An awesome and engrossing series is unfolding here.
You will just love the
brave young heroes and heroines in Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes, who
fight for love, family and freedom in an empire at war. I am still waiting to
get my hands on book three - in the
meantime let me tell you about the first book in the series, An Ember
in the Ashes.
Laia and Elias live within an empire built on corruption,
oppression and class domination. Laia
is from the underclasses, the peasants, who work for the empire as slaves or
servants. Elias is an elite soldier in the Blackcliff Military Academy,
privileged but trained to do the biding of the emperor, trained to kill.
Recently
Elias has become disillusioned with the destiny bestowed on him. He has had
enough of the violence and tyranny of his calling and has been planning an
escape through the many tunnels under the ancient city.
On
the very evening that Elias has planned to escape, Laia’s home is raided and
her brother Darin is arrested for treason. In the scuffle to stop the
soldiers taking Darin away, Laia’s grandparents are brutally murdered before
their eyes. Laia runs from the aggressors but vows to find Darin and help him
escape.
In
the depths of the ancient city’s catacombs Laia seeks out and enlists the help
of rebel insurgents. They arrange for her to stand in as a servant to the cruel
and malicious ‘Commandant’ - leader of the empire’s armies and the Blackcliff
Academy. The Commandant just happens to be Elias’s birth mother.
Laia
believes that if she can survive the cruelties dished out by the abusive
Commandant she will find information about where Darin is being kept. But the
paths of Elias and Laia are about to cross and it seems like their destinies
may be inextricably connected.
But
before either of them are able to achieve their missions, Elias and his best
friend and combat partner Helene are given an even greater set of challenges;
they must go to battle in a series of mystical and merciless trials … unto to
the death.
An
Ember in the Ashes is part of a (so far!) series of three. The following books
in this series are:
A
Torch Against the Night & Reaper at the Gates. Zinga Rating *****
https://www.sabaatahir.com/books/an-ember-in-the-ashes
