Review of ‘From the Ashes’ by Stacy Lynn Miller
A very entertaining wlw action romance book. This is the second novel in the Manhattan Sloane Thriller series and a good way to spend a Covid Saturday night. Book one, ‘Out of the Flames‘, was one of my favorite debut books of the year and it immediately put Stacy Lynn Miller on my authors to watch list. I could not wait to read this second book and the fact it was as good as I hoped, just proves that Bella found another good author in Miller.
This is an action-romance book. I was really happy with the mix of the two genres. Some action romances have so much action that the romance suffers, other times books can have the opposite problem. This book, and actually the series as a whole, has had such a good ratio of both genres that it is exactly what I look for in a good action-romance. This book didn’t have as much angst and pure emotion as the first book, but I didn’t really miss it and I think having less angst fit with the story of growth the characters were on.
With this book having a good mix of romance and action, I think you could pick it up and enjoy the story without reading the first, if you had to. However, I would HIGHLY recommend reading book one, ‘Out of the Flames’, first. This current book picks up right after the first book ends. The first book left many threads open and questions that get answered in this book. And the biggest of all is really getting to know the histories of the characters and how the romance actually started. To get the most enjoyment possible, it’s worth reading this series from the beginning.
Since this is a sequel, I want to be careful and not get into too many details since I don’t want to spoil anything for new readers. I do want to mention that I enjoyed the ending and I liked that it tied up the loose ends and didn’t leave any real questions left hanging. And what I really liked is the way it left a possibility for Miller to write more books in this series, if and when she chooses. I would happily read more of Sloane and Finn any day, but I’m also interested to see what other stories Miller has in store for us.
I would absolutely recommend this series to action-romance fans. This was really entertaining and I could not put the book down until the end. Just to reiterate, I do recommend reading book one first. ‘Out of the Flames’ is a debut and has a few bumps in the beginning, but once that story hits its stride it’s an excellent book and a great companion book to this one. Unfortunately, there are not as many sapphic action-romance books nowadays so this is a series that fans of this genre won’t want to miss. 4 stars.
A copy was given to me for an honest review.
