A Circle of Ashes by Cate Tiernan

Title: A Circle of Ashes

Author: Cate Tiernan

Brief Synopsis: (taken from Goodreads)
After seventeen-year-old Thais Allard loses her widowed father in a tragic car accident, she is forced to leave the only home she's ever known to live with a total stranger in New Orleans. New Orleans greets Thais with many secrets and mysteries, but none as unbelievable as the moment she comes face to face with the impossible -- an identical twin, Clio. Thais soon learns that she and the twin she never knew come from a family of witches, that she possesses astonishing powers, and that she, along with Clio, has a key role in Balefire, the coven she was born into. Fiery Clio is less than thrilled to have to share the spotlight, but the twins must learn to combine their powers in order to complete a rite that will transform their lives and the coven forever.

General Thoughts: The second book in the Balefire series is definitely better than the first. There's much more danger and tension, and the love triangle that I had been so exasperated with has developed into something much more complicated, with a few unexpected twists along the way. Also, the minor characters of the Treize that were just briefly introduced in A Chalice of Wind are more fully fleshed out in this one, and I loved learning about the members' complex and confusing pasts and trying to connect them to the present.

My Favourite Part: The Treize. More specifically, its members, and learning about their pasts, their hopes and aspirations, their resentments and regrets. Jules, Sophie, Richard, and Marcel really developed as characters in this book, and Tiernan does a good job of dropping enough hints about Richard and Marcel's pasts without giving everything away completely. It definitely makes me want to keep reading the series to find out more about them.

My Least Favourite Part: The prose, again. I've mentioned already that it's too plain for my tastes, but that has gotten better. However, I have this weird thing where if a certain noun or adjective is used in a sentence, there has to be a space of one or two sentences before it gets used again, otherwise it sounds repetitive. I do this with my own writing, too, for English essays and the like. I hate repeating words or sentence structures. There were a few moments in the book that it happened; not enough to really tick me off, but enough to annoy me a little.

Scale of 1 to 10: 7.0