Reviewed by Anna Lynn
TITLE: Fire and Smoke
SERIES: Nothing Special IX
AUTHOR: A.E. Via
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 322 Pages
RELEASE DATE: September 30, 2025
BLURB:
“A ruthless meth dealer is torching Atlanta’s streets, and God and Day are striking back with two of Hollywood’s legendary pyro experts.”
The war raging through Atlanta isn’t just about drugs—it’s about power, leverage, and survival. God and Day’s task force is the only barrier standing between a growing plague and the city’s safety.
Wes and Law, childhood friends turned blacklisted pyrotechnic rivals, are hiding out in Atlanta until the fire they started in Hollywood is extinguished.
It seemed like a safe choice—until they’re dragged into the task force’s frontline fight. Now they’re trading cinematic special effects for real explosions and blood in the streets.
God and Day’s team is fracturing under secrets and betrayal, as the merciless army of their fiercest kingpin yet slowly closes in.
They used to fight to conquer… now they’re just fighting to survive.
REVIEW:
The long-awaited book from the Nothing Special series from Ms. A.E.Via is finally here, and we will find out what is really happening in the special task force of Atlanta being led by Lieutenants God and Day. This task force was especially created in order to completely stop and/or curtail the gangs and drugs that are passing through Atlanta’s streets. It has become a plaque, no matter how fast the task force captures and incarcerates the various gangs responsible for distributing these drugs, there seems to be endless supply of gangs that immediately take over. Lately, they have been thwarted whenever they go after a particular drug lord, and in their last operation, God and Day were trapped in their own reinforced vehicle while the hood was burning due to an explosive that was hurled at them, luckily for them, Wes and Law were in that particular street, saw when that explosive was thrown, saw what was happening to the vehicle and that there were two people inside, Law just can’t stand by and not help, it’s not in his nature. The duo started hurling their own brand of chemicals to extinguish the fire burning the vehicle. After which they were taken to the police station, in particular to the task force of God and Day.
Lawson “Law” Sheppard and Wesley “Wes” Drake are natives of Atlanta, they started their pyrotechnics journey while they were young. They dreamed of being in Hollywood, which they achieved, blowing things up in blockbuster movies and living the life. But something happened that made them escaped Hollywood. They did something wrong which resulted to the accidental burning of an actress, aside from a few more misdeeds before that. They never wanted to hurt anyone, it was just an accident. Handling their fire and smoke was never safe that is why Wes and Law do several practices and experiments, a lot of computation, before they execute whatever they are cooking up. Everything that happened with their last job was an accident. If they can just honestly admit that their personal arguments led to those accidents which eventually cost them their life in Hollywood. So now they are back in their hometown, trying to heal and planning on how to get back to Hollywood and get their lives back, with each other or solo. They do love each other very much, it’s just that sometimes that love takes the back seat because of their individual ambitions and a rivalry that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. As they say, they burn really hot, not just in what they do but personally as well.
The task force has been trying to take down one particular Drug Lord to no avail, every attempt they do, it’s as if, the Drug Lord is prepared, thwarting, evading and eventually the task force failing. But when God saw what Law and Wes did in order to save him and Day in their burning vehicle, he is prepared to fight fire for fire. Whatever needs to be done to put this drug lord behind bars once and for all.
Wes and Law love each other very much, but their ambitions get in the way of that love most times. What with both of them as stubborn as the other, things do come to a head more times than not.
I love Wes and Law, although at times I want to bang their heads together. But Love is Love, whatever you go through, if you truly love each other, you get to be together in the end.
Thank you Ms. A.E. Via for this series and for the amazing characters you have created. This has been an amazing ride, living through the lives of all these strong, unapologetic, unstoppable men has been a wild ride. I cannot wait to see what happens when they go and storm.
RATING: 
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