Hey guys!
Today I'm so pumped to bring to you the review of a book I had been waiting for such a long time so badly!! A Sky Beyond the Storm, the conclusion to the brilliant and beautiful fantasy series An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. So without further ado, let's get into it.
First, let me get out of the way the fact that I knew before I even had this book in my hand that I was gonna love it, and I was right. The series couldn't have ended (alas!) in a more perfect way.
Warning- You might need to keep a tissue box with you handy because you will be sobbing through quite some parts of it 'cause Sabaa Tahir is incredible and cruel and pulverizes your heart in the best of ways...!!
Goodreads description:
Picking up just a few months after A Reaper at the Gates left off...
The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning.
At his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.
Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory--or to an unimaginable doom.
And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life--and love--he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save--or destroy--all that he knows.
It was truly a delight to come back to this world, these characters and to Sabaa Tahir's immersive writing. It only took a few pages for me to get pulled into the book and it genuinely felt like I was coming home.
All the character arcs and plot threads weave and tie together so beautifully in the last book, especially with Helene, because her character grows and develops so much throughout the series. We don't get a lot of new characters added to the group, but I think that was a good decision because it was smarter to just build further on the existing character dynamics rather than introducing new characters so later in the series when we won't even be able to get to know them very well.
I don't wanna get into too much spoilers, but I do want to say that we see a lot of beautiful friendships, and even romances grow over the course of the book (that you would not see coming!)
God, I really wish I could talk spoilers with someone!!
There are some new magical elements that we get to see, we get answers to a lot of questions that we had, and we finally get to know the Nightbringer's story and what actually made him go down this path.
This book is just as action-packed, if not more, than the first three, and I couldn't stop turning the pages. As I said before, it has a a lot more magic, it is more heavy towards the fantasy aspects than all the other books, because comparatively the first three books lean more towards political intrigue rather than magic. So it's something different that I know a lot of fantasy fans will enjoy.
Aaand that was it for my Spoiler-free review of the conclusion of An Ember in the Ashes series! Damn, it was difficult to restrain myself from fangirl-ing all over the place while writing this review.
The moment I finished the book, all I wanted to do was go shouting all over my neighbourhood, "I love ELIAS AND LAIA! LET THE WORLD KNOW THAT LAIA AND ELIAS ARE THE BEST!! And I will fight you for this!"
Anyway, If you've been holding off on reading this series because you're waiting for the last part to come out, then your time has finally come. You can now grab a copy from your nearest bookstores or Amazon or Kindle or wherever the heck you read your books these days, and comfortably binge-read this series.
I'll love to know your thoughts on this. What are some of your favourite fantasy series? Any good ones that make you cry as well as laugh?
Until next time,
Bye!
Comments