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Overall? Meh

I wanted to like Phoenix Spy by TJ Nichols much more than I actually liked it. It was a bit of a struggle. This is book one in the Brothers of Fire series.

Brothers of Fire Series

The brothers in the story are all phoenixes who head up a secret organization to protect paranormals. Because they are phoenixes they are immortal, and hide that fact by crafting ornate backstories to explain their perpetually identical looking selves appearing throughout history. They don’t remember their lives when they are reborn, so keep vast documentation about their selves and their actions in a vault type location where only the brothers can access their most private secrets. It’s an interesting concept that I like the implications of, I enjoyed how the author tries to explain the intracacies of how immortality à la being reborn as a Phoenix would work.

Confusions in Phoenix Spy

The most confusing element for me boils down to that I didn’t understand the society the book is set in. That is a huge fundamental thing that a reader needs to understand, really. It was complicated to work out and there were only hints to so many aspects of the world that ended up not being explained enough. It became so common that I searched if this was a spin-off of another series. I’m not sure if it is or not, to be honest.

Next Book in the Brothers of Fire Series?

I tentatively plan to read the next book. I hope the world will be better fleshed out in that story.

Overall Phoenix Spy is an enjoyable story, with the drawback being that several plot points could have been more exciting. Things were explained as having already happened when it would have been more exciting to be there in the moment the action happened. I don’t understand why the author writes this book this way, honestly. In general, readers like to place themselves in the action. Being told of something that happened like “Oh yeah this major plot culminating thing happened and now it’s over” is a letdown. I don’t want to be told that the climax of the story happened off page, after the fact. I want to read it.

That let me down. I might look for other books, maybe not because now that I write this out it makes me upset that the book was written this way.

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