Review: Great concept, disappointing execution
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 12, 2014
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.From the Embers is a book that spans hundreds of years.  It follows two immortal main characters through a portion of their lives including time periods in our past and also in a dystopian future where the world and civilization have been ravaged.  Along the way they have various experiences and meet other people with special abilities (including each other several times). This is just the kind of story that I generally love; however, the execution of it fell short for me.Each chapter of the book takes place in a different time period and focuses on one of the main characters (a few focus on secondary characters).  It is not chronological - the chapters jump from past to future, from before to after "The End" (of the world as we know it).  Chapters taking place before "The End" are written in past tense; chapters taking place after "The End" are written in present tense.  I actually liked the construct, although the change in tense was disconcerting at first.There are several fairly detailed sex scenes - both m/m and m/f - in the book.  Most of them did not evoke much passion to me, although there were some nice scenes between Luca and Mathias.One of the main issues I had with the book was that I did not connect with, like or care about either of the MCs.  They did not feel like complete people to me and I was not invested in what happened to them.  Luca, an important secondary character, was an exception; he did pull me in somewhat to his portion of the overall story.Another problem for me was that the book was overly long and there was not that much of a unifying theme or plot to it all.  There were a lot of details that did not seem to have throughput to a main plot or to the character development.  The point of view from which the story was told also changed erratically - sometimes within a paragraph or two - and included minor characters' POVs.  This made it difficult to tell who was doing/thinking what at times.Some smaller things that bothered me included more editing errors (missing words, incorrect words, etc.) than I was able to overlook and the frequent use of "the other" as a noun to refer to a person.  Both of these pulled me out of the story.Throughout the book, there are some resolutions and revelations, but a lot is left hanging.  That is probably because a series appears to be planned.  However, I would have liked to see more of an ending rather than "...to be continued."  (I am not a big fan of cliffhangers or waiting for a sequel for resolution. If I know that is the case, I won't read a book until the sequel is available.)Overall, I thought the concept for From the Embers and the structure of the book were great, but I was disappointed in the actual reading experience.