Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "dark-fantasy"

Ashen Heart by Sabrina Voerman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A bewitching dark fairytale of lust and power.

Torenia Luca has felt loathed by her family since her childhood, and has long dreamt of leaving her life in Silvania far behind.

Delving into her family’s legacy of witchcraft, she is finally embracing something akin to happiness when her life is once again torn to devastation.

Finally making her escape, she becomes embroiled with blood cult The Brotherhood, discovering a dark kingdom of blood lust and power games, one that may promise her all she has ever desired.

'Ashen Heart' is a dark fantasy novel by Sabrina Voerman, the second in 'The Blood Bound Series', taking place between the dual timelines we explored in the first novel 'Blood Coven'. We follow the life story of Torenia Luca, perhaps the most notorious of the Luca witches since Azalea, from her humble, lonely beginnings and her discovery of the Craft, charting her rise to power to become the merciless queen of Osleka and its legion of vampires. Weaving luscious descriptive prose, frothing with gothic imagery, Voerman conjures a gripping, character-driven narrative; a sensual, tense and bloodthirsty tale of empowerment and survival – simultaneously devastating and alluring; an unflinching portrait of the corruption of a soul.

We begin with Torenia’s childhood, finding her often neglected by her parents in favour of her sister. Feeling alone and worthless, she longs to be beautiful, to be seen. When she discovers the power she can wield in her teenage years, inspiring desire in another, she seeks an outlet for her pain. As the rivalry with her sister intensifies, she begins to learn the legacy of the Luca family, the lure of magic intoxifying. But her family and the villagers have no tolerance for witchcraft, fearing its power and history repeating itself. When she believes she may have nowhere left to run, Torenia meets Roman, a mysterious man of the night who promises he can bestow upon her all she has ever wished for – infinite power, eternal youth, staggering beauty. Yet this comes with a life fraught with danger and paranoia, as she finds herself caught in the midst of a blood feud between three brothers, monarchs whose grasp on the throne is tenuous, under constant threat of conspiracy and betrayal.

Voerman seduces us with a staggering cocktail of depravity and sin, Torenia immersing herself in a life of desire, indulgence and avarice, fully embracing the vanity, envy and rage that has danced in her heart since trauma laced her blood with their masochistic sting. In her quest for survival and dominion, she becomes cold, brutal and vicious. Taking much inspiration from the Evil Queen of the 'Snow White' fairytale, with touches of Elizabeth Bathory, the novel presents a delicious fairy tale retelling, combined with the lore of witchcraft and vampirism to create a rich dark fantasy, with elements of horror and erotica sewn into the seams - a thrilling delight charting the trajectory of a villain, an origin story and condemnation tale. Confronting us with the stark horror of abuse and misogyny, as we witness the effects of the insidious poison of insecurity and unhealed wounds, Torenia’s story is often relatable, beginning as deeply sympathetic, but ultimately she becomes more depraved and intolerable as she embraces evil and hatred, nevertheless remaining intensely captivating as her unquenchable thirst for vengeance and power turn her once-innocent heart black.

The novel ends with a tantalising glimpse of the future, dovetailing with the end of 'Blood Coven' as the narratives diverge for the fourth and final novel 'Blood Queen'. In the meantime, strands of 'Ashen Heart' also lead us into the third novel 'Song of the Sea'. I’m excited to read both books after the strength of the first two in the series!



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