The Final Strife: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller: Book 1 (The Ending Fire)

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I was drawn into her tragic backstory, while also figuring out the role she plays in the larger narrative. To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. Saara El-Arifi's epic SFF debut The Final Strife is an incredibly brutal tale of an empire built on blood through torn skin.

There are a host of side characters, some you’ll love, some not so much, but all incredibly written.This book, the first in a trilogy, follows Sylah, a red-blooded Ember stolen by blue-blooded Dusters when she was a baby and raised to infiltrate the Ember ranks and bring the empire down. With The Final Strife being the first in a trilogy, it will be great to see what else El-Arifi comes out with. Most of the changeling Duster children were discovered and killed, but Anoor’s Ember mother could not have her reputation tarnished by admitting that the Sandstorm had infiltrated her home, so kept Anoor’s secret. There are so many themes in this book, love, loss, addiction, revenge, and racism all set in an immense fantasy world. Whilst there is plenty of oppression and violence in The Final Strife, it is refreshing to see that it is not down to gender or sexuality.

In this series starter, El-Arifi has laid the foundation for a truly spectacular series as well as book. Anoor was by far my favorite character from The Final Strife, and it is a lot of fun here to see her embody her more assertive confidence she attained in the previous book in her new role as disciple. Every aspect of The Final Strife feels extremely thorough, from the glossary to the epigraphs El-Arifi crafts at the beginning of each chapter.The oral story is lifelike, vivid, and rhythmic, and I could clearly hear the cadence of the teller’s voice and the beat of his drum. Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for granting my wish and providing me with an eARC of this book! Sylah is a complete mess, but she is stronger than she thinks she is, and I loved reading her journey. The world did require a lot of exposition at first, and it was not handled especially elegantly (a lot of blunt description or unnatural dialogue), but once that had passed the book went from strength to strength, and sets up a next book which I suspect will be even stronger.

The continent has a very strange ecology – our protagonists encounter terrifying predators, giant mushroom cities, as well as new environmental disasters that are tearing the world apart.It has instantly become one of my favourite reads this year, and I have not been this excited about the start of a new series in a long time. Although targets and combat were part of the test, competitors also had to prove their skills in other areas: tactics, stealth, blood magic, and strength of mind. The characters feel appropriately complex, and the relationships (including romantic) convinced me easily. There are three main character in this book – all female and of different castes: Sylah (Ember), Anoor (Duster) and Hassan (Ghosting). I just loved all the details that fleshed out this world, especially since part of the story involves characters seeking the truth after finding a piece of a map that doesn’t fit the historical accounts they’ve all heard.

I should note that part of this does involve the introduction of the chosen one trope (for anyone either looking for this or to avoid this); the chosen one plot never really resolves itself so I don’t know if El-Arifi is leaning into the trope or subverting it. Content warnings: Drug abuse/withdrawal, child abuse, gore, racism/colonization, fatphobia, kidnapping, murder, violence; sexual content. And the truth they find has the power to ignite a war in the sequel to The Final Strife, the continuation of a visionary fantasy trilogy inspired by Africa and Arabia. This setting does not have obstacles for women or LGBTQ+ people—as shown through the lives of the three main characters, a trans woman and two women who are attracted to each other—but instead, has divisions based on blood color.She’s especially wistful when the tournament she was supposed to enter draws near, but she has an opportunity to influence it after all—even if it’s not how she’d always imagined—when she breaks into the rooms of the Warden of Strength’s daughter and meets Anoor.