A review by babygirl06301
The Flame Never Dies by Rachel Vincent

4.0

there will be spoilers

Okay, I'm not going to say much on this novel, mostly because, if you read and loved the first installment, you'll love this one.

I've seen a decent amount of people talk about this story being predictable overall, and I agree with that statement. Especially in this second novel. In [b:The Stars Never Rise|17788681|The Stars Never Rise (The Stars Never Rise, #1)|Rachel Vincent|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420315185s/17788681.jpg|24878978], the only big plot point I could predict was that the Church was run by demons. Albeit, that's quite a big plot point to predict, but for the most part, it was a suspenseful read. [b:The Flame Never Dies|26514517|The Flame Never Dies (The Stars Never Rise, #2)|Rachel Vincent|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1469622005s/26514517.jpg|24878988], however, didn't have that effect for me. But the way [a:Rachel Vincent|415967|Rachel Vincent|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1394768659p2/415967.jpg] writes paired with the story she told made it... okay. This second book wasn't about suspense for me; it was about closing out the characters and the story that I fell in love with in the first book.

That being said, I didn't like this one as much as the first one. I'm all for halting the telling of a story before it gets beat into the ground, but it feels like having this series as a duology was a bit of a waste. A lot of this novel felt rushed, and certain parts of it were cut off before they wore out their entertainment value. For example, I think it would've been interesting to see Grayson, Finn, and Nina spend more time in Pandemonia before they escaped. Plus, it seemed entirely too easy to spread the virus to the entire city, as well as kill Kastor, which seemed quite anti-climatic. Overall, it just felt like the story was well planned out in the beginning, but it ultimately got wrapped up too quickly because of... I don't know, loss of interest on the author's end?

At the very least, it would've helped me out if this second novel was "fluffed" more. A.K.A.: This book should've been longer. There could've been more added, like how, in the first book, there were lots of mentions of the history of the Church and why the rules were the way they were. There was hardly any of that this time around, save for the small pieces we got about the demon world. It just felt like the world [a:Rachel Vincent|415967|Rachel Vincent|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1394768659p2/415967.jpg] created was wasted by lack of use and exposure.

At the risk of making this book sound all bad, I'm gonna say something now that'll contradict everything I said in the past few paragraphs: the way this author tells a story makes all of those things I mentioned unimportant. There's no way to pinpoint exactly why that is, but the manner in which the story of Nina Kane was concluded made it worth any imperfections you could find. Even the ending was satisfactory for me. Knowing that Adam would be saved by his family, but only after he helps kill all of demonkind, that's poetic justice right there. The only real edit/grievance I have here is that I wanted more time with the secondary characters. Although Nina is the main character here, I love all the members of Anathema, as well as Eli. I just wish we'd gotten more of them in this final chapter.

I'd still recommend this series to anyone who likes the genre. It's well worth it, even if it ended too soon for my liking. Check it out, you won't regret it.