The overall plot is very Hunger Games-esque, especially once the trials are introduced at Blackcliff – four grueling tests that Elias, his best friend Helene, and twin brothers Markus and Zak are chosen to participate in in order to determine who the next emperor will be. While the majority of the scholars are forced to endure raids on their houses and being forced into enslavement, there is a group that has formed a resistance, which once included Laia’s parents before their death. Within the Empire is a school called Blackcliff, where young boys (and the occasional girl) are trained until they become ‘Masks’ – the most fearsome soldiers of the Empire, discernible by the silver masks that literally meld to their faces. Laia is a Scholar – the class of people who have been oppressed and enslaved by the Martials, the class of people who have pledged themselves to the Empire.

Some quick background on the plot before diving in. It was pitched to me as a story about a girl who is forced to spy for the resistance on the big bad Empire, where her unlikely ally turns out to be the best soldier the Empire has ever trained – who just so happens to despise everything that the Empire stands for. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined-and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.Īn Ember in the Ashes was one of the many, many books that were pitched to me at this year’s Siren’s Conference during their book speed dating shindig (not kidding when I say going to that made me buy 5 books, and I would have bought more if my suitcase had been bigger). Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier-and secretly, its most unwilling. 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. When Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free. Publisher : Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House

An ember in the ashes by sabaa tahir