** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE ** 

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 Of Ash and Thorn, by Kiska Gray 

★★★★☆ 

 310 Pages 

 1st person, dual character POV 

 Themes: urban fantasy, romance, angels/demons, Hell, previous lives, reincarnation, amnesia, forced proximity, only one bed, first time, roommates, knotting, mates, shifters, magic 

 Triggers: on-page attempted rape, stalking, threats of rape and sexual assault, violence; mentions of off-page sexual assault, slavery, cage fighting, murder, PTSD, anxiety disorder, attempted murder, whipping 

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Of Ash and Thorn is an intriguing novel by Kiska Gray, who is a new-to-me author. I was captured by the blurb and the beautiful cover. The concept itself was clever and unique; I've never read a story with hellhounds and a phoenix before, and the way Gray pulled them together was really interesting. 

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CONCEPT 

The story begins with a twist on the traditionally Fae concept of the Wild Hunt. In this case, it's demon hellhounds who are set loose on the Wild Hunt, and their prize is a rare phoenix which Lucifer has been keeping captive for hundreds of years. The phoenix – Kjell – is raised with an angel guardian, then the angel is tortured and killed in front of him once he's of an age. Kjell is kept as a slave, then released to be hunted by the hellhounds. This cycle continues every six years. 

I will admit, I'm a bit confused by the timeline of this. There's no mention of how old Kjell is when he's reborn as a phoenix – if he's an adult age all the time, or if he just ages quickly. However, the concept of the Wild Hunt was really interesting and unique. 

Thorn is a hellhound who was sold to his 'master' by his brother, to pay off gambling debts. Thorn has been a slave for four years when the story begins, and he's been used as a cage fighter, despite being smaller and not as strong as other hellhounds. He's a useless fighter, really; he loses all his fights and his master, Haem, is sick of losing money on him. As incentive to do better, Thorn is told to enter the Wild Hunt and bring Haem the phoenix to win his freedom; if he fails, he'll be considered worthless and thrown to the other cage fighters as a punching bag. He knows he won't last long, so he knows that his only hope is to win the Wild Hunt and capture the phoenix. 

In this first part of the plot – where we're introduced to Kjell, Thorn and their circumstances, and the Wild Hunt begins – there are mentions of a lot of off-page triggers. There's mention of Kjell being beaten and tortured during his captivity, until he's released into the Hunt; and mentions of Thorn being sexually abused, assaulted and violently beaten by the other hellhounds. 

I really liked the idea of the hellhounds being able to choose between a wolf-ish hound form or a human form at will, and that Kjell, as a phoenix, had his wings always on show. Some phoenix stories have them as just another form of shifter, but this felt more interesting to think he always had access to his full powers. 

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CHARACTERS 

I liked the main character Thorn all the way through. Despite how hard his life has been, he's so positive and always sees the brighter side. He's pushed his trauma down, but deals with it in small ways that means he can be strong and smart. He's not a good fighter, but he's smart and capable in other ways, which means that he can use his stubborn resolve to live to get through even the hardest punishments and difficult times. 

My interest in Kjell wavered – he started off so strong and feisty, independent and capable. But, as the human plot began, Kjell became controlled by his social anxiety, his fear of crowds, which was fine; until he started becoming so jealous, illogical and negative. Most of his POV's in the human plotline are filled with negative thinking and a serious insecurity that leads to him making ridiculous choices and bad decisions. 

By about 30-35%, Kjell really starts to get on my nerves. He goes from a feisty, defiant character who fights the injustice of his fate, to morph into a spoiled brat who is so insecure and jealous that he can't think clearly. While Thorn constantly strives to protect Kjell, doing everything he can to keep them afloat, Kjell often doesn't return the favour, never openly communicating, keeping his stalker a secret until the last moment then throwing it in Thorn's face when he doesn't instantly take the threat seriously. It really got on my nerves how often he got all self-righteous with Thorn. 

There were some interesting secondary characters, like the Arcane, Ingram – a type of higher level demon – and the angel, Nician. However, I feel like they were set up to be bigger characters than they proved to be. We end the book without understanding the motivation behind Ingram helping Thorn and Kjell, or what it means when he says he'll find Lucifer “another toy”. That sounds like the set-up to another book, because it's never resolved. I also feel like there's a suggestion that Nician might be another main character in the future, because of the scenes we saw of him with his human ward, and that he helped Kjell when he really had no incentive to. At the very end, we're briefly introduced to Rixton, who runs a sanctuary, which feels like another set-up for some kind of spin-off in the future. 

While these characters were all interesting, I do feel like they were kind of left hanging, at the end of the book. 

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ISSUES 

For me, this was a two part story, with one being really unique and intriguing, while the other sadly just wasn't as interesting. 

The first part is the part where Thorn and Kjell are hellhound/phoenix, trapped in Hell, enduring awful lives but have to come together for *reasons* to protect each other. THAT was the part of the plot I loved, which lasted for about the first 25-30%, then another 15-20% at the end. I loved the desperation, the adventure and the action of this part. Every minute was captivating. 

The second part was when they had to become Thom and Kel, pretend to be human and hide in the human world, the Inbetween. That, for me, is where I completely lost interest and that took up a good 50% or more of the book. For me, it just wasn't as engaging, as interesting, and they lost contact with everything that made them unique. 

Another problem was that there are A LOT of triggers in this book (see above) and there was no warning, at all. There are NO trigger warnings, which I feel there should be. 

For a start, there are frequent mentions of off-page sexual assault which is vague but integral to Thorn's past. There is on-page stalking that lasts a good 5-10%, that culminates in a quite graphic attempted rape, then a violent attempted murder. 

Honestly, while I understand the need for Thorn's past and how it impacts his present/future, I feel like Kjell's story – the stalking, rape etc – felt more like unnecessary filler than being important to his character arc. Kjell already had quite a few issues to deal with, but the human, Inbetween plot in its entirety felt like filler and this side goal of making Kjell a victim many more times over really wasn't needed. It just kept the human plotline going for a much longer time. I genuinely feel like you could have cut the entire stalker/rape/murder plot from Kjell's story and it would have been a stronger plot. However, I had little interest in the entire human plotline, so maybe that's just me. 

For me, there are plot inconsistencies. For a start, Thorn is BADLY injured while protecting Kjell at the beginning of the book. Having already used phoenix tears to heal a small injury, Thorn is left with a debilitating injury and Kjell doesn't even consider trying to heal him before they escape to the Inbetween. And once they're there, he doesn't notice that Thorn's wound is badly infected. He doesn't pay enough attention to what's obvious, and yet when he realises, he spends so much wasted time mulling over the thought without doing the logical thing of healing Thorn in the quickest, easiest way possible. Considering they're in constant danger from being found by the hellhounds, this decision to behave like a human made no sense. 

At one point, out of curiosity and desperation, Thorn sets up Kjell to be hit on in a club, as a test to find out if he's into men – not long after a stranger stalked him and attempted to rape him........ And, despite being terrified of crowds and hating the girl who invites them to the club, for some reason, Kjell decides to go... It made no sense. 

In fact, the ENTIRE club plotline made no sense. It felt like a convenient way to force them to face their feelings for each other. I've always hated the whole “kiss me to make him jealous” trope, especially when it's arranged or set up by someone who is just being vindictive. The whole concept of this plot-point felt illogical for the characters and the situation they'd been in. 

Sadly, it also led to about 10% of just sex and flirting. From here on, I actually started skim-reading to find parts that were actual plot rather than just sex or the lead-up to sex. There was so much that I skimmed quite a lot of the latter half of the book, to be honest. 

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OVERALL 

The blurb promises: “a sweet, spicy stand-alone romp with a guaranteed HEA” However, I would disagree. For me, this isn't sweet and spicy – it's actually quite dark in places, with a sweet and spicy centre. It says it's a stand-alone, but it feels like the start of a series. And it claims to have a guaranteed HEA, but it feels more like an HFN to me, with an ambiguous ending. I definitely feel like the ending can either be seen as an HFN, with more to come later, or a soft HEA. 

 Everything that made the story so interesting in the beginning – the phoenix, hellhounds, magic – all disappears at 30%, not coming back into the plot until about 80%. For me, as soon as it became a human story, it became boring and dragged to the point where I lost interest. Thorn and Kjell – both so smart, strong and capable – suddenly became dull humans, with no sense of caution or self preservation. From about 30% onwards, the biggest threat to Kjell and Thorn is themselves! They constantly forget to use their aliases and make terrible choices that lead to danger or getting hurt. If there had been a specific plot concept to their being in the human world, a real arc to their time there, then it might have been better. But it really just felt like they were loitering, hanging out somewhere with no purpose, making friends and enemies, being humans. After how action packed and exciting and unique the beginning had been, this was a huge let down and boring in comparison. 

 In the end, I wavered between a 3 and 4 star review. I went for the 4, because there is a lot of good stuff in this book, and great potential. Of Ash and Thorn starts and ends strong, has an original concept, good world building, great potential, which is only slightly hampered by stupid character choices, convenient plot shifts and a loss of engagement in the middle, where the story wavers, losing all the things that made it so great. 

 I feel like the book was heading towards a really good, strong ending, then veered completely off course to go in another direction, as if it needed to wrap up all the little plot points perfectly. Yet, it still ended with some questions going unanswered. I honestly feel like the 'purifying' concept would have made for an incredible ending, especially if there was a little twist to how that ended for Thorn and Kjell. 

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 Favourite Quote 

 “Thorn had risked his life for me. He'd given up his own chance at true freedom for me, and I wish so badly that I could give him forever, or at least a future without demons at our backs. But all we have is right now. The two of us.”