Vandal (Ashes & Embers #2)

I am so conflicted after reading this story. I really liked the other books that I have read that revolve around this family. I\’m not sure how I feel about this one. I completely get that Vandal had been through a ton of crap in his life, but I really didn\’t like that his affinity for a D/s relationship was a byproduct of his past. Vandal seemed just shy of the evil exes in a lot of other books. He was controlling and secretive, manipulative and demanding. It felt really wrong that he took a completely \”vanilla\” woman and expected her to really jump into the lifestyle head-on. He seemed to have little to no patience for her short comings in regards to the lifestyle. I really didn\’t like how quickly his family expected him to pick himself up and move on from the accident, especially considering the part he played in it. The epilogue felt like it was from a completely different book. I can\’t quite wrap my head around that little nugget, and as much as I am glad that Vandal got as happily ever after as he\’s gonna get; I feel like it is going to blow up in his face. The problem with this is she obviously was more manipulative than he ever thought to be, and this would completely destroy him.

Originally going into this review I put a 3 star but as I reviewed this I realized that the book irritated me more than I thought it had, so I lowered it to a 2 star. This was one of those reads that I blazed through, once I started I didn\’t want to put it down. However while, yes, it was devoured…after it was over all I felt was \’meh\’ and kind of annoyed at certain parts. Content warnings/TW: Cutting. Drug/Alcohol use/abuse. Suicidal thoughts. Vandal is a rockstar (although we barely see him doing anything band related), he is driving his daughter back to her mother\’s, ends up falling asleep, crashing, and killing his daughter, his passenger, and someone from another car. The someone in the other car…Tabitha\’s husband. Vandal does a little cyber stalking of her and eventually he comes across her and essentially offers to make her feel better and the two get involved in a D/s relationship. Going into this I was expecting to have my heartstrings pulled, feel some angsty heart clenching type feels but the only time I did feel those things was in the second chapter when Vandal is told what happened. SPOILERS * * * * * * Let\’s start with the major issue I had with this. When Tabitha \”finds out\” (I\’ll get to why that\’s in quotes in another section, because it was something else that bugged me) that Vandal is the one that was the cause of the accident, he emotionally manipulates her trying to make her stay with him. He essentially says he won\’t be able to live without her and he\’s going to kill himself if she leaves him. She wants/needs space just to think, she\’s not even saying she\’s officially breaking up with him, but she needs to think and he\’s not above trying to manipulate her into staying. It left such a bad taste in my mouth. I already wasn\’t loving, or really liking, Vandal but this just solidified my strong dislike of him. The second issue I had was how hypocritical Vandal was on sooo many things. Almost every woman, except Tabitha, that he slept with were described as wh***s and s***s. Yet, he dipped his wick in anything thing that moved and had boobs. And he was jealous of the two relationships that Tabitha had before him, one being her husband, and yet as they were headed toward a club/small venue that he was going to playing at with the band Sugar Kiss, he casually mentioned, oh by the way I\’ve slept with all the women in the band and we\’re going to be sitting in a room with all of them shortly. And another aspect of this book that bugged me was the ending. The short epilogue that we got with Tabitha where apparently she knew the entire time who Vandal was, she knew that he was the one who caused the car accident and that she had also cyber stalked him to work toward getting revenge on him for what he had done. Now normally I would, hopefully, get to that ending and be excited and say \’I was wondering if that was going on\’. However there was ZERO indication that that was the case. There was no hint of that. None. I\’m all for a little bit of a twist to flip something on it\’s head but I also want there to be hints here and there. Especially when we got her point of view. Occasionally she would think, oh he doesn\’t know my secret or something like that but at most it didn\’t seem at all like she knew the extent of who he was. * * * * * * END SPOILERS So all in all this was not a great read for me. Yea, I zoomed through it but the story as a whole didn\’t deliver.

Well, holy crap! The little bit of information we got on Vandal at the end of Storm\’s book broke my heart, and I didn\’t want it to be true. Vandal is really a tortured hero that you end up not knowing if you want to love or hate. He hated his life and the people in it especially after tragedy struck him once again, and he felt like he didn\’t have much to live for. He meets Tabitha who also feels like she\’s been let down by the entire universe. He decides that, since, unbeknownst to her, he is the reason for her depression, he will help her out of it. I had mixed feelings while reading their story. Vandal was such a complicated character, full of hate and self loathing, but there was also a bright spot in his soul somewhere that kept on giving me hope that he could make Tabitha happy. My heart broke for him probably for as many times as I also hated him for his actions. He does give the impression of being a manipulative, unfeeling SOB, however, he does get his happy ending and he does deserve it. The one thing I would\’ve loved to have seen him find out was that, in the end, he had been just as manipulated by Tabi as much as he had manipulated her. I think he would\’ve understood the reasoning behind it, and it would\’ve cleansed his soul a little.

I wasn\’t sure about re-reading Vandals story because I remember how much it affected me the first time I read it a few years ago. I admit it didn\’t hurt as much as the first time as I knew what to expect. But the sheer anguish, guilt, grief and pain that Vandal endures still took my breath away. Vandal is a hard man to get close to, he\’s always been the dark, tortured damaged member of the band. He doesn\’t do Love or relationships, he takes what he wants from women…and that\’s it. The only love he\’s ever known is that for his daughter. Tabitha has suffered pain too, losing the love of her life has her spiralling out of control. So when she meets Vandal he offers to help her forget, its an offer to good to refuse. But their tragic pasts can never stay hidden and when the truth comes out a whole new world of pain comes with it. Throughout this whole story my heart was breaking, just knowing what both Tabi and Vandal went through was devastating. I loved how they grew together, healed and helped each other, even when they didn\’t realise they were doing it…I felt the connection from them both. A truly moving, beautiful story about love and loss, forgiveness and redemption. Tabitha and Vandal still hold a special place in my heart and they always will. I still have so much love for Sterling in this story. I just want to pet the furry little guy. ??

I totally loved this broken Rockstar romance. I really didn\’t know how or expect for this story, to go the way it did. And although I screamed at Vandal so much during this book. I really didn\’t expect the twist that happens. This book isn\’t all hearts and flowers and although this story is tragic, it is a totally beautiful love story. I couldn\’t help but fall for Vandal, his dark domainant ways were just spell binding and you can see why Tabitha eventually couldn\’t do anything but fall in love him. Another huge recommend for me.

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