SPOILER/ Read Along: The Ashes of Ackonir by Jennifer Cody

Kelsea Miller (0:11)

Hi, and welcome to Unashamed, A Smut Lover's Podcast, where we just want to talk about smut. I'm Kelsey.

Courtney W. (0:17)

And I'm Courtney.

Kelsea Miller (0:18)

And today we are reading The Ashes of Ackonir by Jennifer Cody. We settled on Courtney's pick, if anybody listened to our fight at the end of the last episode, in case you want to know what it sounds like when best friends for 22 years fight. There you go. I hope we remember to leave that in.

So the blurb on this book is like nine fucking years long. It really is.

Courtney W. (0:52)

It's a very long blurb.

Kelsea Miller (0:54)

I think the gist of it is that Sparrow was content and happy living in his commune, and they... Okay, so Sparrow was content to live in his commune and just work and whatever. And then they betray him like bitches.

And he says, fuck you guys, burns the place to the ground and leaves. I don't know, I don't remember if that's actually said in the blurb or if I just made that up.

And then he goes to Edrick and Edrick is like, oh, I was married to your mom. Let me keep you and give you a title and teach you some things. And in the meantime, wow, you feel really nice in my arms. Let's bang. And that's the gist.

Courtney W. (1:48)

Yeah, so it's a steampunk fantasy romance with an emperor with vampiric tendencies.

And then it says, a tempting lost little lamb with blood that sings to him. So I'm so excited. I know Kelsey's less excited. I have read this author before and they are very amazing. They do a lot of like kind of fantasy, like a lot of fantasy and they are so good at it.

Kelsea Miller (2:17)

So before I forget, the midway point is chapter 19

It's technically 51%, but it's literally like the first page of 51%. So I feel like it counts. So there is an introduction. Hopefully I don't buzz my way through it.

So misogyny doesn't exist in this world. Neither do sexual prejudices. Titles aren't gendered. For example, instead of king and queen, all rulers are kings regardless of their gender. Dukes, barons, emperors, these titles do not indicate a person's gender.

People can be he, she, or they without anyone thinking twice about it. Everyone respects the identity markers that people present.

There is both tech and magic, and they are combined to create the world the characters live in. In Maldron, the spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law.

The government provides food and shelter to anyone who needs it. It's not the best that is available, but it is available to everyone without question. Anything that a person needs to survive is a basic right. They don't have to work to earn what keeps them alive, but if they want better than basic necessities, they do have to work for it. The day is 20 hours, 10 hours of daylight, and 10 hours of night during the equinoxes. Hour 1 begins at dawn on the day of the equinox. Hour 11 would begin at dusk on the day of the equinox. Midnight would be hour 15 I'm not going to remember. Weeks are 10 days, and the work week is broken up into 3 days on, 2 days off. Months are 4 weeks long, and there are 10 months in a year. Long pointed ears happen with elves, and when fairkin, they mix it up with the humans. Otherwise, the fairkin have really round ears, and humans have human ears. It's weird. Let me be weird. If I found a place to put it in the book to explain this, I wouldn't be putting it in the introduction to the world. So, okay, basically, this is like a world explanation because in the book, they're just getting into shit.

Courtney W. (4:36)

Yeah. Yeah, this is...

I'm really excited. There is a glossary, but those of you who are reading along with us, just go ahead and do that because there is no way I want to even attempt to pronounce any of this.

Kelsea Miller (4:53)

Oh, yeah, no. Oh, there's also content warning. Here I go. Ready? Here we are. Content warning.

Heavily imbalanced power dynamic with elements of consensual dubious consent, oral fixation including cockwarming, cock nursing, and the use of a penis-shaped pacifier does not include age play, but consensual use of magic to force arousal and submission, breath play, vampiric play, blood... Sorry, vampiric blood play that includes the consumption of blood, somnophilia... I love somnophilia. Descriptions of a secluded commune with cult-like practices, violence including descriptive murder, human sacrifice, dryad and vampire... Words are hard. Use of magic to cause self-inflicted death, use of magic to torture a main character, loss of a parent off-page and in the past, mention of past child abuse and on-page description of scarring, mention of the inclusion of a main character in his father's harem, smoking and recreational use of certain types of herbs, a war in which a major world power invades and subjugates a small country, while not graphically described war atrocities are mentioned, including the display of the bodies of political enemies.