It's 2:47 AM, I'm scrubbing through a timeline trying to sync a page-flip transition to a beat drop, ring light frying my retinas, and Kingfisher growls at Carrion Swift to keep his mouth shut and stick to the shadows. I physically stopped editing. Like, hand off the mouse. Because I KNEW Carrion was about to ignore every single word of that, and I needed to be fully present for the disaster.
That's the energy of Brimstone in one beat. It's 24h 30m long. Book two of Fae & Alchemy. And the part that kept me awake wasn't the crown or the court. It was two males who can't stand each other walking through a cursed city together.
Fisher and Carrion on a buddy-cop trip I didn't know I needed
Quick setup, no spoilers past the blurb. Saeris is queen of the Blood Court now, and the changes that made her stronger also mean she'd straight-up die if she went back through the Quicksilver to Zilvaren, the sun-scorched place she was born. Her brother and her ward are still there. So she has to send someone else. Again.
That someone is Fisher. Plus Carrion, the smuggler who physically cannot stop talking.
And y'all. The grumpy, deadly, mate-obsessed warrior babysitting the chaos gremlin who cracks jokes in the middle of danger? I would've watched a whole spinoff of just this. The Silver City sections have that tight, sneaky, "one wrong move and we're dead" tension I chase, and Carrion's mouth keeps cutting that tension right when it's about to snap. One listener said the book made them laugh at the characters' wit, and that's real. The banter is the reason the middle stretch holds up.
But (and this is a big but) splitting Saeris and Fisher up means the romance runs long-distance for a chunk of the book. A couple of reviewers called out continuity issues and important characters disappearing for stretches. I felt that too. At 2.0x you notice fast when somebody you care about hasn't shown up in what feels like forever, and I caught myself going "wait, where is everyone??" more than once. The actual Brimstone concept, the thing on the COVER, also gets explained late. That bugged me. If you name the book after it, give me the lore before the final act, please.
Spice check: it's there, and it's Fisher, so it's possessive and intense. Is it organic every time? Honestly, not always. A few scenes landed like the plot paused so the chapter could hit its spice quota. I'll defend a spicy romantasy to my grave, but I'm also gonna say when the timing feels pasted in. This was mostly earned. Mostly.
Palmini's Fisher vs. a queen who doesn't sound crowned yet
Okay. The narration discourse on this one is LOUD, and I'm picking a side on each narrator separately.
Anthony Palmini as Fisher? Yes. Lower, gravelly, threat sitting right under every line, and that voice is a huge part of why the spice works at all. He also gives the other male characters their own personalities, so Carrion doesn't blur into Fisher, which matters a LOT when they're stuck in the same scenes for hours. Some listeners flagged his mispronunciations and weird pauses. I heard a few odd emphasis choices. At my speed they mostly zipped past, but if you listen at 1.0x and you're picky about fantasy names, you'll probably clock them.
Stella Bloom is where I split with the hype. Her voice is clear, and when she gets emotional she commits to it. But Saeris is a QUEEN now. I want the kind of crown-earning arc Throne of Glass gave me, where the power shows up in how a heroine carries herself. And for long stretches she still sounds like the anxious girl from book one: a little flat, a little complaining, never really stepping into the power the text keeps telling me she has. Other reviewers said "whiny" and "monotone." I'd go with "under-crowned." It didn't make me DNF. It did make me perk up every time we cut back to Fisher's POV, which is not what you want from a duet.
The duet format itself is great, though. It's the same dual-narrator setup that hooked me in Quicksilver, and the handoffs are still seamless. You always know whose head you're in, no chapter header needed. Production is clean, nothing glitched, nothing weird in the mix.
Grab it if you're Quicksilver-pilled, pass if you need them in the same room
If Quicksilver hooked you, this one is better in a lot of ways (at least one other reviewer agrees with me). It's bigger, funnier, and the Zilvaren trip rules. The cost: a romance that spends a lot of time apart, a title concept that shows up late, and a heroine whose audio performance hasn't leveled up the way her character has. Oh, and it ends on a cliffhanger, so bring snacks and patience for book three.
If you're coming in fresh off Fourth Wing wanting nonstop couple chemistry, know that the chemistry here is half romance and half two guys bickering in alleys.
Exporting this one, cliffhanger and all
I finished the edit. Posted at 4 AM. Already rewound Carrion's worst jokes twice. Spending the credit was worth it for Fisher's voice and the Silver City alone. Saeris just needs a narrator who sounds like she'd actually wear the crown.
