Title: The Beautiful Ashes
Series: Broken Destiny #1
Author: Jeaniene Frost
Release Date: August 26th, 2014
In a world of shadows, anything is possible. Except
escaping your fate.
Ever since she was a child, Ivy has been gripped by
visions of strange realms just beyond her own. But when her sister goes
missing, Ivy discovers the truth is far worse—her hallucinations are real, and
her sister is trapped in a parallel realm. And the one person who believes her
is the dangerously attractive guy who's bound by an ancient legacy to betray
her.
Adrian might have turned his back on those who raised him,
but that doesn't mean he can change his fate…no matter how strong a pull he
feels toward Ivy. Together they search for the powerful relic that can save her
sister, but Adrian knows what Ivy doesn't: that every step brings Ivy closer to
the truth about her own destiny, and a war that could doom the world. Sooner or
later, it will be Ivy on one side and Adrian on the other. And nothing but
ashes in between…
Jeaniene Frost
Jeaniene Frost is the
New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the Night
Huntress series, the Night Prince series, and the upcoming Broken Destiny
series. To date, foreign rights for her novels have sold to twenty different
countries. Jeaniene lives in North Carolina with her husband Matthew, who long
ago accepted that she rarely cooks and always sleeps in on the weekends. Aside
from writing, Jeaniene enjoys reading, poetry, watching movies with her
husband, exploring old cemeteries, spelunking and traveling – by car.
Airplanes, children, and cook books frighten her.
For information on
Jeaniene's books, reading the first 20% of each book free, book trailers,
deleted scenes, creature mythology, and more, please visit:
www.jeanienefrost.com
A familiar song was playing, but I couldn’t remember the name.
That bugged me enough to open my eyes. A wall of black met my gaze, slick and
smooth like glass. I reached up to see what it was, and that’s when I realized
my hands were tied.
“Silent Lucidity” by Queensryche, my mind supplied, followed
immediately by, I’m in the backseat of a car. One that was well
taken care of, going by that flawless, shiny roof. With those details filled
in, I also remembered what had happened right before I’d passed out. And who I
was with.
“Why are my hands tied?” I said, heaving myself into an upright
position.
For some reason Adrian didn’t have a rear view mirror, which was
why he had to glance over his shoulder to look at me.
“Does anything make you panic?” he asked, sounding amused.
“You’re tied up in the backseat of a cop-killer’s car, but I’ve seen people get
more upset when Starbucks runs out of pumpkin spice flavor.”
Anyone normal would panic, not that it would do any good.
Besides, I ran out of “normal” a long time ago, when I realized I saw things no
one else did.
Speaking of which, why wasn’t I in pain? The lump where Mrs.
Paulson had whacked me was gone, and my shirt was red from blood, but aside
from a mild kink in my neck, I felt fine. When I pushed my shirt up, somehow, I
wasn’t surprised to see smooth, unbroken skin on my abdomen. Well, that and a
bunch of crumbs, like I’d eaten a dessert too messily.
“Why does it look like I have angel food cake on my stomach?” I
wondered aloud.
Adrian snorted. “Close. It’s medicine. You were injured.”
“You can tell me how I’m not anymore,” I said, holding out my
bound hands, “after you untie me.”
Another backwards glance, this one challenging.
“You may be the calmest person I’ve ever been sent to retrieve,
but if I tell you now what you want to know, that will change. So pick—the
truth, or being untied?”
“Truth,” I said instantly.
He let out a laugh. “Another first. You’re full of surprises.”
So was he. He’d just admitted that he regularly kidnapped
people—which was how I translated “retrieve”—so I should be trying my damnedest
to get free. But more than anything, I needed answers. Besides, I still wasn’t
afraid of him, and somehow, that had nothing to do with him magically healing
me.
“Truth, Adrian,” I repeated.
He turned once again and his gaze locked with mine, those odd
blue eyes startling me with their intensity. For a moment, I could only stare,
all thought frozen in my mind. I don’t know why I reached out, awkwardly
touching his arm to feel the hard muscles beneath that bulky jacket. If I’d
thought about it, I wouldn’t have done it. Yet I couldn’t make myself pull
away.
Then I gasped when his hand covered mine. At some point, he’d
taken off his gloves, and the feel of his warm, bare skin sent a shock wave
through me. The touch seemed to affect Adrian, too. His lips parted and he
edged over the back of the seats—
He yanked on the steering wheel, narrowly avoiding another car.
A horn blared, and when the driver passed us, an extended middle finger shook
angrily in our direction. I leaned back, my heart pounding from the near
collision. At least, that’s what I told myself it was from.
“Dyate,” Adrian muttered.
I didn’t recognize the word, and I was at a loss to place his
accent. It had a musical cadence like Italian, but beneath that was a harsher,
darker edge.
“What’s that language?” I asked, trying to mask the sudden
shakiness in my voice.
This time, he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Nothing you’ve
heard of.”
“I picked truth, remember?” I said, holding up my bound hands
for emphasis.
That earned me a quick glance. “That is the truth, but you don’t
get more until you meet Zach. Then we can skip all the ‘this isn’t possible’
arguments.”
I let out a short laugh. “After what I saw on Detective Kroger’s
face, my definition of ‘impossible’ has changed.”
Adrian swerved again, but this time, no other car was near.
“What did you see?”
I tensed. How did I explain without sounding insane? No way to,
so I chose to go on the attack instead.
“Why were you in my hotel room? And how did you heal me? There
isn’t even a mark—”
“What did you see on his face, Ivy?”
Despite his hard tone, when my name crossed his lips, something
thrummed inside me, like he’d yanked on a tie I hadn’t known was there. Feeling
it was as disturbing as my inexplicable reaction to his clasping my hands.
“Shadows,” I said quickly, to distract from that. “He had
snakelike shadows all over his face.”
I expected Adrian to tell me I’d imagined it, a response I was
used to hearing. Instead, he pulled over, putting the car in park but keeping
the engine running. Then he turned to stare at me.
“Was that the only strange thing you saw?”
I swallowed. I knew better than to talk about these things.
Still, I’d demanded the truth from Adrian. It didn’t seem fair to lie in
return.
“I saw two versions of the same B and B earlier. One was pretty,
but the other was old and rotted, and my sister was trapped inside it.”
Adrian said nothing, though he continued to pin me with that
hard stare. When he finally spoke, his question was so bizarre I thought I’d
misheard him.
“What do I look like to you?”
“Huh?”
“My appearance.” He drew out the words like I was slow.
“Describe me.”
All of a sudden, he wanted compliments? I might have finally met
someone crazier than me.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, but started with the obvious.
“Six-six, early twenties, built like Thor, golden brown hair with blond
highlights, silvery blue eyes…you want me to go on?”
He began to laugh, a deep, rich baritone that would’ve been sensual
except for how angry it made me.
“Now I know why they came after you,” he said, still chuckling.
“They must’ve realized you were different, but if they’d known what you could
see, you never would’ve made it out of that B and B.”
“You can stop laughing,” I said sharply. “I get that it’s crazy
to see the things I do.”
Lots of kids had imaginary friends growing up. I had imaginary
places, though at first, I didn’t know I was the only one who could see them.
Once my parents had realized that what I kept describing went far beyond
childhood fancifulness, the endless doctor visits and tests began. One by one,
diseases and psychoses had been crossed off until I was diagnosed with a
non-monoamine-cholinergic imbalance in my temporal cortex.
In other words, I saw shit that wasn’t there for reasons no one
could figure out. The pills I took helped a little, though I lied and said they
got rid of all my hallucinations. I was sick of doctors poking at me. So
whenever I saw something that no one else did, I forced myself to ignore
it—until Mrs. Paulson and Detective Kroger had tried to kill me, of course.
Adrian did stop laughing, and that unblinking intensity was back
in his gaze.
“Well, Ivy, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is,
you’re not crazy. The bad news is, everything you’ve seen is real, and now,
it’ll be coming for you.”
I read all of the Night Huntress books by Jeaniene Frost and was anxiously anticipating her new series. I've read a few negative reviews of the Beautiful Ashes before receiving an ARC. After reading this book I'm not sure where those reviewers are coming from. This book is not about Cat and Bones. That series is over. Move on! This a new series, with completely different characters and different settings, BUT it's just as good. If you're expecting Cat, Bones, and all the others from the Night Huntress series you might be disappointed, but if you let yourself get into this series you won't be disappointed
This book has more of a Young Adult feel than the Night Huntress series so that means it's open to more people. It is still somewhat steamy and there is definitely passion, but it's not excessive and you can feel comfortable having young adults read this. I'm planning on buying a copy for my 15 year old daughter to read because I know she'd love it just as much as I did.
Adrian and Ivy are great characters. When Ivy's sister disappears she realizes that her whole life is not what she thought it was. She discovers a whole new world around her and that she has many abilities she never knew about. Adrian helps her to hone her abilities. She is young (only 20), but she is very strong emotionally (and later, physically). She doesn't take crap.
Adrian is a gorgeous, strong man, also with many abilities. He struggles with his destiny and tries to stay away from Ivy, but ending up with Ivy is inevitable and so is their love.
This was a great book for all to read. I can't wait for the next in the series and I'm sad that I have to wait for a while. I give the Beaitiful Ashes:
FOUR STARS!!!
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