A Shadow in the Ember by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Born shrouded in the veil of the Primals, a Maiden as the Fates promised, Seraphena Mierel’s future has never been hers. Chosen before birth to uphold the desperate deal her ancestor struck to save his people, Sera must leave behind her life and offer herself to the Primal of Death as his Consort. However, Sera’s real destiny is the most closely guarded secret in all of Lasania - she’s not the well protected Maiden but an assassin with one mission - one target. Make the Primal of Death fall in love, become his weakness, and then… end him. If she fails, she dooms her kingdom to a slow demise at the hands of the Rot Sera has always known what she is. Chosen. Consort. Assassin. Weapon. A specter never fully formed yet drenched in blood A monster. Until him. Until the Primal of Death’s unexpected words and deeds chase away the darkness gathering inside her. And his seductive touch ignites a passion she’s never allowed herself to feel and cannot feel for him. But Sera has never had a choice. Either way, her life is forfeit - it always has been, as she has been forever touched by Life and Death.
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I was very excited for this book as everyone who has read the From Blood and Ash series say that it’s the best, it’s the reason they will keep reading the series. Imagine my disappointment that it was just a copy and paste of the first book of that successful series. I haven’t been fully won over by JLA in the past but I continued reading the original series because I’m invested enough that I need to know what happened to those characters. However, I don’t think I’ll be continuing with the prequel series. Sera is exactly like Poppy just with less SA happening to her. Ash is great, however, he’s almost a more pale version of Hawke. Even the miscommunication and the plot of an underhanded kingdom is exactly the same. Maybe if I’d read this one first, I’d have loved it, but it was so similar to the other books that I found myself bored and skimming quite often.
JLA has a history of telling instead of showing important plot devices. Because of this, these massive books are pages and pages of information dumps with the main character just asking questions and the side cast answering them. Let’s see it! Oh, the woods are evil? Throw your character into them and show her why, have a premonition or a vision appear, take her on a journey, don’t just have something attack her and then her babysitters explain why the woods are off limits. Simple things like that. I didn’t mind it so much in the trilogy, but I noticed it a lot more in this book due to the fact that the plot itself was something we’d already seen. I was bored enough to REALLY notice the information dumps in a negative light where I hadn’t before.
JLA wrote a fantastic, strong, female lead in Poppy but with Sera it felt like she fell a bit short. The motivation behind everything Sera did, didn’t make sense. After truths are revealed and lives changed, she still hammers on about her “mission” which any idiot can see at this point is null and void. It made zero sense to continue on that way. She was also very weak willed I found in comparison to those around her. She’s written as this amazing fighter but besides being ace at physical combat, there’s nothing spectacular enough about her to keep me intrigued to her story. I also felt like the chemistry between her and Ash just wasn’t there at all. Sure, the spicy scenes were great, but aside from those small moments there was no connection in my mind.
I definitely see how people who liked FBAA and not the sequels would love this because it’s a revisit of the original story they fell in love with. But for me, it was just way too similar and I’d have preferred a unique and original storyline with original characters that didn’t feel like Poppy and the gang just with different names. I gave this 2 stars as I found it a chore to finish.