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From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash Series…
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From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash Series Book 1) (edition 2020)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Author)

Series: Blood and Ash (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
3,306553,939 (4.1)7
Be drawn into the world of a Maiden, chosen and set apart, and a Prince shrouded in mystery and violence. The dialogue alone between Poppy and Casteel are worth the read. ( )
  abbieriddle | Mar 1, 2022 |
Showing 1-25 of 54 (next | show all)
Loved this book and this series more than I thought I would. Even I knew pretty early on what the big reveal would be, the journey to get there was absolutely fantastic. ( )
  Frogiekins04 | Mar 25, 2024 |
Loved this book and this series more than I thought I would. Even I knew pretty early on what the big reveal would be, the journey to get there was absolutely fantastic. ( )
  Frogiekins04 | Jan 27, 2024 |
I didn't expect this to go the way of the fang to be honest ( )
  aeryn0 | Jan 5, 2024 |
This book felt very original to me. I enjoyed the plot, the characters, and the author’s ability to emotionally wreck me. I thought this was a very enjoyable read ( )
  EnchantedCabin | Jan 2, 2024 |
I started this book awhile ago but stepped away for a bit because I was in the mood for something different. But I finally picked it back up and man does it get good. And spicy. Wish I didn’t wait so long to finish it. And I can’t wait to pick up the next book! ( )
  HauntedTaco13 | Dec 29, 2023 |
I picked this one up after I had already read the first and second of the prequel series, but it didn't create any issues for me in reading this one.

I found the first chunk of the book pretty slow, with things picking up a bit more just over halfway into the book, and an overall satisfying ending which leaves me excited for the next installment.

I found the worldbuilding a bit weak in this novel, as I struggled to really picture this vaguely medievalesque Greco-Roman society, and what in the world Poppy's role as the Maiden is really meant to do - but perhaps this will be clarified in the next book, since we found out that a lot of her upbringing was seemingly a bunch of lies and manipulation anyway.

I quite enjoyed the romance between Hawke and Poppy, from their initial meeting there is some tension, and it slowly builds over time. The smut was good, and I really enjoyed the reveal that Hawke is actually Prince Casteel aka the Dark One, giving a enemy/lover twist. I'm definitely vibing with the idea of Atlantians being vilified revolutionaries who will be protagonists going forward, so I am excited to see where that goes! ( )
  AmericanAlexandria | Dec 29, 2023 |
This was fire!!!! ( )
  ObasiNaomi | Dec 2, 2023 |
Amazing story with a heroine who is brave, compassionate, innocent, clever, a victim/survivor, and a fighter. Although I guessed some of the twists before they were revealed, the journey was still enjoyable. There are poignant relationship moments and tense, action packed scenes. A lot of violence but it highlights the harsh world and the danger that surrounds them. ( )
  huyen | Nov 12, 2023 |
3/5

fun read but not very good lol

sexy werewolves and vampires though!!!! ( )
  telamy | Nov 6, 2023 |
Worldbuilding:
Amazing worldbuilding! As this is the first of the series, quite a bit of information is coming our way. But it felt smooth and unhurried (well, it has 622 pages, so yeah). The scenes and environments were superbly written. Dive into the story and enjoy :D

Character development:
Poppy was marked as a Maiden by the Gods when she was born. On her 19th birthday, she will be given to them for the betterment of the kingdom. Or, well, so they say... But Poppy wants different things. She wants to live, be free and do whatever she wants. But, alas, even the smallest things are forbidden to her, giving her a very lonely life indeed.
That all changes when horrible circumstances lead to her meeting Hawke, her new guard. He has a way of getting under her skin in the most infuriating ways (or so she tells herself). But, of course, she is rather good at bending (or rather, breaking) some of the rules imposed. Be aware she is not a damsel in distress!
The characters in this book feel so alive. I love it! We get insights into even the smallest side character's hopes and dreams and why they do what they do.

Pacing and flow:
Be prepared to lose a lot of hours reading this book! :D I Love how the story doesn't let you go and keeps giving you little tidbits of info to keep you going. Great balance between all the conversations and the action.
I really felt the author wasn't in a rush but just let the story unfold in its own time.

The book:
The book was well written with no (noticeable) errors. There was some sexual content (if that is important to you).
It has 622 pages, spread over 41 chapters and is told from Poppy's point of view.

Final thoughts:
I loved the book! It has such a rich world, the characters are really well written, and those unexpected twists and turns... who needs sleep? Another series to be marked as a favourite. I can't wait to grab the next book!
Note for those who want to read the series: there is a companion series (Flesh and Fire) that should be read alongside this one. Needless to say, I'm hooked! :D ( )
  Nemerith | Oct 30, 2023 |
Definitely my favorite! Captivating, emotional, and endless plot twists. I could hardly wait to read the next parts. Those hoping for a bit more detailed romance are in the right place, but that's not all. The book is thrilling, and you'll find it hard to put down. ( )
  sophey | Oct 27, 2023 |
This is one of those series that technically just isn't very good in most aspects, but it nonetheless caught my attention and kept me reading.
Despite the myriad of flaws, I enjoyed reading it and the characters stayed with me afterward.

If you are looking for decent high fantasy worldbuilding or are sensitive to huge amounts of cheesiness, this is not the book for you.

The main original idea of this series is to bring typical and clichée urban fantasy tropes into an epic fantasy setting in a novel way I haven't seen before. It's one of those ideas that seem really obvious with hindsight but afaik has never properly been done before.

The pacing of this is slow even compared to traditional big epic fantasy but the worldbuilding quality doesn't reflect this slow pacing.
The worldbuilding is amateurish at best and the author gets almost everything about medieval stuff wrong. It is very obvious that this author is way too used to writing in contemporary settings. The worldbuilding has so many holes, there are more holes than world.

Beyond the very slow pacing overall, it's actually one of the strengths of the book. It's pretty even and there always is something interesting in sight.

The magic system couldn't be softer and only serves the purposes of creating awe and as a plot-device (for the special snowflake MC).

I honestly don't know why I didn't run screaming when reading this. I guess I was intrigued by the romance and the MC. The author doesn't make the very common mistake of using up all her ideas too early. There always is something else interesting and mysterious on the horizon.

The series is almost entirely focused on romance. Sweet but incredibly cheesy romance.
There is a lot of smut later on. It was really hot initially, but it got very repetitive after a while. It is always dominated by the same dozen or so phrases just in a slightly different order.

There is a plot twist that leads to seemingly irreconcilable behavior by the MC. I thought the book couldn't recover from this in a believable way and seriously thought about dropping it right there. If you are mad at the MC after the plot twist, give it time. I was surprised by how well the author managed to put things to rights again. It carries over to the second book as well. The second book doesn't just forget about it all.
I want to mention here that the second book sustains the same level of quality (or lack thereof).

While most of the dialogue including internal ones are pretty run-of-the-mill, every now and then, surprisingly insightful questions and observations pop out of nowhere. Things that genuinely made me pause and think for a while. I really liked that because it made me feel like the characters had original thoughts which gave them much-needed depth which is very rare in PnR.

From a purely subjective standpoint of personal enjoyment, I want to give this book 4 stars, but it objectively doesn't deserve it. ( )
  omission | Oct 19, 2023 |
Absolutely wonderfully written book.
I loved the world, the characters, the story...it was semi-predictable, but it was a wild ride to get there. I can’t wait to read book #2! ( )
  Danielle.Desrochers | Oct 10, 2023 |
Interesting but over-hyped.

I struggled to get through this one. I’ll give props for the different spin on werewolves and vampires and the world building but the overall story felt…lackluster.

I’ve heard so much hype about this book and series but after finishing just book 1 I can’t see myself continuing with the series.

The characters, while written well, seemed a bit contradictory. You have a MFC who wants to be herself yet when things shake her foundation she falters. Your have the MMC who while yes protects her, claims to care for her, doesn’t seem to trust her fully and shared truth in bits and pieces.

This constant contradiction between characters and slow building story made this a hard read for me. I enjoy a slow build true, but this was very, very, very slow. ( )
  TiffanyCutshall | Sep 30, 2023 |
Slow start. Great plot with many twists. ( )
  SarahDigges | Sep 27, 2023 |
4.5 stars

Review to come ( )
  ramlosh | Jul 28, 2023 |
These books have way too many words. Things were repeated so many times, I almost quit after about 70 pages. I'm glad I stuck it out though, the story was great. ( )
  Tambaloosa25 | Jun 19, 2023 |
I was very skeptical going into this one, as fantasy isn’t my go to genre.

I listened to this on audio and thank goodness because it’s a thicc book and the first 4 hours I found myself bored. I decided then that I was going to review this book as a parent for my preteen to see if it would be appropriate for them.

As an adult reader, this was an extremely easy read and it would be completely readable for a 12 year old to comprehend.

It wasn’t until after 60% that this story actually took off for me. I enjoyed Poppy & Hawke and their juvenile playful charm and affection. By the end, I am sitting here and smiling because I am happy I read this and dang that cliff hanger is making me need to pick up book 2 now!

That is proof positive of a good start of a series. ( )
  GeauxGetLit | May 27, 2023 |
I don't remember exactly why I read this book but I justify my stupid decision because of the hype and freakin booktok and they said it would be like acotar . IT WASN'T .

A lot of shit was unbearable , first , this is much more a romance than a fantasy and I hate that it was marketed as a fantasy with adventures since the world building and explaining it was so bad , a lot of random words were thrown and info-dumping at its finest .

The characters were bland , we had Poppy which was a sad excuse for a ✨StRoNg FeMaLe LeAd✨ , I get the idea why she has to stay indoors most of the time but that was honestly boring , following her around and around and around .... that was just NOT my expectation for the MAIN CHARACTER which is supposed to be interesting . SHE WASN'T . On the other hand we have Hawke , he really disturbed me sometimes with his not-so-advances but definitely awkward scenes he had with poppy at the start of the book and I even hated him more at the end of the book.

Did I mention that the world-building is shit ? I think I did

The plot itself was quite tedious and at parts dragged .

I can see why a lot would read it especially if you go for the romance which was A LOT , but even looking back at their relationship , it wasn't developed at all but I won't expect much from the first book . Won't complete the series , the writing style isn't to my liking and I don't like the main character .

( )
  Jessicaby234 | Apr 30, 2023 |
If this can get published, you can get published! Just do your research, get a few solid books, and build yourself up. This. This is utter proof you can do so much better and get published. Just don't expect to be amazing if this is your basis of what a book is.

Now then.

To start off I think a lot of the problems that are going to be listed below could all have been fixed if there were some serious editors working on this.

Like yes it's predictable but I feel like if it had an editor it would have cleaned up some of the errors and mistakes that really made it flop for me.

I am an ellipses slut, I absolutely love ellipses, I really enjoy them and writing and I really enjoy using them in my soft plots. I don't think there's a day that goes by that I don't spam a bunch of ellipses for no reason other than I really love using them for impact. Even in my D&D and other extraordinary writings of boring things over flowered never-to-be-published trash. I love using them as characters trailing off and thought, or just simply how they speak when they're dying.

Somehow you made an ellipses slut feel like there was too many ellipses and trail off sentences.

Shame on you, author.

The area of consent is so vague in this book that almost every sex scene is non-consensual on some degree. So for those who are reading this review, yes it contains questionable sex, and rape. There is no clear consent and some of these sex scenes feel extremely volatile and violent.

There's some really icky racism in this, for example the characters that are of color are both named after the tone of their skin, and servants. Not a good look, and definitely not the representation that anybody on this Earth wants right now.

I've heard some people say this is the worst book they've ever read, it feels more like this is the most incomplete book I've ever read, it's not on par with being onision's brand of incomplete and other random thoughts that don't ever finish. But it's somewhere on the level of just disappointing to the extent you're wasting your time with it. It's a time consumer like Colleen Hoover but without any of the shock factor in my opinion.

I felt like I could predict everything that was going to happen and then it would happen and my only response was "Oh, yep, there it is".

1 star.

Disappointing. ( )
  Yolken | Feb 17, 2023 |
Why this won a Goodreads choice award in the ROMANCE section is beyond me. ( )
  dirtytoes | Feb 14, 2023 |
I think this book is a combination of all the tropes I hate.

Poppy is not like other girls, but complains she wants a normal life. She is Chosen, she is Special. She hides her face but is conventionally beautiful.
She is immediately attracted to some guy. She can't stop thinking about his eyes. Every interaction they have feels unnecessarily sexualized. Is this supposed to be romantic? Because sometimes I felt the urge to pepper spray Hawke through the pages.

I can't with this book. There might be an interesting high fantasy in here, but I am too annoyed by the characters to bother.

(I did like her friendship with Tawny, though it feels very wrong that the only poc in this book is just the main character's friend.) ( )
  MYvos | Dec 23, 2022 |
Re-reading this as an audiobook was such a delight! Stina Nielsen does an impeccable job bringing Poppy and Hawke to life. My only gripe is that there was some inconsistency with the voice choices of different characters, so it was sometimes hard to keep track of who was speaking at specific times. ( )
1 vote midnacine | Sep 29, 2022 |
Nov 20, 2021: I really enjoyed this story, and wow was it a rollercoaster. From action and suspense to romance and heartbreak, this really has it all. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was because of some stylistic choices with the writing that got to be really repetitive. For instance, the first five chapters use "Carsodonia, the capital" about three times. It's as if Armentrout was continuously trying to remind the reader of what happened in the last chapter (or even a few paragraphs ago) by using the same wording and it got really annoying.
Other than that, it was a very encapsulating read, and though I was able to guess some of the plot twists early on, I'm super excited to continue this series!

Sep 28, 2022: Re-reading this as an audiobook was such a delight! Stina Nielsen does an impeccable job bringing Poppy and Hawke to life. My only gripe is that there was some inconsistency with the voice choices of different characters, so it was sometimes hard to keep track of who was speaking at specific times. ( )
  midnacine | Sep 29, 2022 |
Just finished my reread which I enjoyed more than my first read! Adjusting my rating.
From 3.75 Stars rounded up to 4 stars to 4.5 stars. Stills rounds to a 4. But so close to a 5!

Can't wait to read Bk#2 next month in the Dark Erotica Buddy Read.

2 things I want to hit on.
#1 The sex scenes between Poppy and Hawke are Spectacular. Swoon Worthy and Inferno HOT ( )
  bodebeabay | Sep 25, 2022 |
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