Reviews with content warning for Gore - A Soul of Ash and Blood

From Blood and Ash is my favourite of this series, so getting to relive it through Hawke’s POV was such a delight! I loved getting to see his take on events and the feelings he had while going through it all. Especially my favourite scenes. Each of those felt like a little treat ❤️

I also appreciate how it was a bit of a breather. There’s so much that happens in this series CONSTANTLY so just getting to experience this walk down memory lane was much needed.

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virgoabb's review against another edition

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fast-paced

3.0

what tf did i just read— honestly im just so confused how this became the next book in the series, when it 1000% should’ve just been a novella of book 1 in cas’ pov. it added literally nothing of value. im being generous and giving it a 3/5 bc i loved the first book so much, and obviously it was the same exact events of the first book. and as for the present chapters, i just don’t get where jla wants to take this story, which makes me very sad bc i LOVED books 1&2. the whole throuple thing is so disingenuous and forced (and it’s also weird reading about how cas fell in love with her and how special their relationship was, only to come to the present where they’re now all in a relationship). im not even gonna get into the ending. im sadly just done w this series i think.

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cryosphinx's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I loved this and was so happy to experience FBAA again but from Casteel's perspective. No surprise here, it was advertised as such. Because of the POV shift, I'd say the flashbacks were evenly split between filling in information from Casteel's POV and just retelling a scene with his monologue instead of Poppy. But I loved it and it may be my favorite of the series.

There is some present day that takes place every few chapters which makes the book still a bridge between books 4 and 6.

I feel like the inner monologue was much less repetitive from Casteel's perspective that Poppy's which makes it a bit more polished. I'll also still complain that random modern jargon is very weird (I mean...at one point a character says spoiler alert...). And I would have liked more substance from the present day sections since they were pretty sparse until the last couple sections.

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stardust_heidi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

First of all, I am screaming at the last chapter. S C R E A M I N G. Both at the chapter and at JLA, because how DARE, lmao. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I feel even more unsettled now than I did after TWOTQ. Rude.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I did find a lot of the repeated scenes quite tedious, even if they were from Casteel's POV. We already know most of those scenes intimately, and while yes, they were all from Poppy's perspective before, I don't know that ALL of them needed to be from Cas's POV. I did enjoy a few of the big ones, like the craven attack/night on the rise and then after Poppy stabs him in New Haven. Those were great.

The moments I enjoyed the most were the new scenes, especially those with Kieran. I loved experiencing their bond from Casteel's perspective and how Kieran just kind of *knew* things were different about Poppy from the beginning. It also opened up a whole avenue of questions I'd silently pondered to myself before and blew them out in the open -- especially during the explicit scenes with Cas and Kieran. Hot damn.

But that last chapter. Holy. Fuck. I think Emil said it best: "What in the fuckity fuck?" Lmao.

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krisalexcole's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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crinkledmochi's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I hope we can get more pov’s from Cas in the last couple books, I love learning more about him and some of the things he’s gone through.

The ending tho?!??

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xennial_reader's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

4.0

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chaptersofamylea's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

"And how it all changed - how I changed -because of you."

4 ⭐️

Oh how I bloody (ha.) love these characters and this world. It was fun to see Cas’ POV from the FBAA book while also having some sweet moments and new developments in between. Can we not with that ending though? And having to wait? Not cool.

Will try and do it as a tandem read next time as I think. Also trying to avoid the temptation of basically just rereading them all anyway.

This series is home for my soul, I don’t care.

TWs: ref to self harm, dubious consent, detailed depictions of gore and violence, corpse depictions, murder, kidnap

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