Review: A rich prize and a nautical game of thrones
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 10, 2013
I just finished the 3rd book in this trilogy and re-read the first two on the way.  It works very well as one read.  I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this tale from beginning to end. The storytelling, the writing, and (important in this ebook age) the editing are superb.  As I was reading the word that kept occurring to me in regard to Mr. Tomerlin' s writing was "fearless".  If I was going to compare Devil's Fire+ to anything it would be Martin's Game of Thrones. From the very beginning to the very last page every time I said to myself "ah, now I know where he's going" that was the moment when everything got turned completely on its head.  Mr Tomerlin is also unafraid to be wildly inventive while leaving tentacles firmly attached to bits of historical coral, at least in essence if not always in fact. Images like Pirate Town and the Keelhaul Tavern will remain vividly impressed on my brain. Also vividly impressed are some of the most inventive and detailed methods of execution and death I've read in some time. These novels are definitely not for the squeamish and these pirates behave as I suspect real pirates behaved-a fidelity I know Matt was trying to achieve. This makes the Devil's Fire trilogy a welcome achievement and a respite from both familiar pirate tropes and from the pirate themed romance novels that seem to have been the mainmast of pirate literature of late.  This artful weaving of the imaginative and the uber-realistic also manages the nifty magic trick of simultaneously. glorifying and un-glorifying the pirate life. I say "Huzzah!"