When Ashline learns that her supposedly human boyfriend Colt Halliday is actually a Hopi trickster god, she leaves him buried in formerly molten rock up to his waist and dumps him to search for her little sister Rosie. Being a Polynesian volcano god lets her do that sort of thing: melt rock and harden it again.

Clues lead Ash to Miami where she discovers that Rosie is in the control of a group of gods who want to bring back the old days when humans worshiped them and are willing to sacrifice other gods on television to make it happen. Ash teams up with Wes who is an Aztec god of night and Aurora who is a winged girl who are trying to defeat these Four Seasons.

Then Colt shows up again and is determined to influence events to bring about his desired outcome. Among other things he wants Ash back in his life. They have shared many previous lives which only Colt remembers. All gods except Colt have their past lives erased when they are reborn into new lives. Colt has found some way for Ashline to sees flashbacks of their previous lives together which are somewhat strangely recounted in the second person.

This was an action-packed middle book in a series with lots of violence. It has some stunning revelations about Ash and her sisters. It's cliffhanger ending will have readers searching for AFTERGLOW, the final book in the trilogy. ( )

I felt that this book was a bit long. It took me a minute to get into it and there were parts that I had to force myself to read. There was quite a bit of death and destruction in this one. I missed a lot of the old characters in this book. The ones that did show up made a brief appearance. Except for Colt who I find completely creepy.
In this book we are introduced to the Four Seasons. I am not quite sure why they were introduced. I felt they took away completely from the plot of the original story.
I did enjoy going to the Cloak homeworld. I find the cloak fascinating and cannot wait to read more about them in books 3. There are a couple little twists in this book that you might not see coming. At least I didnt. I will be reading the last book in the trilogy today. ( )

The Good: While there are definitely some growing pains in this second installment of the Wildefire series, it ends powerfully - giving readers a strong and definite need to read the next book. Ash learns a lot in this novel, as well as develops her character more fully, molding her and the situation into something that may work extremely well in the future.

The Bad: The things that made Wildefire really shine - the boarding school, Ash's relationship with her friends and the mystery as to what is really going on are all MIA here. Ash on her own isn't compelling enough to carry a story. While she meets more gods and goddesses in Miami, they aren't in the same place as Ash in her development of abilities and the chemistry feels off. ( )

Full review on Reader's Dialogue: http://readersdialogue.blogspot.com/2013/02/embers-and-echoes.html

Definitely fiery! With the amount of times Miami is burnt, frozen, overgrown, electrocuted, or blown up, it's amazing it still exists!

Ash's search for her little sister leads her to more of what she experienced in the first book in regard to her trust of others, her quest to live a normal life, and her desire to patch things up with her sisters. As her visions show her more and more of her past lives, she doesn't know whom to trust - and who should trust her. The more she finds out, the more complicated things get. And when she learns exactly what the Cloak is doing, and what Colt is doing, the stakes are raised tremendously, both for her personally and for the world at large.

I love Ash's relationship with Wes. It's so sweet to watch, and amid the crazy crazy going on all around them, it's nice to see this. It's like their lifeline for a while. Until, of course, Ash finds out why they're being together is probably not such a good idea - and then in typical Ash fashion, fights for their relationship to survive despite the clear warning signs. Colt comes back and messes things up, but not for too long, thankfully - I really hate that guy by now.

I was totally invested in the characters throughout the book, and when some of the good ones died, it hit me strongly. It heightened the feeling of being completely alone that Ash has to deal with most of the time.

And the last couple of pages are really really great! Setting things up for book 3, but nail-bitingly tense all on its own. I'm really looking forward to the final book! ( )

When I read Wildefire I fell in love with the book. It introduced me to a wide range of characters, many of whom were reincarnated gods that I knew very little about. I loved the world of Blackwood Academy. The action was awesome and the characters a lot of fun. Also, the ending left me wanting to immediately dive into the second book and I had to wait over a year for the sequel. The horror! The minute I received my pre-ordered copy in the mail I set all of my “required” reading aside and dove in.

The following may contain mild spoilers from the first book. You’ve been warned.

The book picks up right where Wildefire left off. There’s no flashback to the moment, or a quick summary. You’re right back with Colt and Ashline and dealing with the aftermath of the accident and Colt’s big reveal. His reveal leaves a bad taste in Ash’s mouth and she ends up leaving him and going her own way. When she receives a tip that she can find her mysterious little sister in Miami, she hops a flight to begin her search. When she gets there, she finds out that a familiar face from book one has her sister, and she has a group of gods working for her who call themselves “The Four Seasons”. The gods have a plan of their own which includes revealing themselves to the world through questionable means. Lucky for Ash, she’s met a couple of other gods who are on her side that are willing to help her rescue her little sister, and in the process, stop “The Four Seasons” from wrecking havoc. The closer she grows to one of her new “friends”, the deeper the burn she feels for Colt and his betrayal. Just when she thinks she may have a chance at a new beginning, the mysterious trickster reappears and she finds out his betrayal goes even deeper than she originally thought.

Okay, so I know that summary is a little vague, but I don’t like spoiling my reviews with too many details. Let me just say that there is A LOT that happens in this book, and while I enjoyed a lot of it, there was a lot that left me scratching my head. There were several plot points that I felt were reconciled too quickly. “The Four Seasons” could have really grown to be this awesome force, and I felt that they kind of fizzled. It seemed like just as I had put the pieces together, something changed, which isn’t always a bad thing, but in this case, I just felt as if there were too many things happening. As I said earlier, many of these things lost steam leaving me a little underwhelmed. Characters are introduced and then either killed off or they just disappear. I wanted more and I felt like I didn’t get a chance to connect (either positively or negatively) with a lot of them. I also felt like the book could have ended before it did. In fact, there were about two other places in the book where I felt it could have ended and I would have been satisfied. While it all ties together in the end, overall, it felt kind of disjointed to me.

My second problem with the book was Ash. She really started to get on my nerves. I appreciate a dry and sometimes sarcastic sense of humor, but I like my characters to have a little more depth and I didn’t get that from Ash. She was overly sarcastic, and I didn’t get it. She just didn’t seem real to me. I don’t think anyone is sarcastic 90% of the time when communicating with others. I was more forgiving in the first book, but in this one it just seemed to wear on my nerves. It felt as if every time she had a conversation she was throwing out one liners, and being a smart-ass. It made it hard to like her.

Another issue I had was the ending. It’s another cliffhanger, and while sometimes cliffhanger endings can be effective, I was expecting it this time around, and it felt a little melodramatic to me.

While I am looking forward to the next book in the series, I’m not frothing at the mouth for it like I was after reading Wildefire. Embers and Echoes is a fun action-packed read. I just wished it had felt a little more grounded in purpose. ( )