Caris Roane - Born of Ashes

For years, she was kept as a human slave—one of seven unwilling “blood donors” for the death vampires who thirst for absolute power. Now, Fiona is a free woman, haunted by her memories of being strapped to a gurney, drained of blood, then revived at the last moment. She lives to avenge her captors—but only one warrior can help her...
Jean-Pierre has lived and fought for over two-hundred years. He knows the triumph of slaying a death vampire, but has never known anything like the feelings that arise when he becomes Fiona’s guardian. Her beauty, her pain, her passion—and her growing power—consume his senses. Now the warrior must draw his sword once more…and fight the gates of hell itself—for love.

Comment: Here's another installment of the Guardians of Ascension series. this time it's Jean Pierre and Fiona's story. As it has happened in every book, in the previous story we had the start of the relationship between these two. 
One of the funnier things in this series is how each mate smells their mate by one distinctive scent, something only he or she can smell. Fiona smells like pastries to Jean Pierre and he has the scent of coffee to her. I find this really cool and of course this smell intensifies in heated moments...the idea isn't original, but I like the mark the author has given to this with the different smells and different range of what can be. It's always fun to imagine what each one might smell like.

So, this is the story of Jean Pierre and Fiona. Fiona was rescued in the previous book from a life of slavery, her blood was used over a century and she was killed each time and brought back in the extreme to provide more dying blood, the ambrosia of death vampires. She isn't ready for a love life even if many other things in her life are getting shaped the way she wants.
Jean Pierre lived a terrible existence during the French revolution and he was marked by his first wife's treachery...but Fiona he can't resist and not only because she is his mate...

This is the 4th book and, so far, I have to say this is the weakest for me. I think this story didn't explore the best way the relationship between the main couple. Besides, I didn't like how weak the chemistry between them was. Yes there are plenty of sex scenes and moments where each one of them - or both - think how much they are falling for the other, but I wasn't convinced. Despite the lengthy pages of these books, in this case I wasn't fully convinced they were really in love.

Two things bothered me and were the reason this book was weaker than the previous ones. First what I've said, the main couple's relationship didn't feel well done, too many pages explaining things that, honestly, weren't as well explored as that and in the end I felt their romance weaker and very superficial.
The second was the heroine for the next story. Apparently she is a nymphomaniac. Ok....I'll be honest again, these types of heroines/people have my respect for their affliction but I usually don't feel very sympathetic towards them..I don't know how the author will deal with this in her own story, but since she shows up in this book and it's part of it, I have to use it as part of my reading experience too. And I didn't like it because although her actions can be explained as a result of her issue and even her mental process too, I still think she was a bit too unconcerned how that would feel like to the person who loves her and always wanted to help. I can't really judge, after all she has been secluded and in a sort of arrest for a long time, obviously her take on life is freedom and independence now, but being this a romance I had access to both parties and now I feel sorry for her guy...

I won't even mention the bad guy's parts, I skipped most of them. Yes, I know, shame on me skipping parts, but really I have no patience for so many pages of bad guy's intentions and acts and whatever, I pass them along.
As for the sex scenes themselves...the same old. Everything is amazing...the main couple was a bit reluctant to take that step for Fiona's sake mostly after all she didn't feel ready, but they went past that pretty fast after a good amount of pages and since then it was bring it baby. Ok, it's how things are in this series, this world...but sometimes a bit more of seduction and more sexual tension instead of explicit sex all the time would be sexier I think.

Still, this is a world I feel used to by now and despite the many flaws I find, I still feel curious enough to keep reading. I already bought the next two stories and will read them when I can. Sure I'd change things, but I do have to appreciate the author's efforts into creating this world, the species, the interactions, the rules...the effort to publish and respect readers. So far, only my personal taste finds faults here, so... let's see what's coming next.
Grade: 6/10