You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

goodeyreads's profile picture

goodeyreads 's review for:

Scales of Ash & Smoke by Emily Schneider
3.0
fast-paced

IT WAS OKAY.

BLOG || INSTAGRAM

Maybe this is better for a younger audience? I don’t know, things didn’t hit all the way for me. Lets get into it.

I am ALWAYS here for a marriage of convenience trope. What I didn’t quite get behind is how quickly the enemies were apparently lovers? For a fantasy that tops out at 300 pages I can see the difficulty in formulating the necessary depth in connections and relationships needed to fully be on board with what was happening.

There’s some decent world building. I didn’t feel confused by the set-up or how the magic worked. It wasn’t fully defined, but at least easy to follow. I loved the concept of dragon shifters and thought that was executed well.

This tried to be dark at times, and while things that were brought up were definitely dark, I don’t know that it fit? The whole overall vibe of the book + what it was trying to accomplish kind of clashed for me. Once again I think it goes back to the depth of connections I was looking for.

I won’t be continuing this series at this time! As it isn’t bringing anything new that I want to pursue.

Overall audience notes:
- YA Fantasy Romance
- Language: a little
- Romance: kisses
- Violence: high
- Trigger/Content Warnings: war themes, executions, torture, descriptive and graphic violence, weapons and physical violence, loss of loved ones