Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Sealed By Fire
AUTHOR: A. Catherine Noon and Rachel Wilder
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: 269 pages
BLURB:
Vanya is a sorcerer’s apprentice who finally achieves his goal, initiation as a sorcerer – only to find that he, himself, is the intended sacrifice in their ritual. When the ritual goes wrong, his master flees and he is left with the creature that his master summons.
Stranded on this side of the portal, Nash is a powerful being with only one desire – find the sorcerer who stranded him and wreak his revenge. Vanya agrees to help, and in the process, he and Nash find more than they ever bargained for: love, friendship, and belonging.
Can they protect themselves against the sorcerer’s growing power, or will he destroy all that they hold dear?
REVIEW:
Being almost ritually sacrificed by his master to a being from another dimension is not what Vanya would call the makings of a good day. Not that any of his days lately had been ‘good.’ But when the ritual takes a rather unexpected turn, Vanya comes to find out the ‘sacrifice’ intended to seal his master’s control had rather less to do with blood slowly leaking out of his body, and more to do with some cross-dimensional hanky-panky. And after 21 years of forced celibacy, Vanya is finding he doesn’t mind sacrificing himself. Over and over again. Just, you know, to be thorough.
Still, it is not all fun and erect pensis. Vanya’s master is rather put out that the ritual was flubbed, and seems to feel that removing Vanya (permanently) from the equation will solve all his problems. Which is probably true. Unfortunately true–especially for Vanya, Nash, and the rather restless nest of snake shifters guarding their backs–because Vanya’s master has no trouble killing to solve his problems.
This book is set in an alternate universe where sorcerers, shifters, and magic are common and known about. Vanya has been apprenticed to his master since he was a little kid, and is only now coming to realize that all his ‘training’ was only his master fattening him up for the slaughter. I quite enjoyed the world that was built here. And found the various magics and magical people really interesting. Especially the snakes. Now, I am the first to admit that if I see a snake in real life my first reaction is going to be ‘scream like a little girl,’ but I have a fondness for snake shifters. They just don’t pop up all that often in stories, and I was really happy to see that they are the good guys in this story. And a whole nest of gay(ish) snake shifters…well that is fine by me.
I also liked how magic functioned in this world. It wasn’t overly complicated, but it was nice to see Vanya slowly learn that even the smallest of spells can turn the tide in battle. And the fact that Vanya is Russian, and we get introduced to some rather foreign ideas of magic and magical beings was rather cool. And I really liked the mage fight at the end. It was very well written, with just the right amount of tension so that it didn’t seem inevitable–even if it was.
However there were some things about this book that I had problems with. The main one is how what Vanya knew, saw, or could do fluctuate from chapter to chapter. He would know something in one chapter and then act surprised by learning about it in the next–especially when it came to the snakes. I know stories where there are two authors can present issues in the writing, but sometimes it felt like no one bothered to go back and make sure that the story as a whole was coherent and not filled with so many inconsistencies.
Also, Nash called Vanya by his various pet names, way more than needed. It sometimes felt like every other piece of dialogue required Nash to call Vanya ‘lostling’ or some other pet name. What was cute on page five quickly became annoying by page seven, and after 250 pages of it I really felt the need just shake someone and tell them, quite firmly, that “I GET IT!” If someone was to do this to me in real life I’m pretty sure I would throw a book at their head. Yes, Nash was trying to show his affection…but there have to be less annoying and repetitive ways of doing it.
This is not a bad story, and there are certain elements that I really liked. The snakes were awesome. But it also felt like the story got sidelined for the porn. And while I have nothing against books that want to center on the sex and not the story, they are not for me. Had I known, going in, that this was going to have sex shenanigans every other scene, I would not have picked it up. It just became something I had to skim thru to get to the interesting bits, and over 200 pages of that can get a bit annoying. The sex was hot–when I read it–but it was just too much for me. It impacted the rest of the story because it didn’t really build up anything but steam. The plot got left by the wayside time and time again so Nash and Vanya could get it on, and that’s a pity, because the plot really was interesting. Just a little flimsy because it never got enough time to really grow.
RATING: 
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