Tag Archives: Ember

Review: Ashes (Ember #3, SINS #7) by Emma Slate

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Title: Ashes
Author:  Emma Slate
Publisher/Year:  Tabula Rosa Publishing 3/3/21
Length:  190 Pages
Series: Sins #7 / Ember #3

Overview

I’m safe in the arms of the man I love.

We have a chance at a future together, but first we have to survive.

Another man has come between us, and his memory lingers in our bed.

Our enemy wants only one thing…

To see the love of my life die.

But now I’m a queen amongst warriors.

Blood for blood.

My life for his.

Fairy tales are for little girls.

My Thoughts

Well, my concerns were availed and relieved in the second installment where we spend our time with Quinn and Sasha together trying to find safety and delve into this third installment where their world is blown up yet again. Mind you we knew that it was going to happen, but the fact that they are still a ‘we’ is something commendable. They’ve some how figured out how to get past the trauma and drama of their relationships and some how have come out the other end with something stronger. that’s good cause we know they’re going to be tested over and over and over again.

throughout this third installment, we watch several things unfold. Helena, Quinn and Ori’s daughter is born, and they hide her from Ori, who some how survives a beat down by Sasha, and is in jail, until he’s not. That’s when the story goes awry. He’s taken control of Quinn’s company and he’s trying to draw her out, along with sasha. He also has learned some interesting information that brings another target into the mix – Barrett. How he learned this we never find out but what we do know is that his grandfather has uncovered the true murderer of Igor and that add complications.

Quinn spends much of this third book reminding us that she’s not just pretty – she may not be Barrett but she’s strong, tough, resilient etc. She’s able to do more than people give her credit for and she uses the realtionships that her father cultivated to get what she needs.

She’s a badass.

She devises a plan with the help of the Chinese mafia to take something that kills her…but does it kill her?

She sets a trap for Ori in thehopes of capturing him so that they can be free. does it work?

She plats and plans with her extended family to find loopholes and gaps in things, even when she’s mourning her brother’s death (yup…another one bites the dust).

So there’s so much more to Quinn than meets the eye, and it’s enjoyable to watch how that unfolds in this third book. We see Barrett and Flynn find a new evolution of things, we watch Brandon Kilmartin come to terms with reality and perhaps have a spark of his own elsewhere. We watch relationships with the FBI evolve and perhaps scare us a bit to see how they can work int he future under a new relationship….

So while this is the end of Ember, and perhaps the end of the SINS series as well, there’s a new series that takes us to the Rex Dallas and we know that Ramsey went there, so this is DEFINITELY not the end of the characters and story that we love. I’m intrigued and i’ve purchased the next one to dive in tomorrow (or more likely later tonight). Enjoy!

Review: Burn (SINS #6 / Ember #2) by Emma Slate

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Title: Burn
Author:  Emma Slate
Publisher/Year:  Tabula Rosa Publishing 3/3/21
Length:  178 Pages
Series: Sins #6 / Ember #2

Overview

I believed his seductive lies.

I believed his golden promises.

Now I’m in his clutches, and the more I struggle, the tighter his grip becomes.

But if you squeeze too tight, the thing you’re trying to hold onto might just slip through your fingers…

I will never belong to him.

Sasha Petrovich lives in my dreams and calls to me in my sleep.

Our love rages like wildfire, and when we are together again, we will burn it all to ashes.

My Thoughts

I was really bummed when the first book of this spin off wasn’t really about Sasha at all, and that this fast forward into the future left us wondering what that would mean for Quinn. She was in a dark place for most of the story – trying to wallow in her misery and refuse to come up for air. What happens though as that installment progressed and ended, she was happier. Quinn took over her father’s company and was hitting her stride. She was back with her friends and she had a new potential love interest – Ori Abruzzo. (I knew who hew was the minute the name Ori came out of his mouth but….she does not know who he is).

she we ended on a cliff hanger – car accident, and now she has amnesia. She remembers nothing, and Ori takes the opportunity to tell her that they’re engaged. From there, this story gets more and more complex.

Quinn has a niggling feeling that all is not what it seems with Ori and it’s good that she holds onto that. She gets flashes from her memories of Sahsa (although she doesn’t know that it’s him) and a few other things, but she correlates all her memories to sadness so she opts not to unlock her past. What’s interesting here though is that Ori spins a nice tale about how she’s not supposed to talk to other people and unlock her phone etc etc because too much memory at once will be bad for her mental health. Controlling much?

The side story to this ACTUALLY includes Sasha. He’s returned to New York and goes straight to Barrett and Flynn. He never stopped loving Quinn he just didn’t love himself and he used the year or so to recover, get reconstructive surgery and train to be stronger and harder. It’s going to prove useful when he learns where Quinn is and with whom.

The story from here is watching as Sasha goes after Quinn, trying to get back in touch with her but always being one step behind. We also find ourselves watching Quinn continue in a relationship that doesn’t feel 100% right but at times feels pretty close to right. She goes with him to Italy even and they plan to get married.

What happens in Italy, well you can only imagine that quite a bit will happen when you’re in the homeland of the leaders of the Italian mafia….no?

yup..

we’re left at a cliffhanger where Ori knows that Sasha’s alive and hunting Quinn….realizing that Ori used Quinn as a means to draw Sasha out since he’s still bitter that Sasha ‘killed’ his best friend Igor. Quinn is forced into a marriage that she knows that she doesn’t want….and yet, we’re left at the end with a nod to her memory….does she have it back and what does that really mean for her and Ori and her and Sasha.

I’m heading off on vacation and happily downloaded the next book in the series so I can see how this story nets out. It’s intense and insane, but different than many of the other installments, there’s really not as much of the sexy-times as the others. not a bad thing mind you given that this story is NUTS, but i’m sure we’ll pick that back up soon. Enjoy!

Review: Ember (SINS #5) by Emma Slate

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Title:Ember
Author:  Emma Slate
Publisher/Year:  Tabula Rosa Publishing 3/3/21
Length:  178 Pages
Series: Sins #5

Overview

My life was an enchanted dream.

Opulent parties. Designer clothing. Charming men.

But when my father dies, my glittering world implodes.

I am weak. Naked. Vulnerable.

My life has become a nightmare.

I am alone.

Until him.

My savior.

Or is he…

My Thoughts

I’ll be honest, when I read that this story was Quinn and Sasha’s story – I was expecting it to be about them as a couple, not about them 2 years in the future and apart. When we left the first bit of the series, we knew that Sasha had been burned beyond recognition and that he had wanted Barrett to end his misery to which Flynn intervened. Just when we had hope that there was something positive in their future, it all implodes.

After Sasha left Quinn alone in New York, leaving pretty much everyone, Quinn runs back to Boston to go back to her family and friends. It wasn’t enough that Sasha broke her heart, but then her father falls ill and we start this fifth installment at his wake. Quinn is alone – she’s got no family left and she’s still reeling from the heartbreak from a year ago. Even then, we also learn that she was pregnant and lost that baby, so pretty much everything in her life was going downhill.

When things seem like they won’t get better ever, she meets Ori – a name that’s familiar from Igor’s story, yet we don’t know how things will tie together. Ori finds himself intrigued by Quinn and she’s really not open to a relationship at this point given that she’s really not in a good place. When she falls incredibly ill and he takes care of her, we see the ice thaw and there’s hope on the horizon for a happy ending.

For a reader, there’s so much frustration happening because he continues to hint that he was close with Igor and that Igor’s best friend is the one who killed him, and of course he knows that Sasha was Igor’s best friend – the one who killed him (supposedly since it was actually Barrett if you remember), so i’m curious how this is all going to come full circle and what will happen when that does happen.

So, things are a roller coaster of emotions, and we don’t quite know which way this story is going to go. Where we end up in the last few pages is a car crash and amnesia and a reveal that doesn’t quite sit well with me, and i’m sure we’ll see what that means in Burn. So…i’m happy that i’ve got a commute to work once again tomorrow (yay back to the office) so that I can read the next book on the train. Enjoy!