Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Une braise sous la cendre

Book TW: ❗️multiple on-page sexual assaults❗️, rape, physical abuse, murder, child abuse, abandonment, torture, physical abuse, emotional abuse, slavery

An Ember in the Ashes was a RIDE. It took me a few chapters to really get engaged with the characters, but once I did, I was really, truly hooked. I cared about every character I was supposed to and even the beastly characters get their brief moments of humanity to solidify them (namely Marcus and the Commandant). But I truly loved and adored our three main players: Elias, Laia, and Helene. I would say of the three, Elias is my favorite because it’s really fascinating to follow a good and moral character in a brutal, cruel situation. I love following him as he grapples with the morality of his forced training to be an assassin and killing machine. He’s complex and sweet and deserves all the good things. Helene is equally fascinating. She’s interesting though because she’s more morally grey in that to cope with the brutality of their world, her loyalty and goodness is reserved for a select few whereas Elias applies these qualities across the board and to everyone. Both make sense to the characters, but it’s also good to see them work through this (somewhat) together over the course of the book. Laia follows a little bit more of a traditional path in terms of goodness and her plot purposes, so while I still loved her, she didn’t quite capture my attention the way Elias and Helene did because I knew the choices she was going to make throughout the book.
A lot of the side characters were also engaging and I’m interested to see the roles they play in later books. All of the character interactions and chemistry is *chef’s kiss.* The only one that I didn’t care about quite as much as I think I was supposed to was Keenan, but I think he may have more room for development in future books. He just didn’t seem quite as engaging as most of the other characters in my opinion.
The plot is fast paced and twisty, with lots of little moments of humanity placed into a brutal, cruel world. Having studied a lot about Roman culture in the last couple years, I did love seeing the Roman inspired world and I hope we’re able to see more outside of just the military/resistance (from all the cultures) out of future books. However, what we did get, especially little gems like the Scholar’s moon festival or the Marshal’s parties were really well done. The magic and mythos were more hinted at in this book, but definitely are hinted to be playing /much/ larger roles in as the series goes on. So I’m interested to see how that plays out.
There were a lot of moments in the book where I just gasped and stopped the audiobook because my feelings were being played like a violin. Tahir seems like a “kill your darlings” writer... I haven’t read beyond the first book, but based on what I’ve read- that’s my prediction. Do with that as you please. The ending was heartstopping and intense and oh my goodness the character stuff it’s setting up for the next novels?! I loved the spy stuff mixed with quest/trial stuff in this novel and it added so many layers of tension to the plot and was well-written.
Seriously though, it was such a good first instalment and if it weren’t for the rest of my Readathon tbr books I’d be picking up Book 2 immediately. I HAVE to see what happens next. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re in the mood for a brutal, dark, fast-paced YA fantasy with great character work and a spying/trials subplot.

Content Warnings

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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