Sparking the Inferno

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

"Rich and detailed, Carter's world and characters live with an energy that makes it hard to believe this is his debut novel!"—Staci Olsen, Author of Falling through Stars“Hits the ground running, and feels like an epic saga from the opening paragraphs. Carter's characters are vivid and complex, often morally ambiguous, and completely engaging. Description and action are handled with balance and eloquence, with crackling dialogue that fully fleshes out each character.”—Darin Miller, Author of The Dwayne Morrow Mysteries“Page turner through and through. This book swept me away on an adventure I could never forget. Magical systems and emotions that hit home, with characters developing before my eyes. Carter instantly became one of my favorite authors.”—Haley Anna Marie, Author of the Elementas Series

Thirty feet of rope bridge is all that keeps Nevin from escaping an abusive home life, but fear proves stronger than pain. When a lapse in memory and a bloody canteen coincide with the arrival of the Baron's constabulary, Nevin unwillingly goes on the run. Wherever he hides, fire and soldiers follow.But why does it feel like it'shimthey're looking for?The inferno chasing him casts a long shadow, and from that darkness emerges a covetous presence. Is he hallucinating, or is it his sins made manifest? With the flames driving him farther and farther from home, will he finally be able to muster the will to take control of an unraveling life, or will the strengthening shadows threaten the lives of foe and friend alike?'Sparking the Inferno' is an enigmatic and moving tale of unfortunate circumstances and the responsibility of choice that plunges readers into an exciting journey across the troubled world of Stragus.

This is a full book now, having been released to Amazon to rave reviews! https://amzn.to/3RSLCLG

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2023
Author: Brandon Carter

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 12
Views: 17,853

Chapters(59 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(7)

PastorGroguRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Sorry it took so long for me to come read this, and it looks like I'll be your first review. After reading this, I don't know how that's possible, but I hope you get a lot more after this one.
Okay, here goes. It's good. It needs some polish to fix up some awkward spots, but it reads great.
Style: You can write. That's obvious. The first chapter was good, but it felt really weird until I got to the second and realized you'd written them in different tenses. I get it now. You've got good dialogue, characters feel like people, and you place your punctuation and form your sentences well. Again, a few awkward spots, but nothing some focused editing won't fix. Best chapter so far was 10. Great description, and TENSE. Really felt like I was there with Nevin.
Story: Starting with a dream can be annoying, but I still felt like it was meaningful to the story. I feel like there are some parts to trim, but I really enjoyed the ghost story early on, and jumping back and forth between the MC and the bad guys was good. Kept the story fresh. It's obvious you are building to something, and building the world slowly, which is nice. No big exposition dump. Info comes in logical places for the most part.
Grammar: Good grasp of the language. Felt like I should ding you a little for that early "you're" haha. Otherwise no problems here. If I see more, I'll comment.
Character: Hoo boy. Okay, I love the cat. Young, innocent, charming. Fine. The villain is good enough, though I think it's too early to tell. I want to know more about him. Not evil for evil's sake, I think, but that remains to be seen. Don't yet know how I feel about this 'man in black.' Could end up being a walking cliche, but again, too early to tell. Good for now. Curious about his glowing eyes.
Then, there's your MC. I don't really like him, or dislike him either, I guess. He's just sort of...there. I get the feeling like that's what you're going for, but up until around Chapter 10, I didn't really care much about him. As
AthenaWritesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
First off, I just wanted to say that I'm surprised that you haven't gotten more reviews yet! I felt like the overall story is very captivating, but here's the review broken into parts.
Style: I like the overall style, although one thing is some of the paragraphs can feel a little long, and the sentence structure feels a little monotonous in a couple of the early chapters. This is likely just personal preference for me and it definitely doesn't detract too much form the overall story, but that's why it's not quite the full five stars.
Grammar: I didn't see any major grammar issues, so 5 stars. It never really crossed my mind through reading it. Perhaps if I did a close read looking for grammar I'd have some things pop up, but the fact that it never detracted means that it's good enough in my opinion.
Story: I feel like there's a few instances where the story wonders and I'm not entirely sure where it's going. Obviously I assume that might be because it's still fairly new, but there were a couple times where I felt a little lost in the story. Again might just be a personal problem as generally this style of writing isn't my go-to, but I definitely still enjoy the story, just could use a little more clarity perhaps.
Characters: The characters are my favorite part! I feel like all of them have a very unique voice, which is really great. I know that I've seen a lot of stories where the characters kind of blend together, so it's nice to see you really differentiating them.
Overall I'm excited to see where the story goes, and I'll definitely keep reading!
A. StargazerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Wasn’t expecting to get sucked in as much as I was. The Author has certainly put a lot of effort and polish into this story. It has some darker tones to it right from the start, so I wouldn’t say it’s for light reading. I might go so far as to call it grimdark.
Grammatically, I spotted maybe two minor errors in my reading. Not going to detract anything for them because they were so minor.
Style wise, the author can write, and he can write well. Full marks.
Character wise, I feel that the MC just sort of falls flat. It’s early in the story yet which means that he has lots of time and room to grow, but honestly I found the villain and the villain’s henchmen more interesting than the MC so far. He’s just not particularly compelling in the beginning of the book, imo. It’s not that I don’t sympathize with him; as a victim he’s very sympathetic. Why is he important to the story? What makes him special and worth writing about? His pet lynx is awesome, and the villain is a well done sociopath, but all we have for the first 10 chapters about the MC is that he’s the victim of domestic violence.
Story wise, it’s clear that the author has plans and intends to take us somewhere. Where, it’s hard to say because its still early, but the author has introduced enough setting and a bit of backstory to indicate that he’s given it a lot of thought. However, other than ‘the villain is searching for something,’ there’s not much to go on yet as to what it is.
BellaArtzRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Honestly, I wasn't really into this story at first, especially with how the first chapter felt so confusing but right after that, it was pretty much smooth sailing. I found myself intrigued the further I got and though things seem to be moving slowly, it's all bearable thanks to how short and directs each chapter is.
There's a whole lot of mystery surrounding every chapter that I read and I'm always biased towards mystery novels because they keep me on my feet.
I can't stay much on the characters since there aren'that many of them but the writer uses their dialogues and interactions well, letting them tell the story effortlessly. There is very little I can say about the two that seem to be the main characters though, Nevin, in my opinion seems pretty plain but I'm very interested in his backstory and his relationship with his father. Audix, on the other hand seems fun and (sort of a spoiler) is a talking cat, which seems to be all he has going for him. But these are just the first ten chapters so I'expecting a whole lot more.
I hardly spotted grammatical errors but when I did they were easy to brush off, I still suggest the writer should go back and correct them though.
The story is fairly easy to read and interesting to follow. I can tell we're in for a lot in the future and I hope to be able to get back to this work in time.
Guardian13Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Sparking the Inferno is, what the author describes, as a slow burner which is what it needs to be for an epic as rich. Right from the beginning we're left wondering who is who and what's going on. Usually I don't care for that, but the way it plays out is great. I admit I haven't read everything so far, but I can tell you I am looking forward to the next chapter. That's what good storytelling should be.
OVDCRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This story has some of the best prose I've ever seen. The first few chapters in particular, had prose on the level of some very good poems. It's like Lord of the Rings level prose, except in a darker tone. It seems to be very dark, but not so much, because of the one issue: The plot isn't that evident.
Sue, the prose is great, the worldbuilding is good, but I can't find much of a plot. Basically, the MC, Nevin, eavesdrops on a conversation after being tortured in a dream, then talks to his cat. Not much of a plot.
Other than that, everything is good. Great prose, the worldbuilding is pretty good, the characters seem real enough, etcedera. Basically, it's good, but there isn't much of a plot.
So basically (in advanced format):
Style: With the prose, it's extremely good. 5/5, would give 10/5 if I could. It also has good worldbuilding, good pacing, and all that stuff. Though it is a bit slow, but it's fine. I just like extremely fast stories, but this is good enough.
Grammar: I didn't see any major mistakes. Sure, there might have been one or two minor things I didn't catch, but there no grammar, spelling, or really any mistakes if it's about English. 5/5.
Story: This is where it lags. The premise is intresting, quite a good grimdark, but execution isn't so good. It lacks much of a plot. It's just this: MC is tortured in a dream, then, with real injuries, eavesdropps on a conversation in the middle of a forest, then talks to his cat. But this raises all sorts of questions: How did the MC get there? What major event could logically follow? The story could do with major improvements.
Characters: Seem real enough. The MC tanks pain better then normal, and seems to do a normal thing, though seems too brave. Nothing to say about characters much. 3.5/5.
Now, for the overall score, I'll take the mean. But I will put style at 6. So, 6+5+2+3.5=16.5. 16.5/4=4.125. 4.125 rounded to the nearest half would be 4, so 4 stars.
Brian PRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
I feel that the story is well written, there are no parts that you will need to read over a few times to understand what the author is trying to portray.
I guess the main problem I have with it is, I don't care about any of the people in the story. The guy who is supposed to be the "living legend" just seems to be an "A" hole who was just doing a job for money. The MC is just some kid with no skills or special knowledge of anything, does not want to be there and puts in no effort to escape or get himself in a better situation. He has a Talking Cat companion which while it seems pretty cool, the author doesn't really utilize it well. Also any time the MC does anything...He just blacks out and we never get told what happened.
So after reading the 49 chapters here, I would recommend you not waste your time. While it's possible it turns into a good story, I suspect it just continue to "limp on".