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Verdict: A debut sapphic urban fantasy that readers keep describing as Buffy or Supernatural with lesbians — strong action, two well-drawn traumatised heroines and a genuinely good villain, held back by pacing and a noir register the book commits to past the point of usefulness.
Best for: Readers who want monster hunting, necromancers and small-town family secrets with a very slow romance running underneath, and who do not need heat on the page at all.
Heat level: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5 — romance.io’s lowest band, “glimpses and kisses”)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.9/5 — a 4.17 Goodreads average with a consistent pacing complaint across the middle ratings)
Tropes: Monster hunter and civilian, revenge quest, hidden magic, amnesia and recovered memories, small-town family secrets, slowest of slow burns, trauma recovery, found family, urban fantasy, series opener.
Cinders of Yesterday is Jen Karner’s debut and the opener to Legacy of Shadows — a 298-page sapphic urban fantasy set in Dawson, Maryland, where Dani Black, a smart-mouthed monster hunter chasing the rogue necromancer who killed her partner, arrives looking for a weapon that can kill anything and finds Emilie Lockgrove instead — the supposedly powerless daughter of a prominent magical family who survived a fire ten years ago and remembers almost none of it.
It holds a 4.17 average across 213 Goodreads ratings, with no one-star ratings at all and 77% at four stars or above. What the average hides is a large and coherent middle: 17% of readers landed on three stars, and they are describing the same two problems. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.
What Is Cinders of Yesterday About?
This is urban fantasy first and romance second, and the shelf it belongs on matters. Urban fantasy runs on a competent professional, a monster of the week or the book, and a world of hidden rules layered under the ordinary one — and Karner writes all three straight, with Maryland small-town geography, magical family politics and a necromancer antagonist who has been working his way through a bloodline. Readers who love the subgenre name Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural without prompting, and mean it precisely.
Dani is introduced through loss rather than lack: she is already good at the job, already grieving a partner, and already a year into a hunt she cannot finish. Emilie is the inversion — a woman defined by what was taken from her, ten years of memory gone and a magical inheritance she has been told does not exist. The book gives them alternating focus, and the structural pleasure is that each one holds a piece of what the other needs: Dani has the weapon problem, Emilie has the answer buried in a house full of secrets.
What Makes This Sapphic Urban Fantasy Work
- The subgenre execution: The most-praised element. Readers who spent their teens on Buffy and Supernatural say this is the sapphic version they had been waiting for, and it is the single most repeated framing in the reviews.
- The villain: Spectre is a necromancer who has been murdering the clairvoyant women of one family for generations, and reviewers name him as a genuine strength rather than an obstacle-shaped placeholder.
- The amnesia handled honestly: One reviewer specifically credits the book for the “kept in the dark” setup — the reason Emilie cannot know is a real reason, not a withholding device.
- Two trauma arcs, not one: Dani’s grief and Emilie’s stolen decade are given comparable weight, and readers describe both women as overcoming something rather than one rescuing the other.
- The action: Fight and hunt sequences are named as a strength even by three-star reviewers, which is a reliable signal that they work.
Book Synopsis
A year ago Dani Black watched a rogue necromancer kill her hunting partner, and she has spent every month since trying to work out how to kill him back in a way that stays killed. Spectre does not stay dead, which is the entire problem, and the only lead Dani has is a rumour about a weapon that can end anything. The rumour points to Dawson, Maryland, a town small enough that a monster hunter cannot pass through it unnoticed.
Emilie Lockgrove has lived there her whole life, or most of it. Ten years ago there was a fire, and she came out of it alive, without her memory of what happened and without the magic her family name is supposed to guarantee. Everyone tells her she is ordinary. Everyone is very insistent about it. She has made a life out of books and quiet and the low-level certainty that something in her own history has been taken away and filed somewhere she is not allowed to look.
The weapon Dani came for and the answers Emilie needs turn out to be the same buried thing, and Dawson turns out to be full of it — family secrets thick enough to drown in, a magical inheritance that was locked rather than lost, and a necromancer with an old and specific interest in the Lockgrove bloodline. Neither woman can get what she came for alone, and the closer they get to the spell holding Emilie’s power down, the clearer it becomes that Spectre has been waiting for exactly this. The question the book keeps asking is what it costs to get a stolen decade back, and whether the person you were before is still the one who has to pay.
My Review
The pitch readers keep reaching for is the right one, so it is worth repeating: this is Buffy or Supernatural if the leads were women and in love with each other, and the reason it works is that Karner writes the urban fantasy seriously rather than as a frame for the romance. The hunt has procedure. The magical families have politics that predate the plot. Spectre has a pattern and a history and a reason to be where he is. For a debut that is a lot of load-bearing structure, and it is why the reviews from committed urban fantasy readers are the warmest ones in the set.
The second strength is the pairing of the two damaged women, which is more carefully balanced than the premise suggests. It would be easy to write the monster hunter as the competent one and the amnesiac as the project; Karner does not. Dani’s grief has made her worse at her job, not better, and Emilie’s missing decade is an active mystery she is investigating rather than a condition she waits to be cured of. Readers describe both women overcoming their own trauma, in that phrasing, and the equality of it is the thing that makes the very slow romance bearable.
Where it struggles is pacing, and it is the dominant complaint rather than an outlier. One three-star reviewer put it plainly: she liked both characters, praised the action scenes, and said it was the pacing and world-building that bogged everything down. Another reader landed at 3.5 and described the book as slightly above average, liked in parts but never loved. That block — 17% of all ratings at three stars, against zero at one — is the honest picture: almost nobody dislikes this book and a meaningful minority is not moved by it.
The sharper craft note comes from a reviewer who otherwise praised the prose and admitted to crying at the climax. Her objection is structural editing, and specifically that the book commits so hard to a gritty noir register that conversations become ominous banter for its own sake and stop doing their job. That is a precise diagnosis and it explains the pacing complaint as well — scenes that are working atmospherically are not always working narratively.
One expectation to reset before you start: romance.io puts the heat at 1 out of 5, “glimpses and kisses,” and a reader calls this the slowest of slow burns. The Amazon subtitle says sapphic urban fantasy romance and every word of that is true in the order it is written. If heat is why you are here, this is not the book; if a decade-long-feeling slow burn between two women rebuilding themselves is the appeal, it is exactly the book.
My honest note: A confident debut in a subgenre that badly needed a sapphic entry, with real craft problems that a second editing pass would have caught. Read it for the hunt, the villain and the two women; do not read it for the romance alone.
| Element | In Cinders of Yesterday |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Dani Black & Emilie Lockgrove — a grieving monster hunter and a woman missing ten years of memory, very slow burn |
| Core tropes | Revenge quest, hidden magic, recovered memories, small-town family secrets, trauma recovery, found family |
| Setting | Dawson, Maryland — a small town built over a magical family’s history, with a necromancer working through the bloodline |
| Heat level | 1/5 — glimpses and kisses |
| Series | Legacy of Shadows book 1 — the hunt resolves; the series continues |
| Content notes | Death of a partner and on-page grief, a house fire and its aftermath, memory loss, necromancy and reanimated dead, murder of women across generations, fantasy violence |
How Spicy Is Cinders of Yesterday?
romance.io bands it at 1 out of 5 and labels it “glimpses and kisses,” which is the lowest rung that database uses for a book with any romance in it at all. Readers agree without being asked: one describes it as the slowest of slow burns and notes that most of the novel is occupied with recovering Emilie’s memories and defeating Spectre, which leaves the relationship to develop in the margins. This is a descriptive number, not a criticism — a closed-door urban fantasy scoring 1/5 here is being measured accurately, not marked down.
The thing worth flagging in advance is tone rather than content. The book is filed under horror as well as fantasy on Goodreads, and it earns that: necromancy, reanimated dead and the murder of women across generations are all on the page. No reviewer describes it as gratuitous. Nothing on this site sits at this band, so the nearest comparison is a step up — A Crown of Deceit & Ruin at 2/5 for readers who want longing over heat, and The Dark Legend at 3/5 if you want the plot-first balance with slightly more on the page.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: urban fantasy is your home subgenre, you have wanted a sapphic Buffy for years, you like a villain with a real pattern behind him, and a slow burn that stays almost entirely unconsummated is fine by you.
You may want to skip it if: you want heat, you lose patience with atmospheric scenes that do not advance the plot, dense world-building in a 298-page book feels crowded to you, or you need the romance to be the main event.
In short: the sapphic monster-hunter novel urban fantasy readers keep asking for, delivered with debut-level rough edges and almost no spice.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
There is no viral moment here. The book has 213 Goodreads ratings and 84 written reviews across five years, several of them ARC copies routed through BookSirens, and no trade coverage or Reddit footprint. What it does have, unusually for an indie debut, is a real audio edition: Amy Landon narrates 9 hours 45 minutes, and it is stocked on Libro.fm rather than being an Audible exclusive.
Prefer audio? Listen to Cinders of Yesterday on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The subgenre fit first, and the framing is remarkably consistent — readers who grew up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural describe finding the sapphic version they had been looking for, and one review is written almost entirely as that pitch. Second, the two heroines: “two fantastic heroines overcoming their own trauma” is a direct quote, and the equal weighting of their arcs is named as the reason the slow burn works. Third, Spectre — a villain readers describe by his method rather than his menace, which is a good sign. Fourth, and quietly notable: the handling of Emilie’s ignorance, with one reviewer explicitly crediting Karner for giving a real in-world reason for a trope that usually has none. The minority view worth flagging is that several readers who were lukewarm on the book say outright they will still read book two.
What readers argue about and complain about: Pacing, above everything, and it comes with a mechanism attached: a three-star reviewer who liked both leads and praised the action said it was the pacing and world-building together that bogged the book down — 298 pages carrying a magical-family history, a decade-old fire, a hunt and two trauma arcs leaves the plot stopping frequently to explain itself. Second, and the sharpest craft note in the set: structural editing. One reader who cried at the climax still concluded the book needed another editorial pass, and identified the reason precisely — it commits to a gritty noir voice so completely that conversations become ominous banter and stop advancing anything. Third: a diffuse sense of near-miss. Two separate reviewers rate it 3.25 and 3.5 and use almost identical language, liking parts of it without loving any of it. Fourth, minor but worth noting: at least one reader could not work out what Emilie actually was for much of the book. The genuine split is between urban fantasy readers, who rate it four and five, and romance readers, who find the relationship too far in the background.
The series question everyone should ask first: The hunt resolves and no reviewer reports a cliffhanger — the readers who mention book two do so as an intention rather than a complaint, including several who were only moderately impressed by book one. Legacy of Shadows has continued past this entry, and Karner is named by more than one reviewer as an author they will follow on the strength of a debut. If you want a self-contained sapphic urban fantasy with a finished case, this works on its own.
Frequently Asked Questions
How spicy is Cinders of Yesterday?
A 1/5. romance.io puts it in its lowest band, glimpses and kisses, and readers describe it as the slowest of slow burns with most of the page count given to the hunt and to Emilie’s memories.
Does Cinders of Yesterday end on a cliffhanger?
No. The hunt resolves, and the readers who mention book two do so as an intention rather than a complaint — several of them were only moderately impressed by book one and still plan to continue.
Is Cinders of Yesterday like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
That is the comparison readers make most often, alongside Supernatural. It is monster hunting in a small American town with a hidden magical world underneath, written with two women at the centre.
Is there a Cinders of Yesterday audiobook?
Yes. Amy Landon narrates 9 hours 45 minutes, and it is available on Libro.fm rather than being an Audible exclusive.
Is Cinders of Yesterday on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes. It is currently borrowable with a Kindle Unlimited membership, which makes a 298-page debut an easy one to try.
Is Cinders of Yesterday a debut novel?
Yes, and reviewers treat it as one — several call it an exceptional debut while also naming the structural editing and pacing problems that come with a first book.
If You Loved Cinders of Yesterday, Read These Next
The Dark Legend runs the same plot-first balance with a professional heroine and a conspiracy instead of a hunt, Elmwood Inclusive Magic Academy shares the hidden-magical-world setup in a warmer register, and A Crown of Deceit & Ruin is the closest thing on this site to the same restraint at 2/5. More in paranormal and fantasy lesbian romance and across all our book reviews.
The Bottom Line
Cinders of Yesterday sets out to be the sapphic urban fantasy that Buffy and Supernatural fans have been asking for, and it delivers three things: a hunt with real procedure behind it, a villain with a generational pattern, and two damaged women whose arcs carry equal weight. What it does not deliver is momentum, a fully edited manuscript or anything a romance reader would call heat — and its own admirers name the first two. If urban fantasy is where you live and a 1/5 slow burn does not bother you, this is a debut worth your time. Check Cinders of Yesterday on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Cinders of Yesterday ranks as a solid sapphic urban fantasy debut — well-built, atmospheric and genuinely well-cast, constrained by pacing and an over-committed noir voice, and best approached for the monster hunting and the two heroines rather than for the romance or the heat.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ 4.17 average across 213 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ No one-star ratings at all
- ✓ 17% at three stars, all naming pacing
Romance ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ Both leads carry equal narrative weight
- ✓ Neither woman rescues the other
- ✓ Attraction survives two active trauma arcs
- ✓ Relationship develops almost entirely offstage
Characters ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ “Two fantastic heroines” is the recurring phrase
- ✓ Spectre named as a genuinely strong villain
- ✓ Emilie’s ignorance given a real in-world reason
- ✓ One reader never worked out what Emilie is
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ Described as beautiful in places
- ✓ One reviewer reports crying at the climax
- ✓ Action sequences praised even by three-star readers
- ✓ Noir banter named as needing structural editing
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ A dead partner drives the whole hunt
- ✓ A stolen decade drives the other half
- ✓ Climax lands emotionally for multiple readers
- ✓ Atmospheric scenes stall the momentum
Heat Level ★☆☆☆☆ 1/5
- ✓ romance.io’s lowest band, glimpses and kisses
- ✓ Described as the slowest of slow burns
- ✓ Page count given to the hunt and the memories
- ✓ Romance readers report it is too far offstage
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ The hunt resolves; no cliffhanger reported
- ✓ Lukewarm readers still plan to read book two
- ✓ Karner named as an author to follow
- ✓ Some threads deliberately held for the series
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ 9 hour 45 minute audiobook read by Amy Landon
- ✓ Stocked on Libro.fm, not an Audible exclusive
- ✓ Series has continued past this entry
- ✓ Pacing makes a second read a commitment
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