From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout Book Review

“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.”

If reading that synopsis doesn’t make you want to read this book then I hope this review does. This book was amazing, I flew through it and stayed up till 3:30 in the morning to finish it. Most fantasy books I find take 50 to 100 pages to get into. This book wasn’t like that at all, I was hooked by the first chapter.

Basically if you didn’t understand the synopsis Poppy is the main character “the maiden” and she’s supposed to usher in a new era. We don’t really know why she was chosen as the maiden or what she’s supposed to usher in. Poppy doesn’t even know why she was chosen as the maiden so throughout the book we kind of uncover secrets about this world at the same time as Poppy does. There’s so many twists in this book I never knew what to believe, and the world building is amazing. I loved all the characters in this book. The character development was really good too. Hawke is poppy’s guard and the love interest. I loved that this book had romance but the plot didn’t revolve around it. The book still would have been good without the romance which is saying something from me because I want romance in all the books I read. Another one of my favorite characters is Victor Wardwell. He is Poppy’s other guard and is a father figure for Poppy. Victor is the one that taught poppy how to fight even though it wasn’t allowed because she was the maiden. I loved that even though Victor worked at the castle he always did what he thought was best for Poppy and wanted to keep her safe. This is probably one of my favorite fantasy books. Writing this review is making me want to reread the books even though I just read them a month ago. The third book comes out in April so I might recommend waiting until the third one comes out and being able to binge read them all, but I don’t think you should wait that long to read this series. I’ll be recommending this book to everyone and it is a definite five out of five stars.