Book Review: Vandal By Carian Cole

Vandal By Carian Cole

Book Review: Vandal by Carian Cole

Vandal by Carian Cole - Book 2 in the Ashes & Embers Series

Tropes: Rockstar Romance, Dark Contemporary Romance, Deception, Grief, Light BDSM, Angsty Romance, Tattooed Hero, Morally Grey MMC, Healing Arc, Very Spicy

Summary:

Vandal is the second book in Carian Cole's Ashes & Embers series, and it is a noticeably darker, heavier read than Storm. This one comes with real content warnings: death, grief, deception, substance abuse and depression, plus light BDSM and graphic spice.

Two people are tied together by a single twisted, devastating tragedy. Both of them came out of it destroyed in different ways, and both of them have spent the time since trying to put something back together.

They find each other, and they find something that genuinely looks like redemption: happiness, trust, a chance at a new beginning. Except he is carrying one enormous secret, because she has no idea he is the one who destroyed her life.

Twisty, raw and emotionally punishing in the best way, this is a story about trust, damage and healing that does not take the easy route to any of them.

BOOK REVIEW

Four stars, and a very easy four. This one was good rather than life-altering for me, but I want to be clear that "good" here means I smashed through it without slumping once, which is worth a lot.

Carian Cole took the edge that was already in Storm and pushed it much further. Vandal is grittier, uglier and considerably more painful, built around one shared tragedy and the fact that he knows his part in it and she doesn't. That's a brutal premise to hang a romance on, and the dread of waiting for it to come out does a lot of the work.

It is also extremely spicy. Genuinely one of the spicier rockstar romances I've read, and it isn't gratuitous, it's tangled up in the control and the trust issues both of them are carrying. If the light BDSM element is new territory for you, it's handled with more care than the tag might suggest.

Rockstar romance is my weakness and this series keeps feeding it. The band, the found family, the sense that these people have a whole life happening around the romance rather than just existing in service of it. That's what keeps me picking up the next one.

Not quite a five for me, but a genuinely strong instalment and a big step up in darkness from book one. Read the content warnings before you start, because this one earns them.

“Loving me will not be easy, loving me will be war. You will hold the gun and I will hand you the bullets.”

If Storm pulled you into the Ashes & Embers world, Vandal is where it gets genuinely dark. Grief, deception and a hero with an unforgivable secret, wrapped in some of the spiciest writing in the series. Best read after Storm, and check the content warnings first.


Vandal by Carian Cole mood board