Review: Ascension by Michelle Bryan

I received this book via the author, Michelle Bryan. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

Ascension by Michelle Bryan
Series: New Bloods Trilogy #2
Published by Winlock Press on 2015-10-13
Length: 248 pages
Reviewing eARC Rating:

A shining city promises death. Tara must go there anyway.

Having survived the dangerous journey through the sand lands, Tara must now choose between the impossible.

She knows she isn’t the person everyone wants her to be; wants nothing to do with the rebellion and strange powers that are as likely to kill her friends as her enemies.

But the Prezedant has Ben, her only remaining kin. She made a promise to save him. A promise she can only keep if she tries anyway.

When she finally reaches the seat of the Prezedant’s power, a masquerade ball becomes the perfect stage to set in motion a plan to save Ben. It will begin and end there in a battle against the tyrant and a daring escape that will shake the world.

It will shake Tara, too, as she learns truths that change everything she had believed about herself.

I had the pleasure of beta reading Ascension by Michelle Bryan back in April and I have been dying to share my thoughts with you all since! Ascension picks up just a few weeks after the events of Awaken. Tara is trying to learn more about her powers, Jax is gone, and Ben has been taken to the Prezedant’s city.

Please note that if you have not read book one of this series there may be minor spoilers in this review.

Tara is one of my favorite heroines. She’s determined, fiercely loyal, and brave. She loves her little family: Mack (new character that I love, more on him in a minute), Tater, Finn, and Jax. AND she will get her other family back: Ben and the kids. Her fault is that she is so focused on finding Ben and the kids that she misses the bigger conflict and what her new blood status will mean to the Prezedant. Tara has no regard for her own safety and risks her life many times to save those she loves.

What I love about this series is the side characters. Michelle Bryan is awesome in that she’s created a great set of secondary characters that are fully developed and compliment the story and Tara. Mack was introduced near the end of Awaken and I fell in love with him! He’s a general for the Prezedant but also works within the rebellion, feeding them information and helping prisoners escape when he can. Now he’s training Tara to fight and I love it. Jax….*swoon* He’s perfectly annoying and unavailable and everything that would drive any girl of the same age crazy. I easily picked up on his feelings for Tara during the first book, but the author delves into it more this time and yes I most definitely swooned 😉

My biggest complaint during the first book was that there wasn’t a lot of world-building. While the author did create a magnificent dystopian world for our characters, there wasn’t much information about how that world was created. Michelle answers those questions in this book, AND it was well worth the wait! I love the background to how society became so underdeveloped, how the new bloods were created, and how the Prezedant seems to never age. Those questions are answered in such detail and it adds SO much to the story that I’m on pins and needles waiting for the conclusion!

Overall I enjoyed this addition to the New Bloods Trilogy. I love Tara, I LOVED the little triangle the author sets up among Tara, Ben, and Jax, AND I adore the series arch. I can’t wait to read more and find out what all Tara is capable of. If you enjoy young adult, science fiction, dystopians, than this series is for you!

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