Of Ashes And Sin, by Ariana Hawkes & K.N. Knight | Book Review

Hello! Today I have my book review of

Of Ashes And Sin, by Ariana Hawkes & K.N. Knight.

Of Ashes And Sin is the first book in the Fire Trails series.

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping, Stockholm Syndrome, Sex Scenes, Group Sex.

A world without fire. Three sizzling shifters. One flame-haired hustler. And the elemental bond that could bring fire back to the world, or be the end of them…

The last Phoenix has perished in a huge blaze of flames, extinguishing fire from the earth. Ranger Mason is a nineteen-year-old shifter whose spirit animal has not yet been fixed. An orphan, hustler and part-time exorcist, she scrapes a living in a dangerous, burned-out world, with no idea of the unique power she holds. That is, until a sexy tiger, bear and eagle shifter trio bursts into her life, convinced she’s the key to recreating fire.

What none of them realizes is that she’s no fire elemental, but something even more rare and special…something that will create the strongest possible bond between them, but also threaten to destroy her. Ranger is the only one capable of uniting a dragon with the three water, earth and air elementals, but as the love bond between the four of them ignites, the guys are unwilling to risk her safety—even if it means restoring balance to the world.

But Rael, Zain and Oran are not the only ones who have discovered Ranger’s gifts, and suddenly the decision is torn from their hands. Will she be able to create peace between her three mates, who have vowed to do anything to protect her, and a dragon intent on keeping her in his cave as his personal, flame-haired treasure?

OF ASHES AND SIN is a full-length reverse harem paranormal romance novel of 67,000 words, where the heroine doesn’t have to choose between her love interests. It includes action, drama and intrigue; as well as fully-realized sex scenes and graphic language. It’s intended for mature, 18+ audiences.

From GoodReads [x]:

“REVERSE HAREM” IS, LITERALLY, THE OPPOSITE OF “HAREM”, WITH A GROUP OF MALES CENTERING ROUND A SINGULAR FEMALE, USUALLY WITH THREE OR MORE MALES. QUITE OFTEN FOUND UNDER THE ROMANCE GENRE.

Quickly into reading Of Ashes And Sin, my hopes for this Ranger and her story were squandered. Massively.

The beginning to Of Ashes And Sin was actually pretty good. I had a great outlook for the rest of the book. I though that it’d be pretty interesting and prove to be a good story. Until the kidnapping–and what followed.

As we read Of Ashes and Sin we quickly get to know the basics of this new, dystopian/apocalyptic world early on in the story. While learning about what happened to the world, we also simultaneously get to know what happened in Ranger’s past. I have to say that reading about both the world and Ranger’s personal history at the same time was refreshing.

I actually found Of Ashes And Sin genuinely interesting. However I have to decide that in the end, I didn’t really like Of Ashes And Sin. I would’ve enjoyed Of Ashes And Sin a lot more if there wasn’t the fact that there’s Stockholm Syndrome within this book.

And what baffles me was that because Ranger ends up falling for her kidnappers, and somehow, it’s okay that Ranger falls for the guys, because they end up being her mates anyway?? No thanks.

I mean, with both kidnappings in this story….it just doesn’t make sense to me how Ranger would still fall for the guys. And frankly, by the end of this first Fire Trails story, we still don’t know how old everyone is. We just have a vague sense of the character’s ages. What I do know is that Ranger is at the most 20-years-old. The guys are all older than that.

Why I’ve decided to not like this book as much as I could have, was precisely because how Ranger ends up falling for her kidnappers. If …. everything… would have gone a bit differently, I would have absolutely enjoyed reading Ranger’s story.

I give Of Ashes and Sin, 2 stars.

Have you read Of Ashes And Sin? What are your thoughts on the novel?

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy reading Of Ashes And Sin as much as I hoped I would. I won’t be reading more of the Fire Trails series.