“Sins of the Fire” is a dragon-infused novel from Phoenix Ward, surrounding Kane, a college student, and Mysherra, an ancient dragon sealed into a pen, granting Kane power beyond his wildest dreams.

What then derails is that the first ~20% (almost 100 pages!) surrounds Kane in his day to day life, and his failings in class as well as the struggles of being afraid of failure. Soon after, he picks up Mysherra near some rocks. This was a SLOG to get through. It was slow, boring, and listening to Kane’s anxiety issues CONSTANTLY detracted from his character and pacing.
Then, what goes on is mostly interspersed with the bad guy™, some training, and Mysherra giving him a snarky pep talk that leads to him feeling better about himself and his anxiety. Rinse and repeat, with Mysherra slowly becoming less haughty over time.

“La yasil al'iinsan 'iilaa kuli raghabat qalbihi. ‘A person does not reach all the desires of his heart.’ Try as we might to find the supposed ‘correct’ decisions, we will inevitably make a mistake or two. It is not always what we want.”

Mysherra, admittedly, was the only reason I kept reading this. She was snarky, funny, and watching her interact with Kane during Scattegories “Enubis” was hilarious. However, by the end, I was highly put off by the sudden derailment of the religious cult. It felt a little too far fetched, and Kane was making all the wrong decisions.

WHY would you GO TO A CULT HOUSE? There are a variety of ways to introduce an antagonist, and especially centering it around a religious cult is.. ehh..

Honestly, I was looking forward to this book. College, action and adventure, combined with the authors understanding of the world? I loved the idea. I WANTED to love it.

However, the writing style wasn’t extremely captivating. It felt as if it was more “tell” rather than “show”. I personally felt that the book, while interesting – suffered pacing issues, primarily due to how many simple things were just described. I don’t want to have to read through every motion Kane had to go through while reaching for his phone, and how he unlocked it.

There are ways to make the mundane seem interesting, but unfortunately, Ward struggles to do so.

Overall, this book was roughly 300 pages longer than it needed to be, suffers from pacing issues, but has an interesting premise. While I’m unsure if I’ll read the continuation, I’m still grateful for the chance to read the ARC.
*I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.*

3.5 stars.
This was a very interesting story. I enjoyed it, but it might not be for everyone. Some parts were a little slow but it allows you to learn about the characters and eventually the dragon gets introduced and you get to learn about her too. It follows the MMC, who is a college student and learns about the Christian armies that destroyed the dragons because they believed they were devils. The religion was a little heavy for me, from what I'm used to, but it was still an overall interesting read!