4.0
An Ember in the Ashes
ByPublisher Description
BOOK ONE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SERIES • One of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy and 100 Best YA Books of All Time • People's Choice Award winner • Bustle's Best Young Adult Book
“This novel is a harrowing, haunting reminder of what it means to be human—and how hope might be kindled in the midst of oppression and fear.” — The Washington Post
The beloved and bestselling fantasy series that “glows, burns, and smolders.” (Huffington Post).
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR FROM The Wall Street Journal • Buzzfeed • LA Weekly • Bustle • Paste Magazine • Indigo • Suspense Magazine • The New York Public Library • Popsugar • Hypable
“This novel is a harrowing, haunting reminder of what it means to be human—and how hope might be kindled in the midst of oppression and fear.” — The Washington Post
The beloved and bestselling fantasy series that “glows, burns, and smolders.” (Huffington Post).
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR FROM The Wall Street Journal • Buzzfeed • LA Weekly • Bustle • Paste Magazine • Indigo • Suspense Magazine • The New York Public Library • Popsugar • Hypable
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesAn Ember in the Ashes Reviews
4.0
“Laia lives in the Martial Empire, with her grandparents and her brother. Laia and her family are Scholar people, who are suppressed and often enslaved by the Martials who invaded their land. When Laia's brother is arrested for treason, she becomes a spy for the resistance at the Empire's best military academy. There she meets Elias, son of the feared Commandant and the finest student of the academy.
This was really good and I got sucked into the story from the start. I loved that this book was dual POV, you're essentially getting two stories in one slowly merging towards the end. And trials are an often returning theme in fantasy books, but here it was done well. The trials were high stakes, especially that third trial was insane!
At times the story got really brutal: whipping to death, slavery, mutilation, etc. For a YA book is got quite graphic, so keep that in mind before starting this. In terms of writing style I would say it definitely fit the YA category, it was easy to follow and the worldbuilding wasn't overdone.
Laia was full of self doubt and about halfway through that got a bit annoying. I wanted to shake her and make her see her bravery. Cause she is going through some crazy stuff, still thinking she is not enough. Nah girl, you are ridiculously brave. Elias was super interesting to follow, thrown into a military academy at the age of six where beatings, whippings and death are common punishments for disobedience. No wonder there are so many insane people in the academy. For him to still have some sense of morality is remarkable.
So overall great book and will gladly continue with the next one!”
“I MEAANNNNN?? What was thattt! The book was GREAT
Since my friend told me about the vibes (we hunt the flame and twk) I LOCKED IN!!
These books are a sole genre to me, I can’t get bored with it, AND IT CANNOT DISAPPOINT EITHER!!
I lost myself reading it literally, binged for three days straight, loving Helene, hating Helen, loving Helen, hating Helen, and then finally loving Helen.
I do actually ship her with Elias lol
And Laia is just my baby, I can’t count how many times I related to her
It’s amazing how a single book can have a trilogy's worth of scenes and plots. I wonder what she will give next bc that’s insane!??&?&?
The 0.5 ⭐️ was for the ironic consequences of how ppl just discovered the FMC’s identity randomly lol
READ IT PLS! NOW”
About Sabaa Tahir
SABAA TAHIR is a former newspaper editor who grew up in California’s Mojave Desert at her family’s eighteen-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, listening to thunderous indie rock, and playing guitar and piano badly. Her #1 New York Times bestselling An Ember in the Ashes series has been translated into more than thirty-five languages, and the first book in the series was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. Tahir’s most recent novel, All My Rage, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry, and was an instant New York Times bestseller.
Visit Sabaa online at SabaaTahir.com and follow her on Instagram @SabaaTahir and TikTok @SabaaTahirAuthor.
Visit Sabaa online at SabaaTahir.com and follow her on Instagram @SabaaTahir and TikTok @SabaaTahirAuthor.
Other books by Sabaa Tahir
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