Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The Beautiful Ashes (Broken Destiny #1) by Jeaniene Frost

Well, I liked this book, but I didn't love it. For me it was missing something though I'm not sure what exactly. I can't say that I wanted it to be "Night Huntress" with different characters or even similar characters, I enjoy reading PNR/UF and that's exactly what I wanted a good PNR/UF series and a good beginning for sure. Sadly this one somehow didn't deliver. While both Adrian and Ivy were nice enough characters their relationship was TOO slow in building. Also while the world building was slow as we unravel it's secrets with Ivy as Adrian and Zach (someone who helps them along the way) revealed it to her little by little there was something annoying at everyone keeping secrets from her and not thinking she could handle this or that. She was mostly treated like a child when not expecting her to rise to her potential. 


It's hard to summarize this book without giving away details you unravel yourself so I'll try and stay "vague" in a way. Ivy's sister, Jasmine had disappeared and Ivy is determined to find her! On her search she is almost killed and then rescued/kidnapped by Adrian, a strange guy that though kidnapped her DID save her and seems to generally NOT want to hurt her. While they are both attracted to each other when they meet Zach and he reveals Ivy's origins Adrian is shocked and would do anything to keep away from her even though now they are bound to work together looking for an object that would help them rescue Ivy's sister (and also help in the battle of good against evil). On their way to finding this object Ivy finds out more about the paranormal world around her, more about her strange powers she tried to ignore for years and also what other talents she has. 

This novel is more on the Young Adult to New Adult vibe since Ivy is quite innocent in her general behavior and while Adrian is more mature and experienced he seems as though he doesn't want anything to do with her which makes this one quite light in the sexual sense. The good thing WAS the slow building of the relationship (though it was a bit too slow), no instant love, yes to instant attraction but that is something I had no problem with even though he was her "kidnapper" for a short while. I know some people found that "too much" but I didn't mind that so much actually. I guess that since this is a series and we are going to read more of Ivy and Adrian Jeaniene has time to build their relationship which is good since all those instant love and relationship are a little redundant even when they appear on paranormal books. I would have liked to learn more about Adrian but I guess, that too, will be told in the next ones. He's a tormented kind of hero which are usually my favorite kind, but I felt that he was at times TOO tormented and TOO secretive about what he is willing or rather unwilling to tell Ivy, about himself or about what they are facing. Though I REALLY didn't approve of her reaction to what she finds out in the Epilogue. Without (!) spoilering I felt like she had no right to be angry with him about THAT, since she did much worse and frankly it was quite obvious so what was she angry about?!

So this was a nice enough story. In the beginning the plot was flowing, both action-wise as well as revealing the paranormal world but as I kept reading some things became redundant until about half the book I was finding myself struggling to continue and it stayed that way almost until the end - even when it was action packed I was still feeling that it was missing something I couldn't name. I think it's mostly the characters not feeling "strong" enough, not in general or supernatural power, not mentally either, just didn't feel "alive" enough for me, they didn't attract me or interest me ENOUGH. Which is why this is only an "okay" read in my eyes. I hope the next one would be better, the characters more developed and the romance more pronounced. I guess I'm saying I wish this one would have been - MORE - on a lot of levels. 



Additional Details: Kindle Ebook, 384 pages, 21-23 September 2014 / On GoodReads

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