V Bookish

So this is a series I plan to do a re-read on and will then go through and write reviews for the first few books in this series. But until then, I’m starting with book 5 of the From Blood and Ash series by Jennifer L Armentrout, A Soul of Ash and Blood. So spoilers ahead for the beginning of the series.

This is the perfect book to start with if I am going to start reviewing series from the middle because this book is mainly a retelling of the first book of the series from the male main character’s point of view. Following the release of Kolis, Poppy falls into a deep stasis. Cas, in an effort to make sure she know who she is when she awakens, tells Poppy the story of their beginning from his point of view. There are some new scenes in the retelling that we were not privy to in the first book so that kept it interesting.

I appreciated how true to the first book that this one was but also appreciated that they added new scenes to it as well. This gave Cas a deeper better developed character than we had gotten in the first few books. The end of the book is very on brand for the series since it leaves off on a cliffhanger. I guess I should start my reread of the series soon so that I am ready for when book 6 comes out in Spring 2024.

Aside from Cas there was not a whole lot of new character development, likely due to the fact that the whole book is basically a flashback. It was nice to see Cas falling for Poppy and the added scenes helped to explain some of the choices that the character made in the first book.

The story begins before Cas becomes Poppy’s guard and continues until he announces his plans to marry her at New Haven. Love, namely Cas falling for Poppy even though he does not think he is worthy is a theme in the novel. Cas, even in the beginning, would have sacrificed anything to keep Poppy safe.

The book was relatively well-paced during the flashback scenes but the present scenes were too short and did not provide enough information to remember much about the way that book 4 ended without rereading it. A slight recap of what happened in the previous book would have been helpful since it has been so long in between when I read the last book and when this one came out. More interesting present day scenes would also have made the pace of the book better since it felt like the present day breaks were for nothing or were rushed.

I gave the book a 5 out of 5 stars because I really enjoy the characters and the series as a whole, but I can understand the people who said that they did not like it. The book seems like filler since nothing new really happens. Compared to the action level of the other books in the series, if I were rating just within the series I would have to give this book a 3/5 stars because it just was not up to par with the rest of the series. I think when I go back to do a reread I will try to read this book in tandem with the first book if I don’t just do a huge Jennifer L Armentrout re-read with all of the books in the same universe as the From Blood and Ash series.