This books contains all the elements that makes me love a book: New Orleans, witches, a family saga.
Unfortunately it was so slow I was not able to finish it.
Many thanks to Netgalley and 47thNorth

Magic is leaving this world, making the witches who've relied on it forever absolutely helpless. Some are willing to accept it, while others are willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power. Alice is using her remaining power to solve the mysterious disappearances of those in occult circles of New Orleans. She knows the feeling as her family put in an asylum and she just recently got out. She's afraid that her family is connected, and the more she investigates the more she comes to realize that her fragile psyche may be in trouble. Figuring this out, though, may be her only way to get out from under her mother's thumb while determining the future of magic.

The King of Bones and Ashes by J.D. Horn sounded like it would be exactly my kind of read. There are so many elements that I love - magic and witches, atmospheric setting (New Orleans), voodoo, warring families, and more. Unfortunately, I ended up preferring the concept to the final product. The novel travels at far too slow of a pace for me, and it follows far too many characters to get thoroughly invested in anyone. I liked Alice quite a bit, but I wish that the story would have focused primarily on her (and perhaps one or two others at the most) rather than bouncing back and forth between its enormous cast. There are a lot of characters, and there were many times I had trouble keeping everyone straight in my mind - definitely took me out of the story to have to keep flipping back to the cast list. Overall, J.D. Horn's new release just wasn't for me in the long run, although I wish I could say otherwise. I still would like to try his Witching Savannah series, which is described as a Southern Gothic urban fantasy with witches.

This book had all the ingredients to be a 5-Star read for me. Fabulous setting (New Orleans). Mystery. Feuding families. Witches and magic. The Boogeyman (Babau Jean). Voodoo, etc. And I enjoyed it mostly, but unfortunately, it also had a few issues that kept me from giving it a higher rating. It was a LONG (and slow) book with multiple POVs and a HUGE cast of characters. So many that at times it became confusing and hard to follow. That said, I enjoyed it enough I will keep my eyes out for book two (this one ends on a cliffhanger of sorts). Yours truly gives this one a solid thumbs up.

The King of Bones and Ashes is a new series featuring witches in New Orleans from the writer of Witching Savannah series. If you enjoyed the Witching Savannah series, I highly recommend picking up this book. It was a bit darker than that series with the whole concept of harvesting dead witches for their magic and a bogeyman running around. At its core, this can be described as a witches family saga. However, there were many other characters featured, and it was unclear sometimes who the main focus of the story should be on. Because of this, I found the story to be watered down and slow. I did enjoy the character development behind Alice, and feel that Lisette and Evangeline could be interesting featured characters in other books. However, the storytelling would have been a bit stronger had the author made them more supporting characters are opposed to borderline main characters. I did find the concept of covens doing whatever was necessary to get magic in a world where magic is dying interesting. I just felt like it could have been carried out a bit better.

The premises of this book are great: a goth/horror story about witches set in New Orleans. A modern New Orleans full of secrets, mystery, where magic is dying and the bogeyman walks free, brutally killing everyone who stands in his way.
I liked the writing and the characters are well described and characterized.
What I didn't like is the pace of the story: it is very slow and sometimes I found myself being a little bored and it was hard to stay focused.
The slow building of the story may be due to the amount of characters: they are well written, as I said, but there are too many of them and sometimes I found it hard to remember who was who.
I expected a little bit more, because the premises were very good and I think it had a great potential, but for me it was really too slow.

Having seen the cover pass me by on Netgalley, I knew I had to request this one with a title like that. It screams of an atmospheric, dark, horror tale with perhaps some necromancy. While it did have some of these elements (but not the necromancy unfortunately) it did not quite manage to capture me.

The biggest reason for that was how the story was told. We get the story through three main female characters with a point of view chapter thrown in from other characters here and then. I like seeing stories through different eyes but in this case I think a maximum of two characters without any side chapters would have been plenty. With only 350 pages and an incredibly slow pace there is absolutely no way you can do justice to any of these characters or the tale you are trying to tell. I thought it was a real shame because had there have been a bigger focus on the main character mentioned in the synopsis, Alice, we could have gone on a great ride I believe. As it stands now, I’m lukewarm.

As mentioned the plot of this book unfolds very slowly. We get drawn in to the lives of three women who have a connection to one another through one family, the Marin’s. The story is slow because of all of the groundwork and background that is being established, but it also made it confusing at times because we did not have a concrete focus at times. I wondered where we were going with all of this. I do see what the author was trying to do, and I certainly was surprised when it came to some revelations at the end. But because I was confused in placed the build-up failed a little for them.

Next to the cover and the title, another element that drew me to wanting to pick up this book was the fact that it is in New Orleans. Being an European myself I have very little idea of New Orleans besides what we see on television. I thought seeing a witches book set here though would be such a great add to the atmosphere though. I can’t tell you whether or not the author depicted New Orleans and its inhabitants well (and I haven’t seen any reviews that mentioned it) but I did think the descriptions of New Orleans were an added bonus on the whole.

As far as the characters go, I wish we could have delved more into the three females. Out of them I was most drawn to Alice who was admitted to an asylum for many years after the death of her brother. It was interesting to see her return to a family that had done that to her. I found her interactions with them interesting, but I missed the scenes where she was alone with her father in the house or her other brother Hugo, and she could confront him for instance. I just missed things. Deepening into those things. Those relationships. The other two females also deserved more deepening. I felt like we only scratched the surface. I hope there will be more on who they really are in the next installment.

I'm a sucker for New Orleans-based Southern Gothic paranormal literature -- yes, that is a real subgenre! -- and J.D. Horn certainly delivers the goods. Horn draws from the same well here as from his own Witching Savannah series, but swaps out the Georgian for plenty of local NOLA flavor and unique characters. I would have liked to spend as much time with some of their POV's as much as others; they are not all given equal weight, which is the inevitable consequence of packing such a sprawling cast into a book of less than 350 pages (and this sometimes leads to minor plot confusion as well). But I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next installment.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title. Unfortunately, I was not able to finish this book which means I will not be able to review it. I truly appreciate the opportunity and apologize for the inconvenience the lack of review may cause you.

I am giving this book 3.5 stars, a very close 4 stars for 3 reasons.
1 - There are far too many characters thrown at you pretty quickly.
2 - Due to the large amount of characters the story is very slow to build up
( But kudos for the ability to fill you in ( mind you, slowly ) with all the background you need to tie the book up into a neat little bow at the end )
3 - I found myself having to flip back through to remind my self who some characters are and what their relationships were with other characters.

With those reasons set aside ( and a reason that I will not allow to effect the rating, which is being salty over the death of a character I liked a lot ), this was a good read. The time that it took me to finish was more my fault than the books, because when I really sat and read it, I didn't want to put it down.

We are first introduced to Alice and her 3 brothers, in the midst of Hurricane Katrina, preparing to abandon their family home to seek refuge from the storm. The magic in New Orleans has been fading, and it isn't strong enough to save the city from the path of destruction. Here we are also introduced to Babau Jean, the Bogey man.

The story focuses on 3 main women, Alice, Evangeline and Lisette - and their family's ties and feuds. These 3 women hail from families of powerful witches, each of a different type of magic. As the story progresses the dark secrets which intertwine these woman begin to unravel.

I actually loved all of the characters. Each one was unique and brought something different to the story. The element of unknown provided by Babau Jean's ability to appear as anyone really added to the suspense and surprise of the book.

I am most definitely going to look out for the sequel(s) to this series. :D

2.5 Stars

Celestin Marin, patriarch of the Marin family and former head of the powerful Chanticleer Coven has died after being in a coma for eight years. During his long illness his son Nicholas has been head of the coven and now is poised to take over permanently. But all is not well in New Orleans. Magic is dying and the scramble for what power remains pits the witches of the city against one another and some are willing to do anything rather than lose their magic.

I enjoyed J.D. Horn's The Line and was really looking forward to this one. The premise is great, and it's chock full of my favorite things; witches, magic, mystery, Gothic overtones, New Orleans, family grudges etc. There is just too much of everything coming at you from too many different directions.

Alice Marin was a wonderful character and I wish the author had stuck with her and one other, perhaps Lisette Perrault. Allowing these two characters to tell the story would have sharpened the focus and made things less confusing. I did like this, and I'm going to keep my eye out for the second book.

I am pretty sure there must be a coherent story in here someplace but trying to deal with multiple pov in multiple histories and a jump-cut narrative style is too exhausting for me and I quit.

I received a review copy of "The King of Bones and Ashes: Witches of New Orleans, Book 1" by J. D. Horn (47North) through NetGalley.com.

The King of Bone and Ashes takes place in New Orleans and has that magical New Orleans feel. The story is essentially about betrayal, love, loss involving two covens (families of witches). While a few parts seemed to move a bit slow I did enjoy getting to know both families of witches and the history they shared. I'll definitely be continuing with the series. The glossary of characters at the end was a nice touch as well. ARC provided by Netgalley & the publisher for an honest review.

There is drama, pageantry, voodoo, family legends, patron spirits, loa, and grimoires full of forbidden magic, and a tenacious house spirit who loves to bake cookies and tend after children. The intention feels like it was to bring these remaining daughters of a powerful new orleans coven together as magic dies in a dramatic fashion to either save it or kill it. Good intentions. Just didn't come together. None of the characters really felt connected to their magic, nor was it described in a way that was very engrossing. I love witch books. I love New Orleans witches. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Great title. Great cover. Great potential.

Review to follow

This is, at its heart, a family drama centring around a coven of witches in the Deep South. Throw in a dash of magic, the bogeyman and the harvesting of dead witches and you've got yourself a good novel.

I enjoyed the three main protagonists, but especially Alice. We first find Alice locked away in an asylum for witches, haunted by the death of her brother by Babau Jean. She's a complex character, who's a little reserved at first, and although it takes a while to warm to her, I found myself enjoying her story the most. I liked the dynamic relationship she has with her siblings in particular, and I felt she had the most character development throughout the novel. Her interactions with Evangeline and Lisette too, and the complex interweaving of their history together was connected well (if a little convoluted).

The story itself is relatively slow to start as the author sets the scene, and we're introduced to these woman. The plot twists get progressively darker and more horror orientated as it progresses too, which I wasn't expecting, but actually came to appreciate as it added another dimension to the story. It was more than your average 'urban fantasy', and helped keep me interested enough to continue reading.

The story could be difficult to keep track of at times though, as it jumps timelines and has various points of view, which did affect the flow of the story. I can see a lot of people will struggle with the initial pace of this, but I'm glad I persisted with it.

An interesting take on the urban fantasy novel that would appeal to those looking for witches with a little extra bite.

"I already seen the airport," is the quote that comes to mind after reading this book. It was like a script for the TV show, The Originals, using the Chanticleer Coven in place of the Mikaelson Family. There's an ancient elder force that everyone is afraid of, an item that must be protected, a realm that souls can access without being dead, voodoo, jazz, and an extensive tour of the French Quarter. There's lots of blood, someone who must be kept from accessing magic, and a deconsecrated church that hosts some terrible events. There's even an "always and forever" quote in the story.
As you might have surmised, this book was not my cup of tea. It might suit someone who watches less teeny-bopper television, but for those of us with younger siblings and teenage daughters, you can skip the tourist trip to the airport and go watch some eye candy instead.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital ARC of this book. This book is true to its title description. The reader won't be disappointed when reading this book.

This is a DNF review for me, but NOT because the book was bad. I DNF'd at 40%. Since I HAVE to give a star rating for Netgalley, and think it's unfair to give it "1 star" when I DNF'd, I'm giving it a rating for what I had encountered so far. Final star count: 2.5 stars.

I very much liked the mysterious atmosphere and the implication of the witches' powers. I wanted to learn where everything was going and how all these different characters were going to tie together. I also really wanted to see more of what the witches could do. I enjoyed how the witches lives were represented in the book. It felt very authentic, as though this is what you'd expect to see if this was all real.

BUT... it was just too slow paced for me and I found myself only reading a few pages every time I'd pick it up. I felt that by 40% things should have started to pick up a little bit, but I felt like we were still laying somewhat of the groundwork.

I ultimately had to stop reading it. I knew that if I kept with it, I'd just get bitter and it would likely result in an unfair, poor review.

Fans of American horror story would enjoy this book about witches losing power. Along with betrayal.

I so wanted to like this book I like trying different genres and thought that this sounded good.However I found it confusing and slow and just didn't connect with it I had to give up in the end and will be more careful about the books I request in future, no one forced me to read this and I hate giving bad reviews but this just wasn't a good fit for me.