King of Ashes || S.A. Cosby

“Roman knew he was doing this for the right reasons. Saving his family was the end, and the means were justified. But after all this was over, could it end in anything other than ashes?”

“Everything burns.”

Short Summary: Roman returns to his hometown of Jefferson Run, VA after his father is comatose following a car crash. He finds his sister, wiped out from running the family crematorium, and his little brother with an impossible debt to a local gang. To save his family, he puts everything on the line with some of the most dangerous people in Jefferson Run and he might just lose himself in the process. When you fight fire with fire, more than the enemy is going to get burned.

Thoughts: This book is beautifully written, but it is incredibly dark. There are times that certain scenes would literally cause my stomach to drop and I’d have to read or do something else to take my mind off of it. I had bad dreams multiple times when reading this book, that were filled with dark themes much like this story. I usually read fantasy, sci-fi, historical literature, and not modern day crime stories which made this story of revenge harder to stomach. This book doesn’t have a happy ending, and I knew it wouldn’t because there was too much at stake. In addition to wondering how Roman was going to get out of the impossible situation he found himself in, there was also the mystery of his mother’s disappearance 20 years prior that is mentioned multiple times in the book, which the reader does get closure on. There are many difficult themes in this book: burning someone alive, torture, graphic killings, shootings, stabbings, drug and alcohol abuse, BDSM, cheating, gang activity. I’ll be honest, if this wasn’t a book club pick, I might not have finished the book, but this wasn’t a bad book, in fact it was great and I simultaneously wanted to keep reading but also wished it were over.

-thriller -mystery -southern crime story -vengeance -gang violence -crematorium (burning alive) -family drama -BDSM -drug and alcohol abuse -torture -multi-POV