The Cleansing Flame

Swords and Saints, Book 1

By: Alec Hutson

Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto

A sword of green glass.

A key that opens passages between the worlds.

The nameless warrior has nothing else. No allies, no armor, not even the memory of how he came to be trapped within this dying land, pursued across a red waste by the monstrous Shriven.

But all hope is not lost. There are other survivors amidst the desolation, holding clues as to where he has come from and what he must do: Amara, the Red Sword of her tribe, a beautiful and fiery swordswoman obsessed with destroying the demons that plague her people, and Valyra, a young sorceress who can weave the broken threads of this reality into something whole once more.

Together they will try to resist the evil that stalks the wastes. But this world is only one among many, and in order to unravel his mysteries the warrior must find the doorways which will allow him to stride between the stars and pass into even stranger lands.

Note: Intended for mature listeners. Contains a harem and explicit situations.

©2019 J.A. Hutson (P)2019 Podium Publishing

mid level at best

narrator was awesome, story was lackluster, protagonist mostly incapable of doing anything important without rescue

Conan meets Stargate

I wasn’t expecting much from this book but I enjoyed the heck out of it; it’s sort of like a Sword & Sorcery version of Stargate with characters traveling to different worlds through ancient forgotten gateways and such. If you’re looking for high art move on, but if you loved movies like Krull, Beastmaster, Red Sonja, etc. you’ll probably appreciate this like I did. My only complaint is that there’s only three books in the series- wish there had been more.

no real complaints

It was fine. Nothing ground-breaking, nothing horrible. Worth what I paid for it and the time doesn't feel wasted outright. Not in a hurry to listen to the sequel, but might if if comes up free at some point.

Fairly decent story

While the story is fairly decent and is slow to start it’s only made worse by a monotonous drone of a narrator. However, once the cast expands he demonstrates a wider range of capabilities. Naturally his deep gravely voice makes all the females sound like a 1-900 call center, their accents and occasional emotions does show he has talent.

This book would have been better if someone else had done the narrative for the background and story filling portions with him reading the male spoken portions. I give this book a snooze value of 3 out of 5 ads.

Awesome!

Great story, great characters. The world building was very interesting, as well as the story behind the worlds.

great fantasy not smut

great story, great world building and the reviews leading that this is smut listened to like 20 minutes. through the first 2 books maybe 5 sexy parts they are hot but brief don't let that turn you away from. this great fantasy story.

Meh

The first 2 books are currently free on Audible plus. With that, my expectations are lower, but even at that Im not sure it was woth the time. it wasnt "bad." it just wasnt "good." A bit of an interesting concept in this story, but so far it seems like just a loosly tied group of side stories. No hook

Wonder

I kept wondering when I was going to figure out who was who yes we knew who the hero was but it was funny to me but it ended enough that I'm going to read the second book four stars

Too much in too little

The start of the story was too convoluted. The twist and turns in the story are very interesting but they occur to fast.

Good overall but inconsistent

This story is full of promise but the execution was off for me. It starts off strong but as it shifts into the next section you lose the characters and a whole new set of characters besides the H are introduced. The fact that the H keeps getting caught in TSTL moments was a bit frustrating but I did enjoy the story and will listen to the second part. It looks like there will not be a 3rd part so I hope there is some closure in the next book.