‘A Shadow in the Ember’ by Jennifer L. Armentrout: Start of An Epic Adult Fantasy Series!

• Title: A Shadow in the Ember
• Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
• Publisher: Blue Box Press
• Pub. date: 19 October 2021
• Series: Flesh and Fire #1
• Page count: 710
• Genres: adult, fantasy, romance

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The Flesh and Fire series is set in the beloved Blood and Ash world.

Born shrouded in the veil of the Primals, a Maiden as the Fates promised, Seraphena Mierel’s future has never been hers. Chosen before birth to uphold the desperate deal her ancestor struck to save his people, Sera must leave behind her life and offer herself to the Primal of Death as his Consort.

However, Sera’s real destiny is the most closely guarded secret in all of Lasania—she’s not the well protected Maiden but an assassin with one mission—one target. Make the Primal of Death fall in love, become his weakness, and then…end him. If she fails, she dooms her kingdom to a slow demise at the hands of the Rot.

Sera has always known what she is. Chosen. Consort. Assassin. Weapon. A specter never fully formed yet drenched in blood. A monster. Until him. Until the Primal of Death’s unexpected words and deeds chase away the darkness gathering inside her. And his seductive touch ignites a passion she’s never allowed herself to feel and cannot feel for him. But Sera has never had a choice. Either way, her life is forfeit—it always has been, as she has been forever touched by Life and Death.

Content warnings: blood & gore, explicit sexual content, infant death, murder, suicide, toxic family relationships

Since I read The Crown of Gilded Bones earlier this year, I have been in constant suspense of this book’s arrival! Constant pain! The Blood and Ash series is an all-time favourite of mine since the release of its first book in 2020, so to say I had high expectations of this book is an understatement. The author also dropped that A Shadow in the Ember is loosely based on the myth of Hades and Persephone, another hard plus point in my books!

The Flesh and Fire series is a companion series to the Blood and Ash series, so the story centers around the ancestors of the main characters in From Blood and Ash.

Seraphena Mierel was born with her future predetermined. Owing to a deal struck between an ancestor of hers with the Primal of Death, Nyktos, Sera is to promised to the Primal as his Consort. As all good deals go, there’s a caveat. Since her birth, Sera’s kingdom of Carsodonia has been assailed by the Rot, a plague that robs the life of every living thing, plunging the kingdom into slow ruin. However, it is believed that once Sera becomes Consort, gets Nyktos to fall in love with her and kills him, her kingdom will be absolved of the Rot and brought back to its former glory.

I am dying to say more about the story here but since the first chapter itself starts with a twist, I get the feeling I should let the reader experience the rest of the story for themselves in its full glory.

Sera is a complicated female protagonist. She has the hardness and perseverance of an assassin and a warrior but also a very passionate and empathetic heart. While she’s thrust into this great destiny to save her kingdom, it is obvious that Sera is capable of much more than just carrying out an assassination to save Carsodonia. I saw many similarities between Sera and Poppy from From Blood and Ash, but also plenty of differences.

Nyktos was a surprising protagonist. I went in expecting someone with a hardness and coldness befitting his Primal nature, which means he’s superior to even the gods in this universe, but he wasn’t. I saw many reviews pointing out how multifaceted Nyktos is as a person and I truly witnessed that in A Shadow in the Ember.

True to all her novels, Jennifer L. Armentrout gave us a strong cast of supporting characters here and I loved that. I am a sucker for the found family trope, so I love it when the protagonists are surrounded by a family-like band of characters, and this delivered that. Since A Shadow in the Ember is the first book in its series, this mostly felt introductory, so I can’t wait to see more of them here.

I feel like the reader doesn’t really see much of villains in this book, much like From Blood and Ash, but the reveals and teasers that made up the book really hyped me up for a proper look at the villains as the series proceeds.

I have read quite a few Jennifer L. Armentrout books and I always feel that her writing just keeps improving from book to book. I am happy to report that I noticed the same trend here. Though told through only Sera’s POV, I loved how the author verbalised the character’s emotions and thoughts. Though the pace was not as fast as most novels, the author managed to keep me interested in everything that happened.

My favourite thing about Armentrout’s writing is that she really connects her protagonists to her readers through her writing, and, by the time I finished reading, I was a strong Sera supporter. Though I usually have a soft spot for morally ambiguous characters in general, I really believe that the author’s writing had a strong influence on this as well.

The plot was everything I love about this author’s trademark style: twisty! Since this is the first book, there is a lot of world-building but I still saw lots of action. In the 700+ pages that make up this book, a lot happens!

The first half of the book was set in Carsodonia and the second bit is mainly in Iliseeum. I was equally entertained by what happened in both halves of the book, even with the loads of world-building that takes place. Most of the story is Sera trying to learn the truth behind the past and her destiny, while also figuring out how to carry out her mission.

I also understand how the Hades and Persephone relationship plays into the story, though very loosely, but honestly it is not a big part of the plot. I wouldn’t recommend expecting a Hades and Persephone storyline here. However, there is a lot of similarity between Sera and Nyktos’s story and Poppy and Hawke’s, but I saw that the author commented that this was intentional and adds to the story, so I am excited to see the direction this takes.

And that ending? Oh God! I wanted to scream and throw my tablet across the room because that cliffhanger left me dying for more!

Since I have read the Blood and Ash series up to its current book, I was familiar with this universe. Taking place centuries before the original series, I found great joy in seeing familiar landmarks scattered throughout Carsodonia and Iliseeum.

There is a lot of history to unlearn and relearn, so there is frankly heavy world-building going on throughout this book. Being a fan of this universe, I was connecting dots and drawing lines wherever I could, but I can understand if readers find this overwhelming at first.

I loved the vampire and gods magic system established in this series. I think it is a truly unique take on vampire fantasy and the fact that the author has made this story so intricate just adds more juiciness to the plot. Then add in the dragons and I am pretty much floored at how perfect the elements of this world are for me!

I am also a huge map lover, so I hugely appreciate how this whole series has a faithful map that keeps expanding as the story grows. With all this extensive world-building, I am still left wanting more though.

A Shadow in the Ember is set in a more-or-less queer-normative world with two sapphic side characters in a relationship. There is also no clear racial profiles in this universe, so you will find Black-coded and South Asian-coded characters among many others. Also, I am pretty sure that the male protagonist himself is South Asian-coded.

An explosive venture into a universe already explored in the Blood and Ash series, A Shadow in the Ember by Jennifer L. Armentrout is action-packed, full of plot twists and probably one of her spiciest books so far! I loved returning to this world of vampires, gods and dragons, and I am not in deep trouble because I have not one, but two anticipated releases from this author to look forward to next year! This book is a must-read if you loved her Blood and Ash series!

More A Shadow in the Ember content: Kimberly’s audiobook review and Mae’s review

Related reviews:

• A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash #2)
• The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash #3)

#1 New York Times and #1 International Bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, hanging out with her husband, her Border Jack Apollo,  Border Collie Artemis, six judgemental alpacas, two rude goats, and five fluffy sheep. In early 2015, Jennifer was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of rare genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and death of cells in the retina, eventually resulting in loss of vision, among other complications.  Due to this diagnosis, educating people on the varying degrees of blindness has become of passion of hers, right alongside writing, which she plans to do as long as she can.

Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Tor, HarperCollins Avon and William Morrow, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion, Harlequin Teen and Blue Box Press. Her Wicked Series has been into a feature film by PassionFlix. Jennifer has won numerous awards, including the 2013 Reviewers Choice Award for Wait for You, the 2015 Editor’s Pick for Fall With Me, and the 2014/2015 Moerser-Jugendbuch- Jury award for Obsidian. Her young adult romantic suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction by YALSA. Her adult romantic suspense novel TILL DEATH was a Amazon Editor’s Pick and iBook Book of the Month. Her young adult contemporary THE PROBLEM WITH FOREVER is a 2017 RITA Award Winner in Young Adult Fiction. Her novel STORM AND FURY was chosen for the 2020-2021 Florida Teens Read List. Her adult fantasy FROM BLOOD AND ASH was the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award in Romance. She has also written Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn.

She is the owner of ApollyCon and The Origin Event, the successful annual events that features over hundred bestselling authors in Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult Fiction, panels, parties, and more.

Have you read A Shadow in the Ember or will you be picking it up?