Half-daemon Envy Starr is destined to die on Midsummerâs Eve, still a virgin, on some crappy cultâs live-stream feed. With thirty days left to live, the chance to escape her fate and get some action compels her into her absentee fatherâs world of beautifully cultured cruelty.
Once there, sheâs the object of a deadly game, slated to alter the Fae realmâs power structure. Worse, the rules keep changing, and everyone has an ulterior motive, including her dae-licious guide, Brennan. Under a geas heâs desperate to break, she canât trust him, or herself.
Stupid Stockholm syndrome.
But unless she can come to terms with what lies in her heart, her unlikely survival will be a fate worse than death. For her, and the rest of Fae.
Half-daemon Envy Starr is destined to die on Midsummerâs Eve, still a virgin, on some crappy cultâs live-stream feed. With thirty days left to live, the chance to escape her fate and get some action compels her into her absentee fatherâs world of beautifully cultured cruelty.
Once there, sheâs the object of a deadly game, slated to alter the Fae realmâs power structure. Worse, the rules keep changing, and everyone has an ulterior motive, including her dae-licious guide, Brennan. Under a geas heâs desperate to break, she canât trust him, or herself.
Stupid Stockholm syndrome.
But unless she can come to terms with what lies in her heart, her unlikely survival will be a fate worse than death. For her, and the rest of Fae.
Names hold power, so I wonât tell you mine. What I will tell you, is that it was June first, the sun was going down, and I was sitting on the Prioryâs roof, hating my life more than usual.
And I needed a drink.
Donât get it twistedâI wasnât suicidal or anything, and Iâm not an alcoholic. What I was, was destined to die at the end of the month. Me, and every other half elemental thatâd hit twenty this year. See, youâd want a drink too. If I had one, Iâd pour some out for the fallen. Hah. No, I wouldnât. Iâd down that shit. I probably was an alcoholic, but whatever. I wouldnât be around long enough for cirrhosis to set in.
I closed my eyes, trying to enjoy the last few rays of sun. Iâd spent the past hour lamenting my fate and the way my nail polish clashed with my bikini. You know, multitasking. And in weighing my options, such as they were, I kept coming up with snake eyes.
It was bullshit.
I pulled my knees in and sighed, looking out past the crew installing razor wire on top of the compoundâs tall adobe walls. The desert stretched out towards Vel in the distance. There werenât any better answers there, but I knew people, and one of them owed me a beer.
My eyes flicked to the highway running past the Priory, a straight shot into the city. I could use one of those, too. Preferably tequila.
The sun dipped behind the mountains, and I shivered, shrugging into the scratchy novice robes Iâd been sitting on. I padded across the roof and swung onto the ladder. Halfway down, I could pick out Sister Reticence waiting for me in the shadows. I didnât bother saying anything. She never did. I just followed the nunâs withered backside to my motherâs office, a funeral dirge shuffling through my head. Time to receive my proverbial flogging. I tried to focus on the positives. At least I wouldnât have to sit through many more of these.
My mother had been a showgirl. A good one, headlining her own extravaganza at the biggest casino in Vegas. As I came into the room, it was hard to see past the wimple and remember her raven hair caught up with rhinestones and feathers. Calista Starr had smiled back then. Now Sister Contritionâs plumped lips pruned at me. Collagen injections were taking a lot longer to fade than the lipstick had.
âSit down, Envy.â
Hmm? Oh, not my name, but I answered to it. I plunked onto the crappy straight-backed chair in front of the desk. It looked like it had grown up from the floor, then been squished down by the adobe walls pressing in around us. The light coming through the thin scarlet windowpanes painted the top in long, bloody gashes.
What? I was feeling melodramatic.
I picked at a flake of nail polish, also red, and, like roof access, also not allowed.
âSister Reticence saw you going up to the roof, and I asked her to collect you.â
I shrugged, feeling the miserable bitchâs eyes on my back. Sister Reticence should mind her own goddamned business.
My mother frowned at me for a moment longer, then shook her head. âWhy do you insist on being so difficult?â
I swallowed the lump thatâd materialized in my throat. Ever since sheâd signed on to become a dedicate of Our Lady of the Blessed Inferno, everything was more than âdifficult.â
It straight-up fucking sucked.
Thatâs saying something. It wasnât exactly peaches and cream before.
She sighed, stretching out her long fingers in front of her. They looked naked without her rings. I hoped she missed them. I used to imagine the Prioress squeezing them over her bloated knuckles to watch them sparkle. Now I knew better. Nothing in the convent sparkled. Not even Tiffany diamonds.
âEnvyââ
âYes, Sister Contrition?â
Her mouth pinched into a white slit as she glared at me, then took a slow breath.
I liked to watch her nostrils flare out.
âThe roof is strictly off-limits.â
âSo is the quad, the city, theââ
âFor one month. Lady forbid the press gets pictures of you up there flaunting yourself.â
That coming from the Queen of Burlesque? I laughed.
Bad idea.
She picked up a pen, clicking the end. It was her tell. I was pressing my luck. My gaze drifted from hers to the sunburst on the otherwise bare wall behind her. The Great Lady herself, surrounded by flames. Seemed like a sweet gig.
âThe choice is almost upon you. Have you given any more thought to our conversation?â
I bit back another laugh, meeting her eyes again. Theyâd teared up like some daytime Telemundo starâs. She blinked the emotion away so quickly I questioned it ever being thereâNo. That wasnât fair. I knew she cared. Just not about me. It was the threat to her celebrity.
Wimple or diamonds, my mother was an attention whore and commanded it. She was beautiful, with the voice of an angel. Sheâd used it to weasel up the conventâs hierarchy until she sat just below the Prioress herself. The perfect frontwoman for the Ladyâs sect, a siren luring other fallen women into the fold. So very contrite after succumbing to the wicked wiles of a daemon.
Well, that sheâd gotten caught.
That was on me. My stigmata flaring into being with puberty had fucked the both of us, and sheâd never let me forget it. I shifted my shoulders against the severe angle of the chair. Theyâd stopped itching years ago, but it was a mental thing. My tell. Sugar Daddy mightâve forgiven her for cuckolding him with a human, but getting knocked up by a dae then passing off his spawn as a normal for a decade crossed the line. Heâd dumped us on the streets without a backward glance.
She frowned again, watching me. I rolled my eyes and looked away.
âIâll be late for vespers.â
Her gaze rose with me. âThree days of contemplation as penance, starting now. Sister Reticence will see you to your room.â
Of course she would. My jaw tightened, but I didnât argue. I followed the miserable nun from the office, through the warren of close, burrowing halls, to the cell Iâd been allocated for the past nine years. It wasnât home. It was a place for me to die a little every day.
A hard cot, small chest at its foot, desk, and chair. A hook for my robes. Those were on the floor as soon as the door thudded shut. I missed the click of a real doorknob latching. Hearing the slide bolt engage wasnât nearly as comforting.
On the far wall was a high, thin window. Iâd broken out the red glass enough times theyâd stopped replacing it. Bars lined the gap, but in fairness, they were on all the windows at this level of the dorms. Strictly for the safety of us vestal virgins, Iâm told. I could almost believe it with the way tensions were picking up again. That razor wire was no joke.
I sat on the cot in my bikini, staring at my toes. She hadnât made me take the polish off them, and the red made my skin look even paler. Not even the desert sun could give me some color, but I didnât go up on the roof for a tan. I craved the heat. Half or not, all dae did.
That was the worst part of penance, and she knew it. Everything on the north side of the compound lay in shadow. Only a sliver of sunlight hit my wall for a lousy sixteen minutes in the late afternoon. It was torturous.
I laughed. Had I given more thought to our conversation? I didnât have to. I wasnât sputtering, and I sure as hell wasnât doing it live-stream like theyâd been advertising. If I had to die, it was gonna be in a blaze as I surrendered to my elemental half. I wasnât a freaking PR op; I was leaving, this time for good. It was sooner than Iâd planned, but locking me up again had torn it, and I wanted that drink.
I wriggled into a pair of jeans and pulled on a tee. Ironically, it was of the Ramones, and I was trying to avoid sedation. The bells had rung for vespers. Everyone would be at chapel. I licked at my lips, pretty sure I could pull this off without tripping the smoke alarms. And if I couldn ât?
Yeah, I wasnât gonna think about that.
I focused on the tiny gap between the door and the jamb, calling flame. It wasnât easy. I mean, calling flame was easy, like, I can manifest plasma when Iâm desperate, but controlling it? Not so much. I kind of sucked at that, especially when I was nervous. I had to fumble around a bit before I tasted the bite of metal, but once I did, I placed my finger on the point, and let it rip.
I should explain. All daemons can call and control fire. Itâs our element. Weâre one of four under the fae umbrella. You know, Air is sylphs, Earth gnomes, Waterâs undinesâŚbut the others, especially undines, aren ât nearly as cool.
The stigmata on my back crazed light through my tee and around the room. Stupid nerves. I tried to tamp it down. Last thing I needed were wings of flame bursting out and incinerating everything within a ten-foot radius. No lie. That shit happens.
The gap had started to smolder and blacken up the frame. The slow pulse of the smoke detectorâs little green light was freaking me out. Once they knew I could mess with metal, theyâd keep me drugged. Not an experience I wanted to repeat, and that pen clickâŚmy mother was already thinking hypodermic.
All at once, the taste of metal was out of my mouth. I wiped my sweaty hands on my thighs and opened the door. The slide bolt glowed white-hot, and a low ribbon of smoke hung in the hall. Crap. I needed to move.
No way the latch would pass close inspection, but Iâd be long gone by then. At least, that was the plan. I mean, I kind of had a plan. Once I got to the undercity, it would be a whole ânother can of worms, but hey, horse before the cart, people. Berk would let me stay with him, probably.
I ghosted up to the fourth floor on the east side. My mother and the other sistersâ rooms were on this level of the dorm. It was a lot posher than below, with a communal sitting room. A lamp was kept burning in the center of a table, the flame leaning toward me as I passed, licking up the scarlet globe containing it. Stupid nerves.
No bars were on the windows up here, and in a heavily curtained alcove at the end, one opened to a narrow ledge. From there, I could get onto the chapel roof. Then freedom was only a drainpipe away.
ââŚafter which, Iâll be back to collect them.â
A manâs rumbling voice stopped me cold as I went to throw the latch. Pressing myself deeper into the shadows, my heart pounded, aching beneath my scar. I rubbed at the stupid thing. What was a man doing in the Priory?
Sounds a moment later cleared that up.
âIt wonât be an issueâŚâ
Shit, it was my mother. I snuck a peek through a gap in the curtains. The man was tall, with coal-black hair, streaked gray at his temples. Her hand was halfway down his impressively tailored pants.
âNo, it wonât. Iâve taken steps to ensure that.â He pushed back her wimple, the lampâs flicker glinting off his heavy gold ring. They moved up against a wall, and the lamp flared, then snuffed out.
I fell back with my fist shoved into my mouth to keep from crying out.
Not a man. A daemon.
My father? The possibility floored me. Her door opened and closed, unmistakable noises coming from behind it. I swallowed my shock and got my ass on that ledge. The moon hadnât risen yet, and it was barrel-bottom dark. I crept across the rooftops and out of the compound, numb.
The first car that came along once my thumb was up, stopped. I thanked the little blue-haired ladies and hopped into the backseat. Must be bingo night. Hitching a ride into the city had never been a problem, even though most of the jerks that picked me up wanted their dick sucked for the privilege. Plenty of pervs drive this stretch. They all rethink their life choices when I call flame. Works better than a brake line on a bus.
As the lights of the Priory dwindled into the distance, the shock of what Iâd just seen turned giddy. I was never going back. I laughed. I was never going back, and my mother was screwing a daemon. I wondered if good olâ Sister Contrition would stand up at the next Fae-A meeting and cop to relapsing. I laughed again.
Why did I find this so funny?
My mother was screwing a daemon in the founding church of a religion dedicated to expunging the sin of screwing fae. Their entire bullshit dogma revolved around a supposed vision some patrician asshole had of the world engulfed in flames. Cue finger quotes around their whole âRetribution.â Apparently, it âs brought on by the aforementioned carnal sin.
Spoiler, half-elementalsâhalflingsâare to blame for their apocalypse, specifically a half-dae, like me.
Thatâs why those bitches at the Priory were so hot to stream my âRedemptionâ live at the end of the month. Some marketing firm theyâd hired to revamp their image said itâd tested better with the focus group than going all jihad on us. All they needed was some impressionable half-dae to sputter, giving up the elemental half of their soul to become fully human, then wax poetic about how wonderful it is.
Getting a better idea of why they were so tickled my mother signed on?
Yeah. Except fuck them, Iâd rather go out in a blaze.
Literally.
They hadnât gotten the memo. Otherwise, Iâd be strapped to a gurney in a semi-comatose state for the next month. No way I was spending my last days on earth as a vegetable.
Iâm sure the biddies thatâd picked me up thought I was on something with all the giggling I was doing. I wished I was, because regardless of what hypocritical fuckery my mother was up to, it didnât change the fact that come July first, Iâd be dead.
And yes, I know thatâs not traditional Midsummer. Fae have different rules and halflings have to play by them. I wasnât complaining about an extra nine days.
Whatever. My impending death sobered me up pretty quick. I called a trickle of flame to thread between my fingers and steady myself.
It flared. Stupid nerves.
The car screeched to the side of the road. Told ya.
Why does that work so well? To put it mildly, halflings arenât well-liked, though some are tolerated more than others. Half-dae donât make that list. Refer back to the above end of the world stuff. Kind of sours other halflings on us, too. The whole one bad apple thing.
I didnât care. Them booting me gave me a chance to run, and the desert at night? Man, youâve never seen stars like that. Being out there was one of the things I missed being under lock and key. Well, behind slide and bolt. You needed a doorknob for the other.
I sprinted the last mile to the subway and rode it into the undercity.
The pub was hopping and tense as hell. The hopping part was only to be expected this close to Midsummerâs Eve. June was one giant send-off. Like I said, I wasnât the only one under a sentence of impending doom. Kyle was on stage at the back of the low-lit room. Half the women in the place were breathless as he sang. The other half were breathless because he wasnât wearing a shirt. Sylphs in general have issues with clothes. I have zero issues with their issues.
Before I get ahead of myself, you should know I have a thing for men. I like them. A lot. They like me too, but hereâs where it gets tricky. Remember I mentioned that whole lack-of-control problem? Yeah, itâs not just nerves that make me lose it. Believe me when I tell you, thereâs nothing worse than incinerating someone just when things are about to get interesting.
Normals are out. Totally.
Halflings are a close call. Like, close enough to scare the crap out of us both before the deed. If there was another half-dae in the city, Iâd be all over that, but none in their right mind is hanging out anywhere near the Priory. Before the sisters decided to go all Redemption, it was open season. It left me in a less than satisfied situation, but I did like to look.
God, I liked to look.
I grabbed a beer and leaned back against the bar, my tee sticking to its worn edge as I checked out the crowd. Vel City didnât have a huge halfling population, thanks to the proximity of the Priory, but the community it did have was pretty tight, and most tolerated me. I knew almost all of them by sight, if not by name, though there were new faces replacing the regulars whoâd gone missing. That wasnât surprising. As a rule, weâre pretty transient.
And we got offed a lot, by both sides. Statistically, maybe a quarter of all halflings make it to the final countdown. The majority are picked off by normals, but fae snagged us too. Iâd been talking to a guy once, and then I hadn ât been. Like, poof, he was gone. Classic fae move. It was a lot rarer than death by normal, but it happened. As to why, your guess was good as mine, but my money was on dinner or sex.
I should be so lucky.
Berk waved at me from the pool tables. Like thatâs what I needed to pick out seven-and-a-half feet of bulging brown muscle from the crowd. I pushed through the room of people, and he gave me a hug, his movements more ponderous than usual. He looked like shit. Berk shrugged at my expression, his voice gravelly.
âWorking triple shifts. Iâll not sputter and see the others safe before I fade.â
I looked away, and he tipped up my chin, trapping my eyes with his. I didnât see any turmoil about his fate in their mossy depths, just acceptance. I was nowhere near as sanguine about giving up my mortal form and having my consciousness snuffed.
Being a halfling was a raw fucking deal.
Shut up. I didnât cry.
âCan I crash on your couch?â
His lips twitched. âIf you can play nice with Morgana.â
That would be a no. I canât stand undines. Especially that undine. âWhyâs she there?â
âNormals raided the culverts.â
My stigmata flared, and he hugged me to him. I couldnât fault Berk, but I didnât have to like it, either.
Donât get me wrong. I was mad about the raid, not him taking in the fish. If we didnât look out for each other, no one else would. Most of us were abandoned as soon as our stigmata came in, and once twenty hit, whoever was left was forced to choose: fade into the element of our affinity, or give it up and sputter, becoming human.
That would buy you maybe a handful of years before you suicided. Iâd never heard of a halfling older than twenty-three. What was the point once your spark was gone?
Whatever. Iâd have to look for another place to crash.
The crowd clapped, and I turned to do the same, wiping my eyes. Stupid allergies. Kyle bounded off the stage, heading right to me, moth to flame. Enter candidate number two.
âHey, Snow,â he said, kissing me. God, I hated that. The nickname, not the kiss.
His breath mingled with mine, and the fire at my core jumped. Sylphs have that effect on daemons, half or no. The whole Air/Fire affinity thing. He thinks itâs hysterical. The nickname and my response to himâŚand most everything else. His white-blond curls stirred in their own private breeze as he pulled away, laughing.
Jerk plucked the beer out of my hand and finished it.
âIâll grab another round.â Blue eyes twinkling, he went to the bar.
I leaned against the pool table, watching the flickering azure of his stigmata play across his lats. They spread over his back like wings. I wanted to follow them with my fingers and lick them down pastâ
âCool it, Vy.â
Berkâs voice snapped me back. I jumped up, the felt of the table singed beneath me. I swept a hand across my rear. Crap. My jeans were crispy. Berk grunted at me with a look and took his shot. He was playing against a blonde I didnât recognize. She was a few years younger than us, trying to pull off sexy grunge with her kohl-lined eyes and midriff concert tee. The brunette she was sharing a beer with kept looking at me like she was trying to figure out where sheâd seen me before. I sighed, waiting for it. A or B?
A: As much as I hate to cop to it, I look like a certain will-not-be-mentioned fae-tale princess. Skin white as snow, blood-red lips, ebony hair minus the bob. Yeah, her. No lie. Iâm gorgeous, and my motherâs just as pissy about being supplanted in the looks department. Enough so that I stay away from apples on principle.
Kyle came back with the beers and handed me one. âDidnât think you were coming tonight.â He flipped his hair out of his eyes, and I swear to God one of the teenyboppers next to us swooned.
âDecided to bail early. She assigned me contemplation again.â
Kyle laughed. âFor what now?â
âSunbathing.â
âYeah?â He pulled me close. âNaked?â I rolled my eyes and let him kiss me. My arms felt good around his neck. His hands felt better on my back. He gave a deep chuckle. âYouâre all fired up tonight. I got the second half of my set, then you wanna get out of here?â
I looked at him like he was an idiot, and he raised an eyebrow at the singed ass-print Iâd left on the felt. He might like playing with fire, but third-degree burns sucked.
âIâll be fine after a few more of these,â I said, taking a long pull of my beer. It was true, to a point. Getting drunk tamped down my ability, but it also made me more likely to slip. Drunk or sober, I was a living, breathing game of Russian roulette. Good thing for me sylphs were adrenaline junkies. Especially Kyle. Seeing how close he could get was like some kind of fetish. I wasnât complaining.
âThen drink up, babe, my tab.â Kyle laughed, chugging his. He kissed me again and went back up on stage. Damn, he was fine. With an opportunity like that, the fact that I was going to die a virgin was definitely my biggest regret.
âI know who you are.â The brunette had come up beside me. I sipped my beer and ignored her, my gaze running over Kyleâs chest. The brunette popped her gum, and my eyes flicked to hers in annoyance.
âYeah?â I already didnât like her.
âYeah. You were on the Faith Hour.â
Shit. It was B. They mustâve rebroadcast that episode recently. Her friend had stopped to listen, pumping her cue stick like a dick in time to the music. I met Berkâs eyes over her shoulder. He licked his lips, knowing this could go bad fast.
I mentioned earlier things have sucked since my mother became a dedicate of the church. Cult. Whatever. You get the idea. Iâve also mentioned sheâs an attention whore and isnât particularly fond of me.
Unfortunately for both of us, she needs me around to maintain a certain level of gravitas. Having never been the maternal type, (I got cigarettes and a garter in my stocking when I was seven) and unable to guilt me into anything, she tried bribing me for a while. When that lost its luster, the natural progression of incentives became death threats.
Oh no, not from her. Violence takes effort, and God forbid she breaks a nail. Sheâs much too clever to get her hands dirty, but manipulating the rest of the populace into doing it for herâŚ
All it took was one appearance on Our Lady of the Blessed Infernoâs internationally syndicated Faith Hour. After sitting between my mother and the Prioress as they discussed the evils of a halflingâs nature, they turned to me, and asked a single, damning question. âDonât you wish you had a soul?â
I wonât get into semantics. Suffice to say, theyâre contentious, and there was no good answer. Iâve paid for the one I gave. Repeatedly. Glancing at the density of the crowd forming around us, tonight was shaping up to be another installment. I sighed, wishing I hadnât worn my favorite jeans. Whatever. They were already crispy.
âLay off,â Berk growled, taking his shot. The three ball slammed into the side pocket where the brunette was standing, making her jump. I bit back a smile as the crowd wavered. No one wanted to be around when Berk got pissed, especially below ground with his earth affinity.
Unless you were a slightly tipsy, very stupid brunette.
She laughed too loud. âSo what, you gonna shepherd the local Fae-A chapter when you sputter?â
My hands were around her throat before sheâd taken her next breath. My stigmata burst out from my back into great wings of flame, dripping down, searing molten holes into everything below me.
I think I mentioned I was having a problem with control.
Screams and hissing clouds of steam filled the air as the sprinklers went off. The girlâs face darkened, and her neck hardened to stone beneath my fingers.
What theâ
Her fist cracked against my skull, and I was thrown to the side, dazed. She came at me swinging, and I rolled, the concrete floor blackening beneath me. Behind us, the pub had erupted into mayhem, people fighting to get out. This much commotion, the cops would be here in no time. I needed to disappear, fast.
Not the easiest proposition when I was trying to dodge this bitch.
Flames licked up the walls, and I pulled them to me, condensing them into a burst of plasma. The shot took off her arm at the elbow. It dropped to the floor and turned to dull gray stone.
What the hell!
Shock made my stigmata go dark. I scrambled under the pool table as she came at me again, undeterred. Christ, she wasnât a halfling; she was a golem. Why would a golem be here? My mouth went dry. There wasnât an answer to that question that didnât end with me being in deepâ
A hand clamped around my arm, pulling me back out. Startled, I looked up into the eyes of a daemon.
The pool table hit the far wall, and he frowned, flicking a burst of flame from his hand. The golem disintegrated into a pile of scree, and a smile flickered over his lips. I blushed, trying to cover my nakedness. I might be fireproof, but my stigmata are hard on textiles.
His storm-gray eyes went completely black, glamouring me. None of it mattered anymore. The pub was silent, and for all I knew, we were the only two people in the world. He raised me to my feet, then cupped my chin, his midnight gaze holding mine. The fingers of his other hand trailed down my breastbone, following the long scar on my sternum. It burned, the tips of my breasts tightening.
He smiled, and the pub was gone.
Envy is a half-dae living in a priory. Ironic. As she approaches the halfling sacrifice humans have deemed necessary for safety, she is taken from her home to the world of the dae. Unlike the humans, who believe that the only options for halflings is death or sacrifice, the dae have the becoming. Follow Envy as she meets one of these fates!
âFlame & Shadowâ drew me in with its mix of religious myth and the daemon realm. I enjoyed the way that the daemon realm resembled the Celtic faerie realm. I was happily surprised by the other superstitious and mythical lore referred to beyond religion and faeries! For example, one character bears a striking resemblance to Eris, the Greek Goddess of Discord, most famously known from the âIliadâ. AK Nevermore provided a fresh take on these age-old myths that kept me reading! While there were a few concepts within world building that I felt could have been better explained, nothing was too major to the plot that these lesser-explained concepts interfered with overall understanding.Â
One thing that I was not a fan of was the conversational writing style. At first, I enjoyed the way that Envy narrated as though she were speaking to the reader. As the story went on this conversational, informal nature began to slightly annoy me (personal preference). I also found the authorâs use of âCliff notesâ to explain a long-story-short moment somewhat akin to a copout when it was not necessary. As a reader who loves when I can connect with characters, I found âFlame & Shadowâ lacking in that department. The characters were solidly written and described, but there was not as much character growth as I would have liked. There were also no side characters that I was yearning to learn more about. While this is not absolutely necessary, it is nice to have when the FMC is somewhat immature.
The true draw of âFlame & Shadowâ was the action! I was surprised at how exciting the training tasks and challenges were throughout the story. There were multiple times when I found myself having an âOMG, holy moly!â reaction to the action. A notable moment was when I reached the âApexâ. The chapter descriptor, âApex,â was appropriate because it was the type of action that brought you in and held on until the end. Lastly, AK Nevermore has set up a solid ending to this tale while simultaneously creating a cliffhanger that opens up options for a sequel!
I would recommend âFlame & Shadowâ by AK Nevermore for the reader looking for a new take on age-old myths and superstitions with a splash of romance and a heap of action!
Favorite Quotes:
âNames hold power, so I wonât tell you mine.â
âSpoiler, half-elementals â halflings â are to blame for their apocalypse, specifically a half-dae, like me.â
Rating: 3.4 stars
WRITING STYLE: 0.7/1
CHARACTER LIKEABILITY: 0.5/1
WORLD BUILDING: 0.7/1
ENTERTAINMENT: 0.8/1
PLOT: 0.7/1