A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash #2)

This is frustrating, and annoying.
Have you ever read a book that COULD be good, but WASN’T?
Have you ever read a book you had to WORK to finish reading (fiction, not college text on labwork)?
For all the layout, the slowwwww layout, it was lacking needed build.
Content was all over the place, sometimes great and sometimes my head hurt just trying to get past it.
The characters are ok… thats all. (I’ll explain)
I don’t care if characters do things I expect or like (or not), it’s a book and I’m open to the story. But, these characters are missing things…they are a mix; Super detailed in their buildout…but for only half of their story (like a portrait, half completed nicely and half with missing details ,colors, and dented canvas.) Some are also barely constructed and paper flat in creation.
I would like Poppy as a charcter, but she can honestly shut up for about 70% of her inner crap. I would like Hawke/Cass but he is written so shallowly repetitive. The banter is dismal.
I feel like I shoved myself through the first book (literally scanning to read the parts about the characters that mattered), and was genuinely mad because I wanted to know about the charcters enough that I bought the second book to just get done. (I’m a finisher)
And getting done meant exactly nothing, the ending is as hacked as the rest of the two books.
My only consolation was it cost me less $ than lunch to read both books, and I finished them in less than 24 hrs.
Would I buy them again? No. I wouldn’t have missed anything.
Now that I’m done I have zero desire to know these characters better and zero desire to follow this worlds other characters (which is also frustrating, because several characters had such potential for more)
These books remind me of a lush salad that looks really good, but has little chunks of mushy brown hiding under and stuck to the crispy green, and off tasting dressing coating all the best parts. I literally scraped dressing and picked through the salad eating what good stuff I could just to get done enough to feel like I had a salad. Would I order it again? Not worth the risk.

A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire is finally here and honestly, if you thought Blood and Ash was amazing, be prepared to be absolutely rocked. If you did not read the first book, do not start here because this is a direct continuation and you will have missed out on so much more than what is covered in this book. Do yourself a huge favor and read it.

“He may hate being called the Dark One, but he has earned that name..But hes the one thing in all the kingdoms that you, and only you, never have to fear.

There is no author quite like Armentrout that knows how to write an alpha that makes you want to hit him and love him at the same time. Hawke has now revealed himself to be Casteel, the Prince of Atlantia, and wants Poppy as his bride. But its not only because he wants her, but because he needs to use the now former Maiden to get his older brother, and rightful future King, back. And Poppy is about to learn so much more about who she is and what the Maiden was really for. Get ready to be amazed when secret after secret gets revealed and everything that Poppy thought she knew is about to get blown out of the water.

Your heart, Poppy? It is a gift I do not deserve. But it is one I will protect until my dying breath.”

Poppy, feeling betrayed by the man she believed herself to be falling in love with, refuses to consider to marriage to Casteel but when she begins to realize that some things that he has told her is true, she agrees to a fake engagement but with her own stipulations to try and save her brother as well as his.

Your heart was always safe with me. It always will be. There is nothing I will protect more fiercely or with more devotion, Poppy. Trust in thatin what you feel from me. In me.

But Casteel doesnt make it easy to resist him. Lordy, Casteel is wicked and those dimples and dirty mouth of his make Poppy weak in the knees and there is only so much the heart can take. When she finally opens her eyes and remembers that Casteel sees her as Poppy, and not just the Maiden. That he values her strength, her courage, her bravery, and even her violence. That he doesnt want to suppress her which is something that shes had to deal with all her life, she stops fighting it and wants whats between them to be real. My heart!!!

There is no side of you that is not as beautiful as the other half. Not a single inch isnt stunning. His lashes lifted, and the intensity in his stare held me captive. That was true the first time I said it to you, and it is still the truth today and tomorrow.

If I could give this 10 stars, it would still not be enough for me. Its the only way to explain how I read over 600 pages and I didnt want it to end. The story is engrossing, the characters are stellar, the relationship between Casteel and Poppy is swoon-worthy, and that ending is another massive cliffhanger that made me need more. Do not go into this book thinking that you are going to be able to recover easily because you will not. Im still reeling from it all and I just want to reread it from the first book. I have not been so addicted to a JLA series since Lux and I can not wait to read more. Gah, stop reading my review and go buy this ASAP!

Heaven help me I did nothing but read for 12 straight hours today and Im not even sorry. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY HEART? This is hands down my favorite series. I am in awe of the twists and turns that each book has taken and the cliffhanger at the end of this one left me breathless. The only one thing I know is that I am in awe of Poppy and I love Hawke more than any other hero ever.
I didn’t think that I could like any book as much as From Blood and Ash, but this book is just as good. There are so many things that come out in this follow up and so many AHA moments. I still have so many questions I need answered and I am waiting for my next fix on pins and needles. This series is amazing. If you haven’t started it, fix that now.

Im so conflicted about this book. I wanted it to be good. I really, really did. After loving the first, despite its flaws, I was so so excited to read the second. I even started following the author on insta and was so hyped up for the release. But after reading all I felt was disappointed.
The book picks up exactly where it left off. Poppy is hurt and angry by what Casteel has done, and is not happy with the prospect of marriage. The first 30% of the novel sees her pretty much confined to her room (minus one escape attempt). Its basically one long scene and there is so much of Poppy thinking about how she feels, and masses of dialogue where huge amounts of historical information are dumped out. Then we see a little action and I was thinking, brilliant this is where it kicks off. But not really. Then were back to pages and page of dialogue and info dump. My brain was actually hurting at one point with all of the names of gods and previous kings and I just wanted something to happen to break up the exposition.
Its not until the very end of the novel that we really see something begin to happen and a huge battle scene. It was great, but was so short and I couldnt help feeling like it could have happened way earlier.
In all honesty this book was way too long and could have been condensed considerably. The pacing was slow and even worse it was riddled with grammatical errors. You can kind of forgive those in a self published novel (although not really). But this was released by a publishing house who obviously did very little editing. A simple read through would have picked up a lot of the errors.
The author also uses the same phrases over and over again. After seeing the same things repeated five times it gets a little irritating.
I enjoyed elements of the story. But it really was a let down in terms of pacing and progression of the plot. Great idea, poor execution 🙁

When I finished From Blood and Ash I didn’t think I’d read anything else as half as good this year and then this sequel came along ALOT sooner then I expected and gods damn it… it has blown me away. I read a lot of books but this series just feels so special – it’s nothing like anything else I’ve read before.

Poppy is still processing Hawke’s betrayal, she is angry, hurt, and confused. In a very short span of time, she has learned that everything she has known is a lie and the person she was starting to fall in love with is someone else entirely. The first chunk of this book is all about Poppy coming to terms with this, the most obvious issue of Hawke being Casteel. It was heartwrenching reading some of the scenes between them – so much hurt but there is also a lot of healing and that was kind of beautiful. Casteel is not a perfect guy, and he doesn’t try to be, and this is what makes him him, I would have really liked a few chapters from his perspective.

As well as the emotional parts of this book there are a lot of kick as moments and battles. Poppy snark and stabby tendencies are on point throughout. As well as the ever-looming threat of the ascended which made me feel on edge whilst reading justing waiting from the to strike.

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