Profane Fire at the Altar of the Lord

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$5.95


Set in Europe at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation and spanning multiple countries, Profane Fire at the Altar of the Lord has all the trappings of a promising historical novel: colorful characters, courtly intrigue, and religious conflict.

Despite an interesting premise, poor craftsmanship is this book’s downfall. Much of the book reads like history rather than historical fiction. Maley throws fact after fact at the reader, with little effort to smoothly incorporate any of it into the storyline. Sentences are recycled more or less word-for-word throughout different chapters, speaking to a sloppy editing job. As if that weren’t enough, the book is littered with spelling errors left and right—an instance of “last rites” misspelled as “last rights” being among the worst examples.

At times, one has the impression of reading the script to an action film rather than a novel; a comically unrealistic scene reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean sees protagonist Diogo chased through the streets of Lisbon before managing to evade capture by jumping onto a departing ship. The juxtaposition of these slapstick sequences with other passages of somber historical details lends the book a disjointed quality.

With a greater effort at worldbuilding and a more scrutinizing eye, Profane Fire has the potential to be an exciting work, but in its current form, the book holds very little merit.


Reviewed By:

Author Dennis Maley
Star Count /5
Format eBook
Page Count
Publisher Jublio
Publish Date 2018-Jan-25
ISBN 9780986115851
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue June 2018
Category Historical Fiction
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