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An Ember in the Ashes

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An Ember in the Ashes

de Sabaa Tahir

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Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, An Ember in the Ashes is an epic fantasy debut about an orphan fighting for her family and a soldier fighting for his freedom. It’s a story that’s literally burning to be told.
LAIA is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.

ELIAS is the academy’s finest soldier— and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias is considering deserting the military, but before he can, he’s ordered to participate in a ruthless contest to choose the next Martial emperor.

When Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself.

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Langues:-

English

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Disponible:

0
Copies de la bibliothèque:

2

Niveaux-

Niveau ATOS:
Lexile Measure:

680
Niveau d'intérêt:
Difficulté du texte:

3

Prix remportés-

Children's Choices Selection
International Reading Association & The Children's Book Council

Extraits-

From the cover I. LAIA
My big brother reaches home in the dark hours before dawn, when even ghosts take their rest. He smells of steel and coal and forge. He smells of the enemy.
He folds his scarecrow body through the window, bare feet silent on the rushes. A hot desert wind blows in after him, rustling the limp curtains. His sketchbook falls to the floor, and he nudges it under his bunk with a quick foot, as if it’s a snake.
Where have you been, Darin? In my head, I have the courage to ask the question, and Darin trusts me enough to answer. Why do you keep disappearing? Why, when Pop and Nan need you? When I need you?
Every night for almost two years, I’ve wanted to ask. Every night, I’ve lacked the courage. I have one sibling left. I don’t want him to shut me out like he has everyone else.
But tonight’s different. I know what’s in his sketchbook. I know what it means.
“You shouldn’t be awake.” Darin’s whisper jolts me from my thoughts. He has a cat’s sense for traps—he got it from our mother. I sit up on the bunk as he lights the lamp. No use pretending to be asleep.
“It’s past curfew, and three patrols have gone by. I was worried.”
“I can avoid the soldiers, Laia. Lots of practice.” He rests his chin on my bunk and smiles Mother’s sweet, crooked smile. A familiar look—the one he gives me if I wake from a nightmare or we run out of grain. Everything will be fine, the look says.
He picks up the book on my bed. “Gather in the Night,” he reads the title. “Spooky. What’s it about?”
“I just started it. It’s about a jinn—” I stop. Clever. Very clever. He likes hearing stories as much as I like telling them. “Forget that. Where were you? Pop had a dozen patients this morning.”
And I filled in for you because he can’t do so much alone. Which left Nan to bottle the trader’s jams by herself. Except she didn’t finish. Now the trader won’t pay us, and we’ll starve this winter, and why in the skies don’t you care?
I say these things in my head. The smile’s already dropped off Darin’s face.
“I’m not cut out for healing,” he says. “Pop knows that.”
I want to back down, but I think of Pop’s slumped shoulders this morning. I think of the sketchbook.
“Pop and Nan depend on you. At least talk to them. It’s been months.”
I wait for him to tell me that I don’t understand. That I should leave him be. But he just shakes his head, drops down into his bunk, and closes his eyes like he can’t be bothered to reply.
“I saw your drawings.” The words tumble out in a rush, and Darin’s up in an instant, his face stony. “I wasn’t spying,” I say. “One of the pages was loose. I found it when I changed the rushes this morning.”
“Did you tell Nan and Pop? Did they see?”
“No, but—”
“Laia, listen.” Ten hells, I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear his excuses. “What you saw is dangerous,” he says. “You can’t tell anyone about it. Not ever. It’s not just my life at risk. There are others—”
“Are you working for the Empire, Darin? Are you working for the Martials?”
He is silent. I think I see the answer in his eyes, and I feel ill. My brother is a traitor to his own people? My brother is siding with the Empire?
If he hoarded grain, or sold books, or taught children to read, I’d understand. I’d...

Au sujet de l’auteur-

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 the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

Critiques-

This strong debut featuring two characters who battle to survive a brutal society is perfectly enhanced through its narration. After Laia's family is destroyed, she must pose as a slave in the city's most dangerous location. Fiona Hardingham's soft, cultured tones convey both Laia's overwhelming fear and sheer determination to overcome the horrible abuses she experiences. Alternately, Steve West calls forth the tension in Elias as he struggles to maintain his morality while unwillingly competing to become the next emperor. Secondary characters are well nuanced as Laia and Elias seek comfort and assistance in facing the physical and emotional trials laid before them. Listeners will find themselves drawn in as the narrators bring this society, suggestive of the Roman Empire, vividly to life. J.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
June 29, 2015
This is not the first time Hardingham and West have worked together to bring a YA novel to life: the two previously teamed up on Maggie Stiefvater’s hit The Scorpio Races, and they both have a wealth of audiobook experience as solo narrators. Hardingham narrates the part of Laia, a young woman whose life is turned upside down after most of her family is killed by the Empire (Tahir’s nod to ancient Rome). Hardingham portrays Laia’s fear convincingly through the novel’s first half, when she is roped into spying as a slave inside the household of the Empire’s sadistic military commander—who also happens to be the mother of Elias, the character voiced by West. Elias is a top student at the military academy but longs for freedom and a nonviolent life; West does a fine job depicting Elias’s struggle to remain honorable in a society that rewards only cruelty. Both narrators also voice other characters; for West, one standout is his sage treatment of an ancient soothsayer named Cain, and for Hardingham, it is the raspy narration of a jaded rebel turned-slave whom Laia meets while undercover. Engaging vocal performances and a fast-paced story line will keep listeners riveted. Ages 14–Up. A Razorbill hardcover.
Starred review from February 2, 2015
As one of the conquered Scholar people, Laia has grown wary of the ruthless Masks that enforce the Martial empire’s laws. But the lesson doesn’t hit home until Masks imprison her brother for aiding the Scholar Resistance. Desperate to save him, Laia agrees to spy for the rebels as a slave in Blackcliff, the hellish school where Masks are trained. Her mission becomes all the more dangerous when the empire’s prophetic Augurs announce that, for the first time in centuries, four newly graduated Masks will compete for the emperor’s throne. One of these “Aspirants,” Elias, had been on the verge of desertion before he was chosen, and he only stays to compete because of the Augurs’ warning that he will never know freedom unless he undergoes the Trials. Tahir’s deft, polished debut alternates between two very different perspectives on the same brutal world, deepening both in the contrast. In a tale brimming with political intrigue and haunted by supernatural forces, the true tension comes from watching Elias and Laia struggle to decide where their loyalties lie. Ages 14–up. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, Janklow & Nesbit.

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de Sabaa Tahir

Sabaa Tahir

Fiona Hardingham

Steve West

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de Sabaa Tahir

Sabaa Tahir

Fiona Hardingham

Steve West

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