Epub file on my kindle corrupted (lost old one and had to redownload everything from Amazon) so am unable to access - thank you for the opportunity.

Leah Bobet's An Inheritance of Ashes reads like a post-apocalyptic Wild West story. This book actually begins with a devastating scene in which primary character Halfrida (Hallie) Hoffman witnesses a fight between her father and her favorite uncle Matthias. In the aftermath, Matthias chooses to leave, leaving a hole in Hallie’s heart. 8 years later, 16-year-old Hallie is half owner of Roadstead Farm thanks to her father’s will. She works the farm with her older sister Marthe who is very pregnant. Marthe’s husband Thom went off to war 6 months ago but hasn’t returned.

Hallie is plodding along in the face of what seems like inevitable despair. Hallie and her sister fight to keep the farm out of the hands of others, including the Windstown Council which doesn’t like two women living alone. She’s in a dark place, estranged from her sister who nags at her constantly for a variety of different things. She’s still haunted by the abuse of her late father who has been gone 6 years, and longing for the return of her brother-in-law to calm the tension between sisters. She’s basically biding her time until the next bad thing happens.

Hallie encounters a veteran of the war named Heron. She chooses to give room and board so that he can be another hand to help her with things that haven’t been attended to in quite a while. Heron is a curious character in that he carries the alleged knife that was used to kill the Wicked God. He claims it’s just another broken piece of magic and worth nothing. However, it seems that everyone is looking for the knife as well as John Balsam who apparently disappeared without a trace. It also sees as though the Twisted Things are drawn to it.

Soon thereafter, Hallie encounters a Twisted thing bird in her bedroom window that burns her hand needing immediate attention. Twisted Things look a little like birds or lizards or both, except for the acid and flame and cobwebs and the fact that they leave a little surprise behind like the feather that is found in Hallie’s hand. These things were supposed to be gone with the Wicked God’s death, but they are increasingly showing up on Hallie’s farm and elsewhere. Heron’s presence on their farm seems to herald the return of the war that Hallie and her village believed to be over.

Later, her sister finds a strange message on rocks near water which leads to all sorts of curious questions as to who may have put them there. The messages lead to Hallie making a startling discovery and some shocking secrets about Heron, and the Wicked God as well as where Thom as been all this time. There are some interesting secondary characters like Nat and Tyler Blakely who grew up with Hallie but were separate after Hallie’s father died. There’s a minor romance between Hallie and Tyler who went to war as a private in the Lakeland’s Division and came home scarred for life.

The romance doesn’t drive this book nor take center stage. It happens when two people who grew up together finally decide to stop dancing around each other and being afraid of offending or saying the wrong thing. Hallie’s really only friends in this book are Tyler, and his sister Nat. But there is a bit of a cold shoulder feeling that Nat gives Hallie throughout the story and including the ending. I think it is fair to say that miscommunication between Hallie and Marthe is 99% of their problems. Hallie believes her sister hates her and in doing so, becomes reckless at times. They say that Pride is the deadliest of the seven sins and that’s so true when it comes to deciphering who is to blame for the relationship issues between the sisters.

I'm sorry but the book did not really work for me. I DNF'ed it. I wasn’t able to connect with any of the many characters in the book and I found myself putting down the book a lot because it was never really catching my attention.

The pace was meandering, and the sisterly relationship was actually pretty toxic. Also, no clear reasoning was given for why the world was the way it was? I did enjoy (a bit) how dark and bleak the world was, though.

This is not a fast-paced book, but in this case that is a good thing. The slower pace gives you the time you need to really become immersed in Hallie's fear, anger and desperation. The war against the Wicked God may be over, but it has already cost Hallie and her sister dearly. Her brother-in-law was one of the soldiers who marched off to fight, and each day he fails to return steadily chips away at what little hope the sisters have left. Hallie's struggle to prove that she and her sister can maintain her family's farm seems less and less likely to succeed as multiple obstacles are thrown in their path. Their difficulties range from the arrival of deadly Twisted Things that burn everything they touch to long-held grudges against their family, but one of the greatest dangers to their family may be Hallie herself. Hallie is so afraid of being weak and letting her sister down, that she finds herself keeping more and more dangerous secrets that could do more to tear the two sisters apart than the war and its aftermath ever did.

This book was interesting because it kept hearkening back to the BIG EPIC battle of a few months ago. This reminded me of Throne of Glass series book 1, where THE BIG BAD (to borrow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) had already happened and you're trying to figure it out. Neat way to present a mystery. Liked the romantic interest and slow unraveling of the family's history vs the town and trying to save the family farm in a not normal time.