An altogether odd experience. It's so short that you're just kind of dropped in, and I may need more context as to why everyone is just so smutty.

Well this was certainly a very unique read. I loved the premise and the characters and the ending surprised me! I enjoyed it and I want more from the author.

This book had so much potential. The story was interesting and the characters were likeable.. However it fell short due to its size and lack of worldbuilding. As the first book in a trilogy I expected to be introduced into a world and taken on a journey that ends on some sort of cliffhanger that makes me pine for book two. Instead I was tossed into a world that I didn't fully understand and I was left at the end of a "novel" that felt like chapters 1-10 of an actual book. This fell short for me, but I think the author has good ideas and could do a lot with more worldbuilding.

A great fantasy novel for fans of the genre. The atmosphere is intense and exciting, and the story is well-paced.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

this book has interesting characters and a plot, I really enjoyed reading this and couldn't put the book down. I really hope there is more in this series.

I have only read the first 96 pages as that was on the edition that I was given to read. It is a story that promises that it could be good, but I have to admit that I was a little lost with what was happening. The characters are interesting, but the action was a bit scatty. Maybe it was just me!

It was good. 4/5 stars because while I enjoyed a ton of it, I'm not sure that we needed the sex scene or to be told about Ava's previous dalliances with members of the Guard, random opium addicts, that sort of thing. They didn't add much more to the story beyond us knowing that in the House of Tong, she would be deemed an unfavorable. I hear there are to be more in this series and I am looking forward to them. I got this book in return for a review from NetGalley. I did quite enjoy it.

2.5 stars

Somehow this book was both too long and too short - too long to keep my attention, too short to feel like an actual novel. I figure this is a part of a future trilogy, but in reality it feels like a third of a book.

The author clearly did have quite a story mapped out, and I think it could be good. But it needs reworking and editing. It needs building.

I find it hard to say what I didn't like about it, but it just didn't draw me in. There IS worldbuilding, but something is just off about it. Perhaps that there are so many concepts about this place that are different from how our world works - but not all of them are explained, so you are left wondering. Or they are explained, but way later, when it's sort of irrelevant for you (I kept wondering for like half the book what a hide-behind was and I'm still not sure).

The story itself could have been good - but it didn't keep my attention and confused me. It still has potential, but without reworking and editing and I can not recommend it.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

I wanted to read this one because of the book cover. It is one those that I fell in love with instantly so Kudos to whoever designed it. You've done a job well done.

Now for the story, I have loved myself a story where one just starts with the action; right in the middle of the story but this one starting thus left me in a lurch because it was a made up world of which I had no prior knowledge.

On top of that, it was not a full length novel but a novella which seemed to have been published presuming that the author is well aware of the world therein and that no explanation would be necessary.

That was the major downfall of the story because things did not make sense as I had no idea what one thing or the other was.

Seeing as this is part of a trilogy, there are books to follow which may explain a lot of stuff that was just mentioned in this too short a story.

Over all, it is a 2.5 stars for in which 1 whole star is juts for the cover.

This just wasn’t very well written, and that made it a slog to read. It had some interesting ideas and elements I don’t see a lot in fantasy, but a lot of plot points and world building lacked context and felt choppy.

DNF @ 47% - interesting premise, not so engaging underdeveloped characters taking actions and dropping world information that don't always make sense in the situation.

Series are my favorites to read, so I was so excited to know there was more coming once I finished this book. It is a great fantasy read, so imaginative! My favorite part about reading this genre is the ability to remove yourself from real life and get immersed in a story, and this one did not disappoint!

Brimstone is a surprising book. A book that introduces us to a world that is hard to define. It feels much like the ours of century ago, a bit like the Tsars’ Russia, but it also has something of a pre-industrial Paris, with just a tinny bit of a big city at the time of the fast frontier expansion in the US.

Justine Rosenberg works hard to give this world its grim patina, layering cruelty, poverty, racism, with just enough hope, some love and quite some lust to make it look real and old and deep. At times, however, she’s a bit scanty with her worlds and her descriptions move too fast to let the reader, or at least me, get a good look at the final picture. Because of it, I did feel lost her and there, not knowing exactly what place I was and who was there with me.

Nonetheless, making up for that blurriness of the background, Rosenberg creates characters that are full of life and desires. Ava, a disgraced member of the Knighthood, now a prostitute, brims with life, and anger and a deep set need for revenge that a times looks like an unbearable thirst for hope and a new begging. She’s the one we follow as she hides a fugitive, a non-human one, I must add, but human enough to fall in love with, or as much as she thinks one can fall in love with anything other than the notion of showing your family they didn’t break you and neither did life, even if both tried really hard.

As I say, the story moves fast, introducing different races, and territories, while explaining us how it all works, from an elemental sort of magic that seems to be the source of all the riches to the never changing nature of those in power, wanting to stay in power and caring little for those they exploit.

It take effort to get into this book. You may find the initial pages difficult to follow, but once it all settles in your imagination, the trip is very much worth the hard work.

Original, lyrical at times, and full of surprises, give Brimstone a chance.

enjoyed this book wasn't really sure if id like it but I did and i would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading young adult novels !

DNF @ ~11%

The writing is really bad and the world building is try hard at best. The author only has less than 100 pages to try to tell a story. It can be done but not like this that's for sure.

I was intrigued by the description of this, and as its a debut read there wasn't anything else by this author I could see to check whether her writing suits my reading. So I took a jump and requested. There is not enough world building and the book is not long enough, of what there is the story fails to hold your attention, with some work I think this could be really good but not as it is.

I thought this was a wonderful taster of the Author’s creation - filled to bursting with buckets of ideas, intricate world building and interesting characters. Being a novella it left much open and unexplained, but I for once hope there will be a full length novel soon - I can’t wait to hear more about Ava and Sariel, Oliver, Inday and Caleb, about the hide-behinds and river ghosts, the pit lords, earth-wells, the Eighth Pike, the Northern Dark, the geomancers and all the other places and concepts only briefly introduced so far.
A brilliant start to what I hope will become a riveting series!

There is so much going on in Brimstone, that it is amazing that it is all crammed into a short 96 page novella. However, I imagine that this is also incredibly off-putting for many readers, as very little concession is made to explaining, well, ANYTHING.

Ava Sandrino is a knight fallen from grace - a military group known for celibacy, but she was caught sleeping with a superior, and is now a successful prostitute. When she comes home to find the wraith Sariel, an elemental species, hiding in her flat, she decides to protect him. With a knight from her past on her trail, she must go on the run, using all of the contacts and resources she has built up over the years to rescue Sariel and escape the life that she has become trapped in.

I tried hard, but I still don't understand whether this is set in some kind of sci-fi fantasy earth, or an imaginary planet. Likewise, I can't tell whether the lines of travel, or slipstreams, are over-elaborate ways of ocean-travel, or they are conjoined planets. Who can tell?

Furthermore, there were so many off-scene characters, lands and political contexts that were mentioned, in order to give 'life' to the story, but just added to the confusion. I'm still not certain who the Pit Lords, One O'Clock King or the Emperor Tong are, or even if some are the same. The story showed great imagination, though, from the names and locations, to the political and geographical context.

It was short, and I really admire the amount of content and good writing that was crammed in to such a short story - it had the potential to really show how less is more in a very sophisticated way. But without any clear explanations of what on earth (or off earth?) was going on, it  meant that, although you could go along with the story, very little made any sense. It was like trying to translate a foreign language, with only a minimal grasp of the vocab.

I chose to read this book because of the beautiful cover and I always enjoy reading stories about gateways to other worlds.

Ava Sandrino is a knight fallen from grace, who now earns her living as a prostitute. When she shelters Sariel, an escaped vampire-like slave, he tells her of a gateway to another world - a place where anyone can make their fortune. In trouble for harbouring Sariel, and with an old enemy soon on her trail, Ava has no choice but to try to go on the run. But when she is parted from Sariel, how will she ever find her way back to him and this new world?

Brimstone is well-written and I particularly liked Ava as a character. However, there is very little world-building, meaning that either I couldn't work out what was going on or the story was slowed right down by having the characters explain who-was-who and what-was-what. The book is very short (166 pages, according to Amazon), making it novella-length, but as it finishes without resolving anything, it gives the unfortunate impression that it is a full-length book cut into three parts.

I should think fans of fantasy novels would enjoy Brimstone but be aware you would probably need to buy all three parts to fully appreciate the story.


Thank you to Justine Rosenberg for my copy of this book, which I requested from NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Unfortunately, I did not finish this book, I was struggling with the characters, their relationships (insta-lust, literally), and the world. It was hard to keep track of what was going on because we weren't given/shown enough.