Fire in the Blood Book Review

Fire in the Blood

Erin M. Evans

Wizards of the Coast

Pub Date: Oct 14 2014

4/5 Stars

 

          When I heard that Erin Evans was doing a sequel to Adversary I was pretty surprised.  Not because Wizards of the Coast is unknown to do sequels even sequels within a series as Adversary was in the Sundering Series.  But more because, the book was so middling.  It seemed like the author created it for something else and then transplanted it into the Forgotten Realms rather than making completely from the ground up for the world.  When I read the book, I kind of imagined that the author owed Wizards a book and this was her way of fulfilling your obligation.   I guess I was wrong and I must to some degree apologize to Erin Evans for this supposition; because Fire in the Blood is an excellent book and while it took me almost a month to read it.  When I reached the end I could hardly believe that I didn’t want it to end.

        Everyone from the first book is back and while I was very critical of the characters the first time around.  I have to admit they grew on me.  I was less excited about the setting as the whole Netherese War is REALLY wearing out it’s welcome.  But the actual plot and the characters who participate in it are interesting and I was surely hooked all the way to the end.  Also, as this appears to be the first in a series of it’s own.  I was pretty happy that the author executed on it so well.  All of the things I disliked about the first book seemed better explained and the quality of the writing itself was better.  The end was especially well done.  While I was a little put off by the fact that one of the major plot lines that at least is represented to the reader as a major plotline, is not dealt with in the end.  I can certainly understand that the author is using this to get people to read the next book in the series.  Which is good, often Wizards books have no through line plot which makes each one almost too self contained. 

      While this series is definitely not my first choice in the worlds of Wizards of the Coast; I have to say that from my perspective it gets the award for VERY MUCH IMPROVED.  If you even liked the characters from the Adversary you owe it yourself to read this book.  But if you haven’t read the Adversary you need to, I’ve seen a lot of people complain about not being able to follow this book coming to it cold.  Which is understandable, and while I didn’t love the first book; I did give it three stars.  So it isn’t bad, it just wasn’t great.