Brimstone by Callie Hart

Hello everyone! Happy April! I hope spring is beginning to fill your world with color and the sunshine is filling your cup back up after kind of a weird winter across the board. This month’s read was an easy choice, following Quicksilver. Brimstone by Callie Hart, book two of the series, is one that has been given very much a jumble of mixed reviews. And mine is going to be not much different, unfortunately. There were definitely parts that I loved, and parts that had me less enthused.

**Spoiler alert!!! For anyone who has not read Quicksilver there will be some spoilers in this review! Otherwise I tried to keep it completely spoiler free for you.

I will start first with some behind the scenes info for all who are not writers and kudos for the author —second books in any series, but especially trilogies are extremely difficult to write. I can only imagine that this coupled with the overnight sensation that Quicksilver was made this even more so. You have to balance tying in the first book and all of the lore and information introduced there into the second book, all without completely wrapping up all loose ends and then having nothing for book three. But you also can’t have it go completely nowhere are lose the readers you have gathered to pick up another one of your books. It is a difficult balance to maintain, and so I must applaud Callie on her ability to walk that tight rope as well as she did.

The main problem I did have with this story was the complete character shift that I felt from the main characters, Saeris and Kingfisher. I understand that they have accepted their bond to each other and are deeply in love (suddenly). But it felt off. Saeris we had come to know as an independent, strong, badass woman that felt the extreme level of paranoia and fear of letting people close, which is  to be expected of someone who lived each day of her life fighting for existence. I don’t want to say that she felt weaker in this book, but… she felt weaker. She felt way more willing to sit back and let the others make decisions and direct her where she needed to be and go. Don’t get me wrong, I love a love that makes you feel so secure and comfortable enough to melt and trust in them completely, but that feels like something that gets developed over time. Not overnight simply because you have accepted a bond. Especially when the same night you accepted that bond, your entire existence was flipped on its head and you became a totally new creature that the gods all want dead. Another thing that felt off about Saeris was how comfortable she seemed to be with being the queen of the vampires. It was said multiple times that she felt uneasy and uncomfortable, but you didn’t feel it. Maybe that was because of how much more time that we spent in Kingfisher’s mind this book… but even he felt off. I am here for character growth—but none of it seems to happen on the page, in my opinion. I understand that the quicksilver that had been driving him mad and the weigh of his impending demise would make anyone different once that was removed, but it felt too easy and again like a stranger with the same name. The only character that I felt stuck true to himself between the books was Carrion Swift. I thought his developing story line was the most impactful and that was because you could feel it change as we got more information through the story line of Brimstone.

What I did love about it was watching the world continue to expand and the little easter eggs that were brought back into it from Quicksilver and throughout the story in general. I thought that was wonderful and I love the world that Callie has developed. And I did enjoy the story, even though there were a lot of times I felt a bit confused and off. If you can just shut your mind off from the deep diving brain that comes with dissecting books and, for me, unplug my author brain, I bet it is one you would enjoy too!

Another note, I felt pretty similar to the raunchy scenes with Brimstone as I did with Quicksilver. There was maybe one or two that had a point, but the rest just seemed to check the box of ‘smut’ romantasy. Not saying that as a bad thing, I just didn’t see much of a reason to read through them the first time, and probably will flip through them again on any repeat reads like I did with Quicksilver.

Overall, I think this is a book that I will do a reread before the final book launches, but not as an immediate preorder and read like I did with Brimstone.

Up next, I am super excited for the next series I am diving into. It has been a series on my shelf for forever, but one I was so intimidated to even begin because they are so legendary. Well— I am doing it! Next up for May through July, the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson!

What did you think of this sequel??

Pull up a chair and let’s find your next favorite story!

J.R. Molt