At a Glance
- Performance: Tim Campbell narrates the full nineteen hours and forty-three minutes.
- What it covers: romantasy, POV retelling, chosen family and loyalty
- Feel: Emotional and nostalgic for returning fans
- Our call: A rewarding POV-swap entry for existing Blood and Ash fans that offers nothing for listeners new to the series.
A Soul of Ash and Blood works as a structural experiment more than as a jumping-on point: it retells events from earlier in the Blood and Ash series through Casteel's eyes instead of Poppy's, and this audiobook rewards listeners who already know where the story is headed rather than offering a clean entry for newcomers. Every single review posted here, five in total, cuts off mid-sentence before finishing its argument, an unusual pattern worth naming before diving into what they actually do say.
What We Made of It
Narratively, the synopsis picks up with Poppy having become the true Primal of Life and Death, previously the Primal of Blood and Bone and before that the Queen of Flesh and Fire, with gods awakening across both Iliseeum and the mortal realm as a larger war approaches. Against that scale, the immediate plot hinge is smaller and more personal: Poppy falls into stasis, and Cas is advised that talking to her, walking back through how their relationship began, might be what brings her back. The synopsis is explicit that this book uses that device to revisit the earliest events of the series through Cas's perspective, revealing things about himself that previously only Kieran knew. Tim Campbell narrates the full nineteen hours and forty-three minutes, a substantial commitment even by the standards of a series already known for long installments. This is the fifth entry in the Blood And Ash series, and Brilliance Audio released it in July 2023. The page currently shows a 4.2 average across thirty-one ratings, and five written reviews accompany that count. That gap between the rating count and the visible review total is smaller than in some other listings, and nothing about it stands out as mathematically impossible the way a single-vote badge would.
Reviewer response to the POV switch is largely positive. One reviewer says they love it when an author returns to reframe an original story rather than simply continuing forward, and calls the book nostalgic and comforting while still feeling new because of present-day chapters interspersed with the earlier timeline. Another reviewer admits going in with mixed feelings about spending an entire book in Casteel's perspective, then comes around, specifically praising how much of Casteel's inner life comes through, and naming him a favorite among the series' male characters. A third reviewer highlights a specific pleasure familiar to long-running series readers: getting new detail on the wider mythology of the primals, alongside what that reviewer calls a generous amount of Kieran, a fan-favorite supporting character, plus moderate spice and real implications for where the rest of the Blood and Ash universe goes from here. A fourth reviewer describes being freshly excited for the series again partway through simply from getting Cas's version of events, comparing the feeling to experiencing parts of the story for the first time despite already knowing the plot.
What to Watch For in A Soul of Ash and Blood
All five reviews on this page share the same defect: each one stops mid-sentence, sometimes mid-word, well before finishing its argument, so quoting any of them at length risks completing a thought the reviewer never got to write. What survives intact is enough to judge tone and overall reaction, strongly positive across four of the five, more mixed in the third, but specific arguments about individual scenes or twists get cut before landing. This is also firmly not a starting point for the series: the synopsis assumes familiarity with Poppy, Casteel, Kieran, Iliseeum and the wider Blood and Ash mythology built across four earlier books, and the entire POV-swap structure depends on already knowing what happened the first time through. Even the opening stakes, primal succession, a mortal realm bracing for war, a queen who has already changed titles twice, are recapped rather than explained from scratch, on the assumption that returning readers need reminders, not introductions. One reviewer's own note that this may not be the final book in the series, since more volumes are apparently still coming, is worth flagging for anyone assuming this closes out the story. That same reviewer describes feeling both relieved that more is coming and a little frustrated at having to wait for it, a reaction that tracks with how invested returning fans clearly are in this world by book five.
Is This One for You?
Longtime Blood and Ash readers who want Casteel's side of events they have already lived through once as Poppy are the clear audience. Fans who gravitate toward Kieran and the series' wider supporting cast get an extra reason to listen, since reviewers single Kieran out repeatedly as one of the series' most consistently loved secondary characters. It rewards patience with a nineteen-and-a-half-hour runtime that revisits familiar ground by design rather than accident, treating the retelling itself as the point instead of a detour on the way to new plot. New listeners with zero background in the series should start with the first book instead; nothing about the structure here works as an introduction, and the synopsis itself assumes you already know who Hawke is before revealing he is the one telling this particular version of the story. Existing fans who came for Kieran and stayed for the wider mythology are the clearest audience here, with four strongly positive reviews and one more mixed one suggesting the experiment mostly lands.
Before You Listen
Does the A Soul of Ash and Blood audiobook follow Poppy or Casteel as the main perspective?
Casteel, going by his alias Hawke in parts of the story, narrates this particular installment, revisiting events from the earlier books through his own eyes instead of Poppy's. The synopsis frames this as revealing things about him that previously only his friend Kieran knew.
Is A Soul of Ash and Blood the final book in the Blood and Ash audiobook series?
Not according to one reviewer, who notes this is the last published book so far rather than the last one planned, with at least two more apparently still to come. Listeners hoping for a series conclusion here should adjust expectations, since the story continues beyond this audiobook.
