Heads up, I am a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms and The Wizards of the Coast, and frankly, they can do no wrong in my eyes. I mean, just look at the cover art! I can feel the excitement in the book just from looking at the cover.
Brimstone Angels is first book in a six-book series, and has the right dose of magic and brawn that I won't say I mind. The story is built around tiefling twins who are born and abandoned at the gates a secluded village for outcasts. The irony is nobody wants them, even in a village for outcasts.
Don't you just hate xenophobes?
Anyway, the unlikeliest of beings adopts them - a dragonborn exiled warrior, and dotes on them, and trains them.
One, Farideh, grows up to be introspective, meticulous and hates her weapons lessons. The other Havilah is wild, impulsive, and loves weapons. If anything happens, poor, misunderstood and disliked Farideh takes the blame - and something does happen. Havilah summons a sinfully handsome devil on a whim, doesn't bind him properly, gets bored, and leaves Farideh to clear up her mess. Her singular thoughtless action puts them in the awareness of infernal politics and things more or less go downhill from there.
Farideh and her twin are a rarity, and apparently have been sought for by collector devils across the nine hells.
Farideh has to make a pact with the devil, who is actually a cambion, and has dropped subtle hints on destroying her life and family if she doesn't - and becomes a warlock in an explosion of power that razes their home. In the natural 'na you shit, na me pack am' order of things, she gets blamed and is singularly expelled.
I could not understand the beef of the villagers, because it was strong, but only Farideh was singled out for expulsion. But in a classic case of strong family ties, all of them get expelled together and begin their life of adventure.
Thereafter, they hook up with a prince who is running away from his princely duties and is an apprentice priest of the God of duty - delicious - work together with a Harper priest of Selune, and the lying cambion to rid a city of Asmodean cultists (more infernal politics that leaked into the human world) - oh, the cambion is Glasyan by the way, and Farideh by extension and reason of her pact. So their lives were forfeit by just existing.
The book is a healthy mash of good meets evil to compromise in the face of a greater evil, love, jealousy, action, and spells. It even features an exposé into hell politics. Highly recommended.
