A pulpy Christian misfire with a comic book–like plot.
Holiday imagines a godly superhero in this debut Christian fantasy novel, the first in a series.
San Diego police officer Travis Holiday likes being a cop. He sees it as a life of service, allowing him to help people through their most difficult moments. His career comes to a screeching halt, however, when his car veers off the highway in the middle of some dense fog. A bearded man in a white gown appears and pulls the broken Travis out of his vehicle, miraculously healing his shattered bones. Travis isn’t dead; this man, Mark, tells him, “You’ve been chosen to defend others in God’s name.” Despite his faith, Travis isn’t thrilled by the news—he has a wife and son he desperately wants to go home to—but he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Mark takes him to a new place, a spiritual battleground between good and evil called Carnage Coast, where he is to serve as the Iron Warrior, a soldier for God in his war against Lucifer. Once they arrive in the temptation-ridden city, Travis finds a house waiting for him, complete with an underground superhero lair. It turns out he also has a day job: owner of the WWE-like Carnage Coast Wrestling Association. As Travis acclimates to his position, he begins his vigilante work for God (which mostly involves beating up people who get rough with women in alleys). In the meantime, Lucifer has recruited a new soldier of his own: alcoholic sex worker Lynda Lynch, who is willing to use her sexuality to win him souls in exchange for powers to hurt those who have long hurt her. Lucifer has one man in mind for Lynda to seduce: Travis Holiday. Can Travis remain a pure warrior of God, assisting vulnerable women while remaining true to his wife and son, or will he be merely the latest man to fall victim to the temptations of Carnage Coast?
The author throws himself into this invented world with enthusiasm, and there are some fun ideas here. (Readers who are just looking for some vigilante violence in an underworld milieu will find plenty of it.) Unfortunately, Holiday’s prose is flat and expositional, and every sentence arrives with a clunk: “The Iron Warrior is the one who is strong, hardened and dedicated to serving others. Iron signifies hardness and strength. It doesn’t bend or give way to pressure. Warriors, fight for something greater than themselves. They develop themselves so they can be strong enough for others.” The simplistic manner in which the story is told makes it ill-equipped to deal with the many disturbing and violent events of the plot—Lynda, for example, is sexually assaulted as soon as readers meet her. Holiday the author clearly means for Holiday the character to be a kind of Christian Batman, but it simply doesn’t work—the novel is neither theologically nor psychologically rigorous enough to reconcile its Christian messaging with its crude interest in sex, blood, and profanity. A pulpy Christian misfire with a comic book–like plot.Pub Date: May 5, 2024
ISBN: 9798324850081
Page Count: 267
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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