a huge cast of characters, DRAGONS, demons, scary magic…this series is so fucking awesome!!

Endless thanks to Orbit Books for the copy!!

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