A Portrait in Ash and Lace, Casket Girls Chronicles, Sofia Aves

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: Romance, Sci Fi & Fantasy, General Fiction (Adult)

1) I spent ages looking for casket girls 1-3....Thought I was losing it ;-) but this is a series with each book written by a different author. Found that out from anther reviewer!
That's why i couldn't find casket girls 1-3.....i never though to look under different authors!
I felt the story had so much potential but it never quite got there. It is very short, another thing I hadn't realised, shorts rarely work for me. I felt that everything became squashed into far too quickly over events, whereas the potential for making a longer read was there. Was there is worked well, if a little disjointed at times, confusing at others and that's where more space would have helped, let the story come out fully instead of being pushed into brief, not always clear, sections.
The ending is very abrupt, in fact for me it doesn't feel complete. I haven't read this author before, but I would happily read more if the story was longer.

Stars: Three, its a bit muddled at times, and would benefit from extra length IMO as it has the potential to carry more.

ARC supplied by Netgalley and publishers

I was surprised by the summary of this book, and very interested in learning more about the Coffin Girls. While we do get a little back story in A Portrait in Ash and Lace, I found myself really wanting more. I felt like the story skipped a lot that could have made it even better. I loved the premise, but I just wanted the characters to develop their relationship more than they do.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It was a quick read. It isn’t a book that I would reread though.
This is my honest, personal opinion about this book. Thank you to #netgalley for the ARC copy. Thank you also to Sofia Aves for a lovely story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Perfectly Poisoned Press for the arc of A Portrait in ash and Lace by Sofia Aves.

As the fourth in a series this was a bit confusing to start with. However, I am not sure if reading the previous books in this series would have made this any clearer for me as each one is written by a different author and don't seem to follow any sort of logical path.

This story had good ideas but felt rushed in the 139 pages. You didn't have time to really get to know any characters and even when you started to feel anything for them suddenly they would disappear. There was an evil character that was never really explained and I think some better backstory would have helped to build the suspense in this story. There is also no explanation of the magic in this story, all of the sudden there are illusions to Japan and you are never quite sure where you are.

The editing is not finished for this book as often character names are misspelled and there are jumps where all of the sudden time has passed and you don't know why. Or it has only been a day and it has felt like enough has happened for three days. This doesn't feel fully ready and while it has potential I don't think it has reached it yet.

The premise of "A Portrait in Ash and Lace" was right up my alley. Set in New Orleans in the 1800s, our main character Gisella leaves her home in France to be married off to an unknown man. It's dark, eerie, and, coming off the high of reading "The Beautiful" by Renée Ahdieh, I was very excited to find another romantic gothic vampire story. However, this book was lacking in a lot of character and plot building. After reading 50% into the book, I still couldn't tell you the character motivations of either Gisella or Sebastian. It's insta-attraction with no context, and I found myself having to reread passages a few times to understand what was actually happening. This book is definitely better suited to people who enjoy the cold, dashing vampire romance with y/n characters.

As a huge vampire fan and someone who recently became intrigued by The Casket Girls legend, I really really wanted to like this. But unfortunately it was a let down and I couldn’t finish it. There is promise, especially with the plot, but it needs some more work.

Despite having high hopes as a vampire romance fan and a fan of New Orleans, this book fell flat fast. The heroine was not likeable, the insta love and instant acceptance of the paranormal aspects of the story were simply lazy writing. The lack of plot could have been forgiven if the novel was spicy but no plot and fade to black left me yawning. DNF. Needs a content editor to tighten up the beats and flow.

3 stars

A delightfully atmospheric & gothic vampire tale. It’s definitely melodramatic, but not in an annoying way. Only 3 stars because of a dub-con scene, insta-lust & insta-love, & a slightly rushed ending.

[What I liked:]

•I liked the prose. The narration flows smoothly, & the descriptions are rich without becoming over the top.

•Lovely setting details. I could picture everything vividly.

•There are some nice gothic elements, from the creepy abbey, to the dark & foreboding castle (in the Louisiana bayou?), to the secret portrait gallery. The story plays with a lot of fun tropes.

•There is some creative world building for a short novella. I especially liked Dolion’s character. The subplot with Granny Smythe & Anitta’s backstory was interesting too.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•Okay, so there are plenty of vampire clichés: self-loathing, perfect physique, rich, noble, mind reading abilities, etc.

•There is serious insta lust & insta love. There just wasn’t enough time or emotional development for them to get to love as quickly as they did.

•The first sexual encounter is slightly dub-con. She’s torn between pulling away & keeping going, which is *not* consent imo even if her partner can read her mind. She needed time to process her feelings & make a decision, then communicate with her partner what she was comfortable with, & her partner did not give her that respect or space initially.

•The ending is abrupt & not explained well. Why doesn’t Minette fall under the spell like everyone else? Why is she able to defeat the enemy when not even Sebastian can?

CW: a father literally sells his daughter in marriage, dub-con sex scene, mind control, murder

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

I have to start by saying I was a little surprised when I noticed this was actually book 4 of The Casket Girl Chronicles. This is a series with each book written by a different author. So it’s not essential to read the others first.

Now onto this book.

I really wanted to like this especially since it ticked so many boxes for me.
But I’m sorry to say it felt more like a rough draft. I didn’t like the writing style at all. I kept thinking I’d missed something. But it turns out the writing was all over the place. I never connected to any of the characters and therefore I found it difficult to care what happened to them.
There was potential here and while I appreciate it’s a short book (139 pages) It just never won me over. And don’t get me started on the ending. I’m still not really sure what happened there.

A very disappointing read.


I voluntarily read a review copy kindly provided by NetGalley.

I honestly have no idea what I just read. The ending did not even feel like an ending. On paper this book sounds great, but in execution it is lacking. Like staring down into a dark lake, knowing there is life beneath its surface, but being unable to see it.

It’s like there were sentences or full paragraphs removed – it feels like I’m missing something more often than not. It’s hard to follow the movements and actions of the characters. Their movements don’t make sense based on the relation of objects or other characters. There is very little depth to the characters. We have brief back stories on a couple of them, but nothing to inspire sympathy, dislike, or fondness towards any of them.

Everything reads very clinically. I’m not really seeing what’s happening as much as I am being poorly told what’s happening. It makes it hard to feel whatever emotions the author is trying to evoke. I haven’t felt much other than confusion and apathy while reading this book.

Have you ever had a word stuck on the tip of your tongue, but just couldn’t seem to get it out? That was this book. It had such potential. The story is there waiting to be told, but it just never came out. Almost like reading a detailed outline with no substance added in to bring the story to life.

Several times throughout the book I thought I skipped a page and turned back to read what I missed…. But there was nothing missing to read. Just an empty void in the narration. Which is SUCH A BUMMER because it had so much potential! I could like the characters, I could like this world, but I don’t because I don’t because I was never told why I should. I was never lead down a path to fall in love or feel any connection with this world and it characters.

Now, I hate the term “insta-love” but here it applies. We have no understanding why the characters “fall in love” or have any connection whatsoever to the narrative to get sucked in. In truth, the story is missing about two hundred, if not three, pages worth of character development, world building, and overall depth.

By the end, I was so mad that I stuck it out. I kept hoping against hope for a solid ending to a mostly disappointing read, but was left bitter for the time wasted. However, I did still finish it and I liked what was there to read. So . . . it gets two starts.

I desperately wanted to love this story so much that if it is ever rewritten with more substance I would be willing to give it another go. Fingers crossed.

This had interesting premise but I felt was a bit rushed due to the short length. Very sexy too at times. The story kept me interested though.. I’m not sure why it said book four, I looked but did t see any other books in a series.

I want to thank NetGalley and the author for a free copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

A Portrait in Ash and Lace is a paranormal fantasy that takes us with a young girl to a Victorian Age New Orleans, where she has been sold to a husband she doesn't know. When she arrives at the gothic mansion, the servants' mysterious behaviour soon tells her that everything is not what it seems... least of all her new husband!

The story is a fun new twist on the Beauty and the Beast tale, weaving vampires and southern gothic into a fast-paced romance. If you like your heroes brooding and byronic, and your heroines sarcastic and no damsels in distress, all garnished with a good sprinkle of steamy scenes, this one will be right up your alley.

The only point that did not work for me was the length of the book - there is enough material here to make a full-length novel from it, but at only 139 pages, it is surprisingly short. That made the story feel a bit rushed and I kept wishing for a bit more world-building and description and simply more time to spend with the characters.