A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash Book 2)

Product Information

Let’s let get the whining out of the way before I can get to the level-headed gushing. AKoFaF is, technically, better than FBaA. Which is only natural, as the tension is already there, the scale is grander, the world is vaster, it’s even smuttier ( and I do not say this lightly because I was murdered), etcetera etcetera, you know how this goes. BUT, while I’m giving both books the same rating, while they are both predictable and I don’t mind, while both are not good at building mysteries in a way that it makes sense before unravelling, FBaA was a fave (an all-time fave) and AKoFaF was not. Why? Hawke arrives at the room and Poppy asks him to spend the night with her. Hawke resists at first stating that if he does spend the night, Poppy will no longer be a maiden. Poppy knows and Hawke and Poppy sleep together. I liked all of them. I don’t like Al Cas goes to speak with King Valyn while Kieran keeps guard of Poppy. Poppy tells Kieran that while they were at the temple, she had thought something in her mind and Kieran had responded telepathically while he was in his wolven form. Seeing if they can replicate what happened, Poppy and Kieran realize that Poppy can communicate with the wolven telepathically once she recognizes their individual imprint.

I lifted my gaze from our joined hands, from that mouth that was already curving up on one side, hinting at a dimple in the right cheek, and from the slowly parting lips that revealed just a hint of fatally sharp fangs. Hawke tries to save Poppy and uses compulsion to get her to drink his blood. When she comes to, Poppy remembers Kieran having referred to Hawke as Casteel, and Poppy realizes that Hawke is the Dark One, Prince Casteel "Cas" Da'Neer. Poppy grabs her dagger and stabs Cas in the heart. She cries and apologizes for killing him. She run off into the woods. After a few moments of running in the woods, Cas grabs her from behind and indicates that he cannot be killed with a stab to the heart. He told her that she had forgotten that it was real and proceeds to bite her. After he bites her, he states that he should have known. Poppy and Casteel then have sexual relations in the snow. Afterwards, Poppy realizes she had no regrets. She wakes up again in the bedroom, and Casteel catches her up on what had occurred, including that he had given her his blood to drink from. She then goes down to the hall to help those that were injured by taking their pain, but before she is able to help them, Casteel shows her that there is a Blood Tree in the exact spot where Lord Chaney kidnapped Poppy, which many people believe is an omen. She then takes away the pain of the people who were hurt in the battle, and afterwards, with Alistair they talk about her abilities. Alistair leaves that night for Spessa’s End, and Casteel tells Poppy that he is in awe of her abilities, after which they pretend to be Hawke and Poppy and share a kiss, with him teasing her. Then he takes her to the dungeon, and they talk to Kieran, who keeps asking Casteel if he’s all right. Turns out that Lord Chaney is in the dungeon, and Casteel gives Poppy the option of killing him, and she does. Poppy, Tawny, Duchess Teerman, Lord Mazeen, Vikter and a couple guards escape the Great Hall and the Duchess insists that they hide in a room with only one exit/entrance. The Descenters make it into the room prepared to kill everyone. Poppy pulls out her dagger and fights alongside Vikter. Poppy and Vikter take down all the Descenters, and the Duchess is scandalized that Poppy knows how to wield a dagger. As Vikter, Tawny, and Poppy prepare to leave the room, one of the Descenters rise and throws a sword at Vikter mortally wounding him. As Vikter dies, he apologizes to Poppy for failing her and not protecting her. Hawke enters as Vikter passes on.

Keep in Touch!

I’ll simply make a list of the pros and cons. I'm feeling too lazy to write comprehensible paragraphs. From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout comes a new novel in her Blood and Ash series… the first few 10 chapters or so were really dry other than two scenes which were really good (which if u know u know which scenes I mean). we hear way too much about what poppy is thinking, it's so dull and slow, repetitive and half the time Irrelevant and overcomplicated, and there's no sense of direction or plot. it gets better later on however overall the story doesn't really feel like a story. a few significant events happen to make the book interesting.just overall interms of a plot I feel there could have been more done. Apparently, Hawke told Vikter after his conversation with Poppy in her room, and she discovers that Vikter is very angry with her decision to sneak onto the Rise. He and Poppy have an argument while training and Vikter questions whether Poppy should trust that Hawke won’t tell on her to the Duke. Vikter tells her that he might have other motivations for keeping quiet. Poppy replies, restating what Hawke had explained to her: that if he hadn’t kept quiet, then she wouldn’t trust him, therefore, making his job harder. When Vikter states that he understands why Poppy’s defending Hawke, she asks him what exactly he understands. His response that she’s defending him because of the reason that he’s attractive is immediately shut down by Poppy and she tells him that her reasons for defending Hawke had nothing to do with Hawke’s attractiveness. After, Poppy says that she trusts Hawke, sharing what had happened with the conversation between her and Hawke. The conversation between Poppy and Vikter ends with Vikter telling Poppy that she’s important to him, not because she’s the Maiden, but because she’s her. He also tells her that she’s like a daughter to him, leaving Poppy feeling emotional, and she tells him that he’s important to her too. What It’s About: Penellapheis now living with Prince Casteel Da’Neer, the Atlantian Prince known as the Dark One across Solis. He had kidnapped her from the Ascended, and proposed marriage to her. But Poppy, as she is called by her closest friends, feels betrayed and desires freedom above all else, so she turns down Casteel’s proposal. She also fights him on every topic, raising questions about whether he will trade her for his brother. Someone else questions Casteel, but takes it too far, and Casteel rips his heart out.

Perhaps I had some sort of ailment of the brain. Maybe I was experiencing hallucinations brought on by stress. After all, there had been so much painful death to process. His betrayal to deal with. And I’d just learned I was descended from Atlantia, a kingdom I’d been raised to believe was the source of all the evil and tragedy in the land. Stress-induced hallucinations seemed a far more believable reason than what was actually happening. The group goes around the city with Poppy enjoying many new things. Kieran, Poppy, and Cas stop at a museum where the three banter about cave cats. Poppy swears she saw one at the Capital, but Poppy and Kieran assure her that the cave cats died out two centuries ago. Delano invites them to a wolven wedding on the beach. Poppy joins the wolven in dancing and then sits with Cas on the beach watching the other guests separate in small groups. Poppy watches different groups have sex and watches Kieran and Lyra. Poppy sneaks off with Cas and gives him pleasure on the beach. Of course, there has to be an infodump machine by the name of Alastir. He’s there to conveniently fill Poppy in on everything she doesn’t know. I wish I had an Alastir to tell me how to fix my life. Poppy wakes up screaming from a nightmare about the night her parents were slaughtered. Cas holds Poppy tight and strokes her hair trying to calm her down. As Poppy starts to feel embarassed regarding screaming, Cas tells Poppy about how he had nightmares after he saw Craven for the first time. But the nightmares took a different turn after he was captured by the Blood Crown. He recounts the many horrors that the Blood Crown subjected him to and confesses that there are still times where he wakes up in the middle of the night thinking he is still in the cage. Cas indicates that Poppy had been talking in her sleep and reciting a disturbing nursery rhyme about the poppy flower.Biggest disappointment in this entire book for me. If you’ve read my review for the first book (which I loved) then you’ll remember that I absolutely ADORED Poppy and that I found her to be one the best female characters that I’ve read in a while because I thought that she was soo well balanced (I explain what I mean by that in my review of the first book). In this book however, it felt like Poppy went from being a three dimensional, well developed character to being someone with one personality trait... which was that she’s violent. Literally. Her threatening to stab or kill someone got old pretty fast and just made me wish that she would show the different facets of her personality just like she did in the first book. That didn’t happen however which left me feeling incredibly disappointed in her character arc. From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout comes a new novel in her Blood and Ash series... Poppy wakes to Hawke speaking to someone at the door. He leaves and later Phillips comes to the room. Phillips indicates that there is something suspicious going on at New Haven; he has never heard of Hawke or Kieren and neither have any of the other guards. Also, there are no Ascended or guards at New Haven and he has never heard of an Ascended going hunting. As he tries to drag Poppy to the stables, Poppy believes that Phillips must be working for the Dark One. Cas and Valyn approach with Vonetta, who informs them that a convoy of Ascended has arrived at Spessa's End. The convoy is led by Ian and he wishes to speak with Poppy. Vonetta informs Poppy that Ian is Ascended. Against Queen Eloana's and King Valyn's wishes, Poppy and Cas decide to go to Spessa's End. Poppy and Cas are accompanied by Jasper, Kieran, Vonetta, and a dozen and half more wolven.