The action, mystery, magic, adventure, character development was just AWESOME!!! And the romance didn't get in the way of the story. 3 HOURS!! And I'm craving for the second book but it comes out NEXT YEAR!!!! AHHHH!!! Keenan: I hated him for being so close to Laia, same description above.Īpart from the characters, while reading this book I was HOOKED!!! I read this in 3 hours. So she's on my hate list, no matter what good things she has done. Helene: I hated her for being so close to Elias, I want Elias and Laia to end up together. Marcus: he can go jump off a cliff, and I'll laugh because he was such a terrible person. The Commandant: hate her gutts, plain and simple.

Laia: went from being a coward, to the leader and determined girl she was born to be.Įlias: was always as charming as ever, and went from a love triangle to having one love, and kept his strong appearance in tact :)

Laia is risking her life to save her brother, and Elias is risking his life to reach freedom, they both have a common enemy, destination, and mission.īoth will work together to put piece into their kingdom. At that moment, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself. In around 50% of the book, Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, because Laia needs help from Marcus trying to rape her in the hallway. While that is happening, Elias is considering deserting the military, but before he can, he’s ordered to participate in a ruthless contest, to determine who the next Martial emperor will be, since the Emperor will be stepping down this year. When Laia's brother is arrested for treason because he was working against the Emperor, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy (which Elias is in!!!) in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars (the resistance) who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution. Laia, who is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire.Īnd Elias who is the Martial's finest soldier in the academy. After all, if my hopes turn into reality, there is no denying my excitement. For now I can only cross my fingers and hope for the rest of the book to be this good. In a nutshell, I absolutely loved loved loved the sneak peak of An Ember In The Ashes. In my case, it only left me hungry for more. Without having to deal with info dumps, there's a lot of information brought to the reader in a smart and insightful way, combined with some excellent and just gorgeous writing. Despite the fact that the world belongs to the fantasy genre and thus requires a lot of world building, it drew me in very quickly and didn't let me go. There's no questioning Tahir's talent, as I could gather so many different aspects of the book, just by reading one chapter. There were wonderful characters I now care for. This was only the beginning of a story about the clash in an ancient Rome-like empire, yet it didn't hold author Sabaa Tahir back from anything. It was so action-packed I could barely wrap my head around it. I'd never imagined to rate a sneak peak five stars, but my unbelief doesn't stop there. Honestly, I'm surprised with how much I loved this shortened version of An Ember in the Ashes. Or at least, that's what I have gathered from the sneak peak. Legend meets The Winner's Curse in a breath-taking novel. Thank you Penguin Young Readers Group for providing me with a sneak peak for review. He insists it sharpens the mind the way a whetstone sharpens a blade. I mentally chant a saying my grandfather taught me the day he met me, when I was six. More reviews on my blog, Exploring Pages. When Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself. Elias is considering deserting the military, but before he can, he’s ordered to participate in a ruthless contest to choose the next Martial emperor. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.ĮLIAS is the academy’s finest soldier- and secretly, its most unwilling. LAIA is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH THE RESISTANCE, IF YOU CONTACT THEM, IF YOU THINK OF CONTACTING THEM, I WILL KNOW THE RESISTANCE HAS TRIED TO PENETRATE THIS SCHOOL COUNTLESS TIMES. I WILL TELL YOU THE SAME THING I TELL EVERY SLAVE.

Ember and ashes