REVIEWED BY CINDY
TITLE: Ashes on a Distant Wind
AUTHOR: Yolande Kleinn
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press LLC
LENGTH: 184 pages
Release Date: 01/11/2016
Blurb:
Before the Vrete came to Earth, Donovan Riggs was a man of faith. By the time they were gone, he’d left that part of himself behind for good. In the aftermath of a war nobody won, humans live in a world they destroyed in order to keep it for themselves.
Riggs is simply trying to survive. With Beau Greer, a young medic who stumbled into his life and then refused to leave, Riggs travels dangerous roads between long-dead cities. Scavenging doesn’t offer much of a future. It barely provides for the present. But Riggs will do anything to protect what’s his.
When thieves threaten to massacre a nearby town, Riggs and Beau must make a difficult choice, even if it means putting themselves directly in the line of fire.
Review:
I wouldn’t want to live in a post-apocalyptic world, but I do love books that take place there. I’m always interested in how people see human nature behaving after everything has gone to hell.
Riggs is a man who lost everything when the aliens came. He lost his faith and everyone he loved and he’s not sure why he keeps going, but he does.
Beau is a man who still knows how to smile, who hasn’t lost hope for something good to come along, but his hope is starting to fade. But he has a friend in Riggs that makes life bearable.
I loved watching these two men dance around each other. They don’t even seem to realize the kind of comfort they are finding as they make their way through hostile lands and look out for each other.
When Beau learns something new about Riggs when they stop to help a dying man, he starts to see him in a different light.
The struggle they are going through just to survive is mirrored in the way they fight to reach each other and it’s beautiful to watch.
They meet some interesting characters along the way. Other people who are doing the same as them, trying to get through each day, one after the other. And they meet some very bad people as well and that leads to the climax of the story.
This is where my only complaint comes in. I would have liked to have seen this drawn out a little more but I’m a bit of an angst whore and love being teased with anticipation for a while before my happily-ever-after.
Okay, so maybe not quite that fluffy of an ending for this story, but it’s a hopeful ending for Riggs and Beau and for the rest of the world.
There’s beautifully written sex in this story, and the author manages to make them sweet and hot, colored with loneliness and desperation and I found myself a little teary as I swooned.
I was totally entranced by the whole story and found myself up way past my bedtime to finish it because I couldn’t put it down. The story is well-edited and the writing is smart and the author has a voice that I came to love.
I know I will be looking for more stories by this author because I love getting swept away in a story.
Rating: 
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