The New York Times best-seller “Blood and Ash” series written by Jennifer L. Armentrout is a high fantasy series that follows the Maiden, a girl named Penelope, aka Poppy. She is fated to Ascend soon. She isn’t allowed to speak to or touch anyone but a select few. Hiding her face with a white cloth, she is not allowed to speak to anybody except the high-ranking duke, duchess and Queen. Poppy grew up with the only goal: to Ascend and fulfill her destiny to save the whole kingdom from the “Dark one,” which is the book’s form of a vampire. With age, she started hesitating about what that really meant since no one ever told her how she was supposed to Ascend and what was hypothetically going to happen after that. Living under strict rules, she always had a rebellious bone in her—sneaking out at night, learning how to defend herself and doubting everything she was raised to achieve. Poppy just wants more by living her life as she pleases. But a mysterious man named Hawke becomes her guard due to the death of her most trusted guard. When the kingdom was attacked by supernatural creatures called cravens, she is forced to trust him.
The whole book follows her storyline and her character development. The first 15 pages of the book were very overwhelming in the amount of information given. It has a small burn, but as you get a hand on everything the slow burn makes everything align perfectly. The whole time reading the book I thought that I knew exactly what was supposed to happen based on all the other books I read, but I was proved wrong.
In every book that I read, the experience I had with women trying to be independently strong and extremely smart, but always ended up cringey and strange. But Poppy was just my favorite in every way. She portrays exactly what I imagine in a strong woman of character. As soon as I got the hang of the whole story, it was extremely hard to put the book down. I screamed, cried and got invested in her relationship with Hawke. If I had to rate this series, I would give it a five star without hesitation. If you are into adventure, fantasy and huge plot twists, the “Blood and Ash” series is exactly the book that would make you have sleepless nights and wonder more about life. The touch of romance just makes it contain the perfect amount of spice without it overwhelming the whole story.
Armentrout outdid herself with these books and the fact that there are more books and series based on the same storyline coming out makes me all giddy, just like a kid on Christmas opening his presents under the tree.
