The Burning Hill

I had planned to do a plot summary however the book blurb above from Good Reads more than covers that and any further in-depth plot summary’s would give you to many spoilers and I wouldn’t want to do that! Its one you most definitely need to read for yourself!

Reading the author bio goes some way to giving this story a more human, more real layer and made me appreciate it all the more.

As well as the author bio, a week or so before I started reading this book I had seen a video clip on twitter of people in Rio clapping and cheering as police threw the bodies of two young men they had just shot into the back of a truck which was quite graphic and as I was reading this book I couldn’t help but to see those young mens faces on Vilson and Babao so for me that added an even more real life, human element to the characters and plot lines.

I haven’t been this heavily invested in a story and set of characters for a long time, to the point I found myself dreaming about Vilson, Jake and the fulvela’s and woke myself up 5am – so obviously I started reading again 😀

The ending literally gave me goosebumps and brought a slight tear to the eye! That is something that doesn’t happen very often at all!!

Gritty, hard-hitting and utterly compulsive, this is a book that has you wanting to head straight back to page one straight after turning the last page.

This is an author to keep an eye out for and I would be at the head of the queue if there is to be a continuation from this book. Id love to see what the future has in store for the fulvela gang, my imagination has already been ticking over “what happened next” scenarios for them all!

The Burning Hill will be published in the UK on 13 December 2018 and you can pre order your copy now

https://debbiesbookreviews.wordpress.com/2018/11/19/the-burning-hill-by-a-d-flint/

This book was definitely out of my comfort zone, but I decided to expand my horizons and give it a chance, and I'm so glad I decided to do that.

I can confidently say that The Burning Hill was an almost perfect book and that I enjoyed every second of it, even if it hurt me a lot at some parts. This book is set in Brazil and it deals with the lives of Jake and Vilson, two people who have been wronged many times by life, but they have to somehow persevere and survive through the punches. Their lives are certainly not getting any easier because having to deal with corrupt cops and the life in favelas can't be easy for sure.

I grew to love both of them, and I was rooting for them throughout the entire book. It was raw and realistic, and although the ending was a rather sad one, I don't think that if it had gone another way that it would have done this book justice. The only complaint that I have is that I think that the sex scene and the relationship between those two people was totally unnecessary, and it added nothing to the story, it jsut felt as if the other just threw it in there.

The Burning Hill is a tense and brutal thriller set in Rio de Janeiro about three young men, all victims of their upbringing, circumstance, corruption and their own bullish pride, whose lives collide one late night on a Copacabana beach, with terrible consequences.

Jake is a disgraced English soldier who has fled to Brazil to escape a scandal caused by a military cover-up. Vilson is a favela kid, dumped by his mother into the slums at the age of seven, with only his twelve year old brother to care for him. When Vilson attempts to rob Jake, his gun goes off accidentally, leaving Jake mutilated, but by twist of fate saved from the aneurysm that would otherwise have killed him. Marinho is one of the police officers who intervene on that night. He tries to do the right thing, but his vicious and controlling boss has him bent to his will. Needing a quick solve for the assault on a tourist, the police need to catch Vilson, but the psychotic teenage gangster who runs the favela has other ideas, and Jake & Marinho team up to try and save him.

This was a well-written fast-paced novel by an author who is new to me. The descriptions of the Rio not usually seen by tourists were convincing, and while all the characters were flawed and mostly unsympathetic, I soon felt for them as some pretty terrible things happen to them. There is a lot of fairly graphic violence, including a detailed and stomach-turning MMA fight scene. There are only three female characters in the whole book, a crusading lawyer, a child medium and a downtrodden farmers wife, and each is important to the story but inherently weak, which is probably realistic in Brazil, but frustrating to read about.

I think this is meant to be a stand-alone novel, although I would be keen to find out what happens next. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. The Burning Hill is available now.

It seems A. D. Flint has drawn on inspiration from a true story for his book 'Burning Hill' - in his Goodreads profile it mentions "In 2000, a robbery just a few blocks from where the author was living in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro". Burning Hill felt somewhat out of comfort zone as I usually used to more pulsing thrillers to read. But, I can admit that I did really enjoy the landscape to which the author invites us in to. Rio is described quite vividly and the difference between rich & poor in the favelas is highlighted throughout.

Jake, an ex-English army soldier, resides in Rio after escaping controversy in the UK. He is enjoying life until he is attacked on a beach by two teenagers Vilson & Babao. Vilson shoots Jake through his face, not killing him, although when Jake is rushed to hospital the doctors uncover a brain tumor that would of killed him soon if he had not been rushed to hospital. So, Jake feels an obligation to find out more about this Vilson kid as he is confronted by aspiring Journalist Eliane who wants more of the story and to uncover the corruption in the Police Force.

We are introduced to the gangs of the Favelas featuring their leader Anjo who dishes out orders to his followers to track down Vilson and co. The book continues on a nice pace switching perspectives between Jake/Vilson & Officer Marinho. Thank you for the chance to read this ebook.