An Ember in the Ashes

An Ember in the Ashes

By: Sabaa Tahir

If you don’t like cliffhangers, don’t read this book! The sequel is coming this August. If you’re a little impatient, you may want to wait until then to read this first installment of the series. Either way, my advice is definitely read it!

An Ember in the Ashes is a fantasy with 2 main characters, Laia, a slave girl, and Elias, a very unwilling soldier-in-training. Each tell their stories in alternating chapters. Each are oppressed in very different ways. Laia’s life as a slave girl/spy to the head mistress of a military school is filled with horrible fear and violence. She is spying for The Resistance who promises to help free her imprisoned brother. What they ask of her becomes increasingly risky and dangerous. Elias’s life as the son of the head mistress and trainee in the brutal elite guard called The Masks is so unbearable that he considers deserting. He and Laia meet and well, you’ll have to read the book!

The writing is smooth, the action is fast-paced and the characters are likeable (most of them anyway). The story has a good amount of violence in it though so if that’s not your thing, you may want to skip it.

Review By: Jackie Humphrey