Cinder by Chelle Bliss

Cinder by author Chelle Bliss, is the 13th book in the Men of Inked: Heatwave series. I’ve been sitting on Men of Inked for so long, and I thoroughly regret it! This family is so fun to read about, and I can’t wait to dive in to the other stories.

This book is essentially part of a series, within a series. There’s so many different characters and names that I had trouble keeping them straight in my head. Luckily, the author has a family tree on her website, as well as a recommended reading order (which also has a printable version!).

***I received a free, advanced copy of this book for reviewing purposes. Thank you to the author, Chelle Bliss, and to Valentine PR for including me in this release!***

The Story

Olive has returned to her hometown to look at the grad school she’ll be attending in the fall. She runs into Asher and his grandmother, who invite her to join them at a family party that night. As soon as the grandmother calls her “kalamata,” I knew I’d love the characters. And I read the entire book straight through in one sitting.

Olive and Asher jump into their new relationship almost immediately. But at the same time, it takes a long time for them to reach a mutual understanding when it comes to the seriousness of their relationship. And that’s mainly because Oliver is hesitant to fully give in to her feelings. After all, she knows he was not a one-woman man before now, and her older brother has always hated him to the point of him telling Olive to stay away.

Circumstances do “force” Oliver to move in with Asher. I say “force” because there were a lot of other solutions to the problem. They just may not have been as easy.

Tate

As they settle in, Asher’s cousin, Tate, finds herself in trouble. The entire family watches out for her, letting Tate stay with them for a few days at a time. And they begin to switch up whose house Tate stays at in order to keep her hidden. I have seen some reviews saying that the storyline with Tate came out of nowhere. And while yes, it did seem like it was abrupt, this may have been how it was perceived because I and the other readers hadn’t read the other books that included build-up to it. This is 100% a guess on my part, I have no idea if the reviews were written by people who read this blind like I did.

Whichever is true, the introduction of Tate and that plot point did come in at what seemed like a natural point in the book. The immediate uncertainty of Olive and Asher’s relationship was fading as they became more serious. Adding in a serious problem that may jeopardize what they’d built up to that point is nothing out of the ordinary. I think the ‘randomness’ of it comes more from having not heard of Tate prior to this point in the book, and most of the extended family had been introduced in the first few chapters.

Final Verdict on Cinder

I really enjoyed this book. But, I do think I wasn’t able to enjoy it to the fullest because I’ve never read any books from the series. I think if I had, I wouldn’t have struggled to keep all of the characters straight, and probably would’ve enjoyed seeing little peeks at the lives of previous main characters. This may not be true in this instance, but for me it has been way in every series I’ve read that is structured like this. So I think it’s a safe bet. That being said, you can absolutely enjoy the book as a standalone.

The book was fast paced, but not in a way that didn’t make sense. Olive and Asher had known each other for years prior to the book starting and had fallen out of touch. They weren’t complete strangers. To me, picking up right where they left off is completely realistic. And you can’t help but love that they had crushes on each other back when they were younger.

Overall, this book earns 3.5/5 stars from me. I liked the characters immediately. Not just Olive and Asher – the entire extended family. The energy they had and the banter was too fun. I’m pretty sure my family has had some of those exact conversations when we’re all together, and that was just the cherry on top for me. If you’re looking for a friends to lovers/unrequited love/school-girl crush book with a strong world and entertaining background characters, Cinder is a book for you! I can’t wait to dive in to the rest of Chelle Bliss’ Men of Inked books.

Like I mentioned before, Cinder is part of a much larger fictional world. But if you’re looking to start reading, you can actually purchase many of the ebooks completely free on Amazon. And, there is a set of the first four books, (not affiliated) making it easy to know where to start!

Have you read Cinder or any of the other Men of Inked books from Chelle Bliss? What was your favorite?