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From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout Narrator: Stina Nielsen
Also by this author: A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire, The Crown of Gilded Bones
Series: Blood and Ash #1
Also in this series: A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire, The Crown of Gilded Bones
Published by Brilliance Audio on 8th September 2020
Genres: Erotica, Fantasy, New Adult, Paranormal, Supernatural
Length: 19 hours and 46 minutes
Format: Audible
Source: I bought it
Goodreads
Amazon Kindle, Audible
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.
I had seen this book around recently because there are about 5 billion special editions at the moment and then one of the Facebook groups I am in decided to do this as a book club chat so I knew it was time to read this series.
I found this book really slow, to begin with. I thought it was quite hard to get into. I think this is because there was a lot of world-building to be done. It was very necessary and once you have digested this the rest of the book will fly by and you will wish it wasn’t over. It’s a very interesting world and a different take on something that has been done a million times over. It’s set up in a way that it takes you a little while to work out what was going on but once it clicked I was like ohhhhh wow that is clever and so different.
I really liked the narration in this book. There were a few times I did find the narrator a bit screechy but I think that was intentional. I definitely liked the narration the further on in the story I got but that might also be because the further in I got the more I liked the story. With the beginning being so slow I think I found it difficult to concentrate so this is probably more down to me than the narration.
Poppy was slightly irritating at the beginning but as the book progressed and you unravelled more and more pieces of Poppy I began to slowly love her. I love how she is a fighter. She was naive at times but by the end of the book, she knew who she wanted to be and wasn’t afraid to say her piece.
Hawke, oh Hawke. Man, I fell hard and fast. Hawke knows just what to say and when. He is Poppy’s guard but he is so much more. When he is first introduced I knew the chemistry between them would be an issue. It would be something that would change the course of everything.
Kieran is one of my favourite side characters. I love his sarky comments and I spent so much time laughing at his sections. I would LOVE a book all about Keiran!
Wow-what an ending. This book ends on such a bombshell that I was so glad I had the second book to start straight away.
About Jennifer L. Armentrout
# 1 New York Times and # 1 International Bestselling author Jennifer lives in Charles Town, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki. In early 2015, Jennifer was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of rare genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and death of cells in the retina, eventually resulting in loss of vision, among other complications. Due to this diagnosis, educating people on the varying degrees of blindness has become of passion of hers, right alongside writing, which she plans to do as long as she can.
Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Tor, HarperCollins Avon and William Morrow, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her Wicked Series has been optioned by PassionFlix. Jennifer has won numerous awards, including the 2013 Reviewers Choice Award for Wait for You, the 2015 Editor’s Pick for Fall With Me, and the 2014/2015 Moerser-Jugendbuch- Jury award for Obsidian. Her young adult romantic suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction by YALSA. Her adult romantic suspense novel TILL DEATH was a Amazon Editor’s Pick and iBook Book of the Month. Her young adult contemporary THE PROBLEM WITH FOREVER is a 2017 RITA Award Winner in Young Adult Fiction. She also writes Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.
She is the owner of ApollyCon and The Origin Event, the successful annual events that features over hundred bestselling authors in Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult Fiction, panels, parties, and more.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
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