From Blood and Ash

Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

I was starting to feel like I was the last one to read From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout, but luckily some friends decided to buddy read it and I joined in. Such a fun one to discuss with a group!

This book was voted Goodreads Best Romance of 2020, and while I enjoyed it a lot I definitely wouldn’t have picked it for best romance. Is there some romance in the book? For sure, but it’s really not the sole focus of the story, and there were so many incredible romance books published last year that I feel like it was a case of a good marketing campaign and not truly deserving of that title. Best fantasy of 2020? Maybe. It was certainly the best I’ve read in a while.

Poppy (Penellaphe) is ‘The Maiden’—chosen from birth to usher in a new era she is duty-bound and her life is not her own. She has to keep her face hidden behind a veil and is only allowed to speak to a handful of people. She certainly isn’t allowed to do anything disreputable and tarnish her purity. But she’s assigned a new personal guard, Hawke, and oh does he ever spell trouble. There’s a civil war raging, and Poppy doesn’t know who to trust or what (if anything) she’s grown up believing is the truth.

I know so many people that have given this book five out of five and can’t stop singing its praises. By the end, I did really enjoy it but it was a pretty slow start for me, and I didn’t totally love Poppy. There wasn’t anything wrong with her per-say, I just rarely love naive, virginal, characters in books. I like my heroines to have a little life under their belt (pun absolutely intended) and be a little savvier than she was. Of course, none of that is her fault, and this is a New Adult book so it makes sense, it just took me a long time to warm up to her. I dare say she’ll be a little more seasoned by the next book because she was already starting to show a little more sass and grit by the end of this one.

Being a fantasy novel there was also a lot of world-building that took place at the beginning—and it felt a little drawn out. It was a long time before anything really started to happen. I was also confused about why the author would choose to set the book in Macedonia (a real place) and include characters called Atlantians (who don’t appear to have anything to do with Atlas or the ocean). Things like that kept taking me out of the story, when the author could have chosen any fictional place and character names, so why choose ones that already have different associations in people’s minds? And, while I’m airing my grievances, I did find most of the story fairly predictable—although luckily there were a couple of little twists at the end there to keep it interesting. And while I appreciate the ambiance-building that comes with telling us how different characters smell, I couldn’t stop imagining that Hawke smelled like Pine-O-Clean disinfectant—which I don’t personally find very sexy. 😉

Having said all that, I did really enjoy the book and once the story got going I was pretty hooked—and the rest of the 613 pages flew past in what seemed like the blink of an eye. I also really enjoyed the addition of the supernatural elements woven into the fantasy, which made things more interesting in my opinion. I’m definitely looking forward to starting the second book A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire soon because the third book, The Crown of Gilded Bones comes out in April!

Synopsis:

A Maiden…

Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. Never to be touched. Never to be looked upon. Never to be spoken to. Never to experience pleasure. Waiting for the day of her Ascension, she would rather be with the guards, fighting back the evil that took her family, than preparing to be found worthy by the gods. But the choice has never been hers.

A Duty…

The entire kingdom’s future rests on Poppy’s shoulders, something she’s not even quite sure she wants for herself. Because a Maiden has a heart. And a soul. And longing. And when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard honor-bound to ensure her Ascension, enters her life, destiny and duty become tangled with desire and need. He incites her anger, makes her question everything she believes in, and tempts her with the forbidden.

A Kingdom…

Forsaken by the gods and feared by mortals, a fallen kingdom is rising once more, determined to take back what they believe is theirs through violence and vengeance. And as the shadow of those cursed draws closer, the line between what is forbidden and what is right becomes blurred. Poppy is not only on the verge of losing her heart and being found unworthy by the gods, but also her life when every blood-soaked thread that holds her world together begins to unravel.