4/15/2019

Elias & Laia-In Den Fängen Der Finsternis by Sabaa Tahir

A Reaper at the Gates is written gently as silk and yet so powerful. Good, in this case, I prefer the German cover over the original one, but what matters the most is the story itself. And that one was WOW! Good, it took me a while to get into the story, to understand all the back and forth during the first few chapters, but then … holy moly! It was wonderful to dive back into the novel and story of Elias and Laia. Although I was not happy with the end.

Elias & Laia In Den Fängen Der Finsternis

by Sabaa Tahir
An Ember In The Ashes #3
Translation Barbara Imgrund
Original Title A Reaper At The Gates
Publisher One on February 28, 2019
Genre Children 14+
Pages 523
Format Hardcover
Source Publisher

Goodreads

✶✶✶✶½

The world will burn. But she will rise from the ashes. The martial empire is on the brink: Emperor Marcus covers the land with the blood of the innocent, while Blood Shrike Helena tries to protect them. Far to the east, Laia knows she has to stop the Nightbringer, and that without Elias. He is bound as a Soul Catcher to the land between the living and the dead. The spiritual realm. Damned to serve unconditionally – even if it means abandoning the woman he loves. Their fate is linked. And they all fight against an ancient power whose destructive power they all underestimate … (personal translation by ©Vi at Inkvotary).

Story

Laia wants to save her people from the bloody war the emperor Marcus is leading against the innocent. Helena, the emperors´ Blood Shrike tries to keep her sister from his brutal wrath and Elias faces some trouble as a Soul Catcher. And while cities burn to ashes in the downfall of the empire, Laia learns the bitter truth about her mother. 

Style

I don´t know how Sabaa Tahir does it or where she finds her inspiration but reading A Reaper at the Gates was like watching a dream in which Laia plays the main part. The writing style smooth as silk,  words like pearls, and the action as bloody as someone can imagine. 

What a great combination.

Yes, there are pages where the story kind of splatters to herself, and I read details and things I wasn´t really interested in, but the rest? One heck of a bloody, cruel, and yet very sensitive story that answers many questions but leaves others unanswered.

Characters

Laia needs to find a way to save her people and others from the emperor’s bloody war. To do that, she needs answers. But every time she comes close to one, someone seems to do everything within their power to keep her from getting it. And without Elias, Laia has no other choice but to use her magic and to do things, she´d never thought she´d do. Her strength, her will, and the way how she acts change during the ongoing story. That was very impressive. She literally grows-up in front of the reader´s eye and in the end, you know that nothing will be the same for her.

Conclusion

This was one bloody, emotional, and action-filled novel. I did not like the end, and was, after reading it, sad, angry, and confused. So, yes, I got caught emotionally in the best way a book is able to. If you are no fan of the author and this series yet, see this as a highly recommended novel. 

Happy reading

*This book was kindly provided to me by One in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Thank you. Therefore, the cover of the German edition is shown first in this review.

*The book was originally published A Reaper At The Gates by Razorbill on June 12, 2018. 

Sabaa Tahir

Sabaa Tahir grew up in California´s Mojave Desert at her family´s eighteen-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, raiding her brother´s comic book stash, and playing guitar badly. She began writing An Ember in the Ashes while working nights as a newspaper editor. She likes thunderous indie rock, garish socks, and all things nerdy. Sabaa currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

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2/24/2017

A Torch Against The Night by Sabaa Tahir

Sometimes you want to read a book because you get so attracted to the cover. This time it was not only because of that but also because I wanted to know how the story about Laia and Elias would continue. So if you are in for a very opulent, bloody, emotional and pictorial novel, then you should definitely read this! This is one of the books where I was in an emotional turmoil after I had finished it. I wasn´t sure about the rating, I wasn´t sure about what to think of all that had happened in it and I was for sure looking for a sense in all that I had just read.

A Torch Against The Night*

by Sabaa Tahir
An Ember In The Ashes #2
Publisher Razorbill on August 30, 2016
Genre Children 14+
Pages 452
Format Hardcover
Source Purchased

Goodreads

✶✶✶✶

Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire. Laia is determined to break into Kauf – the Empire´s most secure and dangerous prison – to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars´ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom. But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene – Elias´s former friend and the Empire´s newest Blood Shrike. Bound to Marcus´s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own – one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape … and kill them both. 

Story

Laia and Elias are running for their lives. The Martial soldiers want to kill them because the new Emperor Marcus can´t stand that Elias didn´t choose him but instead freedom. But having power, using power, and being really powerful are different things. And the Commandant, Elias own mother, can´t let the son, she never loved nor wanted, just let go. She wants him to suffer, to die a certain death, and shows no mercy in fighting him. With the help of others, the sacrifice of many innocent and two clever women Laia and Elias can do the unthinkable and stand against the Empire.

Style

The story is actually very easy. A girl wants to free her imprisoned brother and does everything to achieve that. Even if that means that she has to bond with the enemy. But the thing about Sabaa Tahir is, she doesn´t do things the easy way. Her style is very pictorial, she writes opulent and not everything that is happening makes sense at first sight. And the fact, that she obviously has a favor for the Roman Empire and how some of its more or less famous Emperors loved to kill just for the thrill of it, is maybe not for everyone. 

Sabaa Tahir goes very much into details; you need to read carefully to get all the gist’s that are spoken in the dialogues because if you miss something, you get confused about why this or that is now happening. And then there are all those twists and turns. Those unexpected things that give this story something you need to figure out yourself. 

Characters

Never let your enemy or the ones who surround you see your weakness if there is any. Never give them the chance to think you can´t do what you are supposed to do and most of all, never underestimate the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of your new Emperor.

Helene has to learn that the very brutal and most destructive way. She is the one, who is called A Torch Against The Night and she is the one, who probably does something that gives Elias and Laia the chance to fight their own fight and follow their own plans. She is a woman I had sometimes my difficulties with. And to be honest, sometimes I wasn´t sure if I like her at all. 

Elias has changed. He no longer can be a Mask, though he still thinks and can act as one. But for him, the time where he only does what his Commandant and Emperor want him to do, to kill people, isn´t his thing anymore. He wants to be free, there has to be something else, another way of life that he feels is what he really wants. And with Laia he is sure, he will find it, though it means that he has to do everything a bit slower.

Conclusion

It took me much longer to read this book than I thought it would. But I just couldn´t just read it and then go to the next book. In between, I had to stop, to let that, what I had just read sink in otherwise I would have been completely overwhelmed by it. I loved reading it, yes, but I wasn´t as thrilled as I thought I would be. Despite that, it is a book I highly recommend. 

Happy reading

*I read the German edition published by One. 

Sabaa Tahir

Sabaa Tahir grew up in California´s Mojave Desert at her family´s eighteen-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, raiding her brother´s comic book stash, and playing guitar badly. She began writing An Ember in the Ashes while working nights as a newspaper editor. She likes thunderous indie rock, garish socks, and all things nerd. Sabaa currently lives in San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

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2/10/2017

An Ember In The Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

When I first got a glimpse of this book, I was immediately intrigued by its summary and cover. And reading it was way more than I´ve expected. The Roman Empire with all its glory, brutality, and beauty combined with a great story about two people who find in one another the key to change something. Those two eyes that were looking at the observer had something striking. The rich brown, the shiny gold, the silver-gray of the mask, and the shade of green in those eyes … Well, I couldn´t resist and simply had to have it. And to read it, of course!

An Ember In The Ashes*

by Sabaa Tahir
An Ember In The Ashes #1
Publisher Razorbill on April 28, 2015
Genre Children 14+
Pages 464
Format Hardcover
Source Publisher

Goodreads

✶✶✶✶

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire´s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They´ve seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia´s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from the rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire´s greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school´s finest soldier – and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he´s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined – and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

Story

Laia has no choice but to go unusual ways to be able to find a way to free her brother. Darin is in great danger because of the things he knows, of what he got taught by his teacher. To free him, she needs to become close with the enemy, the Martial soldiers, and their Commandant. But not everything is as she expected and to spy on them is dangerous, but gives her a big advantage. 

Style

From the main view of Laia and Elias, this novel is written in a soft and clear tone and structured into three parts. Somehow this story reminded me very strongly about the Roman Empire. There are fights; friends have to fight against friends, a cruel commander goes around and some people mean nothing at all. Sabaa Tahir shows her very own world of the Roman Empire, about hope and what it means to fight for something you believe in. The world in this novel is cruel, without any mercy and yet you get haunted by it, want to read more, and see how everything unfolds. There is certain magic between the pages that hits you right into your mark. 

Characters

Laia is a young woman who loses within no time not only her parents but also her grandparents and her brother to the brutal regime of her country. But to save her brother, she has to become a slave and to go right into the center of the worst cruelty she´s ever experienced. The author shows very fantastically how Laia changes from the scary little girl into a woman who fights and stands up for what she believes in and for what she loves. 

Elias is trained since early childhood to be nothing but a soldier, a mask who does everything for the Empire. His soul, his body, his blood even his thoughts belong to the Empire and yet it isn´t enough for the commander. She wants more and stops at nothing, to show him who´s in control and charge of his life.

Conclusion

This novel is incredibly brutal and haunting at the same time. And written with a great portion of sensitiveness that shows a world of hate, capriciousness, and slaves. Sabaa Tahir has a very haunting fantasy, and her ability to create scenes and get the reader to use their own imagination makes this fantasy novel very unique.

Happy reading

*The German edition was published by One. 

Sabaa Tahir

Sabaa Tahir grew up in California´s Mojave Desert at her family´s eighteen-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, raiding her brother´s comic book stash, and playing guitar badly. She began writing An Ember in the Ashes while working nights as a newspaper editor. She likes thunderous indie rock, garish socks, and all things nerd. Sabaa currently lives in San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

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