From Blood and Ash Review
A Frolic Through Fiction has brought me many excellent book recommendations (thanks, Ashleigh!), but From Blood and Ash was not one of them.
Something I did really enjoy was the positivity around Poppy’s sexuality and her scars. She takes the lead in many aspects of her relationship with Hawke and I found their relationship a lot less toxic than other fantasy/paranormal fantasies in which I have dabbled (and then regretted dabbling). However, I found a lot of the plot arc to be overly trope-y without much of an original spin. The dialogue also seemed forced and overwrought. I have often thought about the old-timey dialogue found in most medievalist fantasy books and wondered if it would sound better with more modern dialogue. I now have my answer: NO. The frequent sarcastic quips of “shocker,” paired with an exaggerated eye-roll pulled me out of the narrative. I found it really jarring.
Shocker 😲 🙄
I also found the politics and religion in this story to be very confusing and I am still not sure what exactly The Maiden is being prepared for. Or what an Ascended is. I will absolutely read the rest of the series, so there is still time for me to find out.
From Blood and Ash is a page-turning book and I flew through it in three days. It’s been a rough few weeks (okay fine, it’s been a rough twelve months) and I really appreciated the escapism of this story. It was a really fun ride. Even the cringey dialogue cheered me up — it made me laugh very hard. I took pictures of my Kindle screen and shared them with the group chat and encouraged them to read the book too. They have not yet, but I am hoping they will take me up on this recommendation soon.
