Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Thursday, July 19, 2018
An Ember in the Ashes
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Laia lives with her grandparents and brother in a medieval world where they barely eek out an existence until her grandparents are slaughtered by the Martials and her brother is captured by the Empire. Laia must find a way to survive on her own and free her brother from prison.
Elias is one of the best soldiers in the Empire, but he is yearning to be free of their tyrannical reign. His only goal is to escape and live a life where fighting and killing are not mandatory.
Their story is told in alternating views between Laia and Elias. Sometimes the violence and brutality were a little hard to take, so I ended up skipping some of it. The story captures your attention quickly and never slows down. There always seems to be a love triangle in the young adult books, but this one has a love "square"and it did grow a little tiresome.
Overall, I did enjoy the book and plan on reading the sequel.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Monday, July 2, 2018
Ashes on the Moor
Ashes on the Moor by Sarah M. Eden
Evangeline is raised in a high-class Victorian family. She is sent to live in a small mill town in Northern England where she is faced with sudden poverty and a heart-breaking separation from her sister. She desperately tries to prove herself able to be reunited with her sister, but is met with constant challenges, one of which is her unfeeling aunt who is determined to see Evangeline fail. Her only friend is her neighbor Dermot, an Irish immigrant who feels just as out of place as she does.
The author does a good job immersing the reader in the culture and environment of an English factory town in the late 1800s, including the Yorkshire vernacular that the locals used. The story is a bit slow moving at first, but is a pleasant read with well developed characters and an enjoyable "proper romance".
received 4 stars on Goodreads
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