Title: The Whole World Tinder
Series: Flint and Tinder: Book Three
Author: Gregory Ashe
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 209 Pages
Category: Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: One of the things that remains consistent in Ashe’s work is that his characters and their various traumas nearly overshadow everything else happening to and around them. Nearly, but not quite. The fuse on the drama, suspense, and action burns down to a final pivotal moment of truth.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Jim’s birthday is coming up, and Emmett is determined to make it a good one. Scratch that. A perfect one. Sure, that means spending money he doesn’t have. Sure, that means trying to keep secrets, which Jim is irritatingly good at ferreting out. It even means playing nice when his parents attempt a reconciliation, no matter how much he wants to tell them to screw off. But he can do that—all of it—for Jim.
When Emmett’s parents ask him to befriend a girl who survived a terrible car crash, Emmett can connect the dots: his father’s political aspirations; the daughter of a freshman senator; and Emmett, the boy with scars. To keep the peace, he agrees. But when he and Jim arrive at the remote cabin, everything goes wrong. An attack by the Solar Court ends with the senator’s wife and daughter being kidnapped—and with Jim and Emmett on the run.
As someone tries to draw a net tight around Jim and Emmett, the two men must race to save the kidnapped girl and her mother. Their search takes them into the path of private security forces, the unnatural creatures known as wanderers, and—most dangerous of all—monsters from their past. And if they’re too late, they’ll watch the whole world burn.
Review: Emmett Bradley and Jim Spencer have gone through some things. Of course, Gregory Ashe has never written a book in which his characters don’t suffer more than most. Mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, what have you, Emmett and Jim have suffered. And yet they survive. They strive to live another day. Whether they will thrive, however, is a work in progress. The goal is still for them both to get better.
One of the things that remains consistent in Ashe’s work is that his characters and their various traumas nearly overshadow everything else happening to and around them. Nearly, but not quite. Personally, I find myself absorbed in what they’ve gone through, endured, how they react to each other and the world in general, their coping mechanisms, and the way they eventually make themselves vulnerable to each other. And, in this case, how Emmett passed up a bargain because his scars are yet another way to silently keep people at arm’s length. It saves him from having to tell them to go to hell.
Emmett and Jim are up against supernatural forces in what could be deemed a turf war—it’s certainly a jockeying for control—caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, and in Jim’s case, he comes face to face with his past. It comes far too close to wrecking him. The fuse on the drama, suspense, and action in The Whole World Tinder burns down to the final pivotal moment when Emmett realizes he can be his own hero, and be Jim’s too. They are getting better, little by little.
The battle was won, though I can’t help but believe a war still looms. Vie’s mother is still out there, roaming free, presumably still wreaking havoc. Time will tell if the danger she represents will reunite these characters, and whether readers will get to witness it.
You can buy The Whole World Tinder here: