My biggest problem with this book is that I have to wait 11 months for the next one. I do have other problems with the book, but while I’m griping and picking, keep in mind that my biggest resentment is the wait for more.
I really enjoyed the first book of the series, and I still enjoyed both the characters and the writing in this one. Cat, Griffin, his family and Beta Team are lively and interesting characters. Breath of Fire, as a whole, didn’t hang together as well as Promise of Fire. There were interesting moments and adventures, and the primary goal of the characters is clear, but it felt disjointed. There’s a lot of action, but no real emotional arc. There’s no real suspense, because we know that Cat and Griffin will achieve their goals. Middle books are hard, y’all. I think this might be better read once the final book (I’m assuming 3 books, I might be wrong) is published so the whole thing can be read as a whole.
SPOILERS
Of the strung together adventures of Beta Team, the arena fights were my least favorite. I feel like Ilona Andrews did this better in Magic Strikes. And by the way, if you aren’t reading the Kate Daniels series, you really should be, and then you should read Magic Strikes. Having read a better version of this scenario, I was frustrated with the lack of strategy. The knowledge that the characters would be successful, and the feeling that the author was writing without a real plan knocked a full star off the rating for me. That said, I’m still looking forward to the next book, in about 11 months.
Thank you to Malin for making it possible for me to read Breath of Fire now.
Glad to have been of service. I had the same thoughts as you about the arena fighting and the comparison to Magic Strikes. Those are some great fights. This – less so. Still looking forward to the final book, though.
Most definitely! I think Bouchet is a good writer.
This felt rushed and I suspect the enormous success of book #1 got the publisher to push this out the door in <1 year. (Only now that I'm in the midst of book publication myself do I understand how monumentally fast this is). I agreed that their plan felt slapdash and it was a missed opportunity to show them being capable instead of just lucky.
But my biggest beef is that if the Gods can and will save you from imminent peril, then you've just sucked ALL of the tension out of the story. We needed to see Cat fight or think her way free but the last 50 pages just blew all of the narrative tension out of the door. I could have forgiven much of the middle book syndrome + "my publisher rushed me to get this to print with zero time to really flush things out" issues. But "Gods will save us at any point" and "Healer can fix almost any wound" have combined to reduce the stakes moving forward to almost zero. Boo.
Yeah, the deus ex machina and the healer almost dying/sucking the life force out of someone else got repetitive. As impatient as I am for the rest of the story, I’d rather wait and get a well thought out plot.
I never managed to finish book #1 since I thought the world building was kind of a mess, but reading this and seeing that it borrows a bit from Kate Daniels makes me want to go and re-read Kate Daniels from the beginning again. Think I will :-)