I’m not sure when I read an urban fantasy or a paranormal romance last, and Jeaniene Frost has always been a favorite author of mine. I loved her vampire series, and I do have a paperback copy of The Beautiful Ashes that I’d preordered back in 2014. But for whatever reason I never read the book, and I was approached for the TLC Book Tours tour for book two in this series, The Sweetest Burn, so now was the perfect time to finally go back and read book one so I could tackle book two. Angels and demons are something that I usually don’t read, so The Beautiful Ashes is my first road into this topic in a while.

Ivy is a college student who’s had visions of another world her entire life, and doctors have chalked them up to hallucinations and medicated her. But that never helped, so she just pretended that the prescriptions helped so she could live as normal a life as possible. The only person who didn’t think that she was crazy and actually believed that the visions were real was her younger sister, and she has just gone missing. Ivy sets out to find her missing sister, going to every hotel and hole in the wall in the city her sister was last seen.

But then the bed and breakfast where Ivy is asking about her sister morphs into a dark, frozen house complete with her sister screaming for help, and Ivy knows that she has to do whatever she can to rescue her sister–even if the manager with the strange shadows across her face tries to kill her as she asks more questions. Enter tall, tanned, and handsome Adrian, who swoops in at just the right time to save Ivy from a police officer who wants to take Ivy to the same realm that her sister is trapped in. As Adrian basically leaves Ivy no choice but to go with him after he explains that her visions are real and demons’ minions are after her now, she finds out what part both she and Adrian have to play in this battle between Archons (angels) and demons.

I found Ivy to be headstrong yet barely holding it together at times, so she was pretty realistic in that regard. She refused to give up on her sister, and she wouldn’t back down even when Adrian keeps her in the dark about so much of her lineage and her abilities because of her line. She was spunky and sarcastic, and I really enjoyed how she saw the world and commented about things. But she was so in the dark about how things worked, and she had to rely on Adrian to fill her in–and that made her vulnerable and quite irritated.

Adrian was shrouded in mystery and his secrets were revealed slowly. He’s an alpha male with ties to the demons, but he bands together with Ivy to take them down. He’s brooding, a quite capable fighter, very knowledgeable when it comes to the demons, and is handy with weapons. But he’s always pushing her away when she tries to get close or asks personal questions, and he’s definitely keeping her at arms length for very good reasons.

I give The Beautiful Ashes a four out of five. As Ivy, Adrian, and their cohorts travel from demon world portal to portal across the United States, I did enjoy how this story unfolded and you learned more about Adrian’s past. Ivy stuck to her guns when it came to rescuing her sister, and in the end, she made the right choice for herself. This book goes by rather quickly once you get past the initial world building–which takes up a good half of the book–but it does suffer from a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to what it is–is it adult or is it new adult or is it even just older YA when you get down to the details of Ivy and Adrian’s relationship?

In preparation for a blog tour I am participating in during the month of August for Jeaniene Frost's upcoming book The Sweetest Burn, I picked up The Beautiful Ashes to read first. Since the The Sweetest Burn involves the same couple I figured it probably wouldn't hold up well as a stand alone. Anyway, I ended up enjoying this book tremendously.

In The Beautiful Ashes, Ivy is searching for her missing sister when she finds her life is about the change in ways she never dreamed possible. She has always seen strange images her whole life, but she thought she was just a little crazy. She meets and is kidnapped by Adrian who doesn't seem to be completely human. I am glad I read this one first as there is a lot of world building and mythology that is explained to Ivy along the way...think angels, demons and other realms. But not as cut and dry as just that.

I enjoyed the characters. Ivy really steps up to the plate when the need arises. I liked her determination to get her sister back and to do whatever it takes to get it done. That includes bathing with hell hounds! Adrian was a perfect partner for her. I also liked that he was flawed as you never knew if he was going to betray Ivy or not. I thought it was fairly light in the romance department. I suspect that will increase over the next books in the series. There were some humorous moments in the book that kept it entertaining. The last 1/4 of the book was pretty intense and was my favorite part.

If you missed this one, I highly recommend it. It was a fairly quick read. Make sure to some back on August 10 to read my thoughts on The Sweetest Burn! -Kari