Ember Queen (Ash Princess Book 3) Kindle Edition

This fantasy romance trilogy reached a satisfying but inevitable end, but was not built on the strongest of foundations. It is told in first person present tense pov which can pull you right in if you like the style. It makes for a decent read, and it has a great audible version that is priced about $3 more than average. All three books do not have chapter numbers, which is annoying as all get out, but breaks up chapters with titles. The main protagonist is 16 in the book and ages a year through the trilogy. She, as well as her friends, are about the same age but do not act like it. They seemed to be older characters given younger ages because of the authors desired target audience. The story is emotional with the author not being shy about pulling at the readers heartstrings. The content remains clean for young adults and above and only gets a bit steamy for one scene in this third and final book. The language remained clean throughout.Some honey before a lot of whine. Larua Sebastian made me really care for her characters. Part of that is the first person presence tense story telling style that has become popular in some YA. It does make emphasizing with the protagonist much easier, as we feel and see through her view of the world. Sebastian is not shy about making brutal storytelling decisions. Yes they are some death flags but there was also some surprising moments there too.I found this series increasingly frustrating the further along I got. There was an awesome elemental magic system the author had at her hands but the very setup of the story from book one was illogical. Basically a non magical medieval country with an aggressive conquer and consume mentality jumped from island to island over a century using up the resources killing and enslaving locals somehow overpowered and enslaved a magically powerful island country. Book 1 begins powerfully with in your face emotions but with each book the weakness in the world building and logic of it did get distracting.Laura Sebastian has some good tools and writer tricks. Overall I enjoyed the story. The author did send some sandninjias my way. That alone gives me reason to read her again. However for a fantasy romance I cared more for the friendships of the characters and how they related to each other. The romantic elements of the story felt a bit off, part of this is because for the age group of the characters, there was a mix of storytelling quality. It felt as is Sebastian had a checklist to get through to hit certain romantic notes in the series but meant to keep it pg for the most part so she never really invested in the main romance. At the same time she had desire to push some virtue signaling in the story that fitted with an older audience.This review would go on forever if I broke it or down too much, but we seen the authors worldview rather bluntly. Amost all male antagonis leaders were misogynist pushing the ‘women are meant to be a pretty, silent, and usable’ trop. I am hard pressed to think of any male character that is a kind hearted good guy who is not gay, have aspergers, or is a flawed romatic interest. The main love interest is supposed to be a highly skilled fighter but in each book is side lined or playing the dude in destress and needing of rescue card. In the second book it is revealed that ours heroes' matriartical culture is so modernly enlighted that the concept of virginity, and any value of it has never been considered. For the most by the end of the story all the capable and competent characters are women, sacrafical lambs, or gay. Having a good amount of contrast with characters helps makes things subtle.Reading a work that pushes and opposing worldview to my own can be difficult but enjoyable. Sometimes I do have to ignore the preachy parts and this series while not preachy is a bit eye roll worthy. The House of Night series is much the same, though in that series first few books white males protestants are the devil. That seires did a better job with the gay character as he has a personaily and is interesting outside of just being gay. Making a character fit in the story needs to feel natural and not something that is there to fit a demographic or to be able to put an additional sales tag on the book series.As much as I complained i did enjoy listening to the series as I drove across the country a few times.

Simple easy read. Great story line and characters.

To be completely fair, this series is one of the better ones in this genre. It's by no means the best, but it certainly isn't the worst. I had no issue with the side characters, or the villains in this series. The character development was masterfully done and I enjoyed getting to know all of the characters better throughout the series, and understand their decision making. Even the main Heroin was thoughtfully written and easy to root for. But the ending to this trilogy was so underwhelming, it ruins all of the groundwork that was laid for us to get here.Overall, this trilogy was enjoyable and there were many twists involved and solid strategies at work to end the war, however the overall storyline was very predictable. There were no surprise deaths or outcomes in the end, the author basically established who would survive and who would win early on, and so yes, the ending was predictable, but again, the way in which we got there was interesting enough for me to finish the series and enjoy it a lot. If you're interested in why the ending hurts the series, keep reading:Theo is meant to be the savior of her country and from the moment you start the series, you know she's going to succeed. The only question is how will she get there. The answer is by working hard, trusting the right allies, and actually thinking (yes, this heroin thinks for herself) of the best solutions and convincing her allies to join her in executing them. She's not afraid to actually fight in a reasonable manner, knowing when she can help and when she will be a liability, and also knowing when self sacrifice is the right play (although it never pans out, it's impressive that she'd die for her cause).**SPOILERS:This is exactly why the ending is so horrible, because in the end, it's not her, but Blaise, who sacrifices himself for the country. It's not her, but Cress herself, who takes her own life and rids the world of her cruelty. So much hard work and effort Theo put into freeing her country, and in the climax of the entire trilogy, when she's faced with killing Cress, her loyal wraiths, and saving the people who are held captive, she let's Blaise do all the work while she - get this - literally holds on to him. That's it. That's what she did to win her country back. She held on to a boy, and then instead of knocking him out which we know would have worked because it was established in the second book, she kills him because the author wanted him dead, I guess.If Theo wasn't involved in the final showdown of the book, her country still would've won the war. Perhaps this wouldn't have damaged the series so much if it was written in third person. A story told about a group of friends fighting for their country in third person would've given a broader perspective and significantly increased the importance of each person involved. But when the story is told through the eyes of one heroin and her involvement in the climax is underwhelming, the reader is left feeling underwhelmed as well.I am looking forward to reading more books from this author and I'm glad that I found this series. Nothing's perfect, but this was by no means a waste of time. It's a great story, flaws and all.

Ember Queen, the third book in the Ash Princess trilogy, was not, in my opinion, a bad book. Unfortunately, many reviewers do not agree with me, blaming its pacing, its ending, its loose threads and its imperfect solution to peace.I thought the pacing fine, the ending sad but satisfactory, and the loose threads both minor and reflective of reality in the way that there wasn't a resolution or happy ever after for every tiny little thing. As for the 'solution' to peace: it was one monarch's plan. It wasn't fated to succeed, nor confirmed that it had. If identifying a perfect solution was so easy that an author can fit it in among writing a freaking trilogy, then conflict would have been abolished a long time ago. No, Ember Queen wasn't anything revolutionary; nothing special, but a solid ending to the series nonetheless.It feels like a long time since I picked up the first book among my sister's veritable library of fantasy stories, entranced by its cover. I dove into the world of Astrea, with its foreign occupation, its survivors, its stolen resources and its resilient queen. While it hasn't been my favourite series, and I found it difficult to get through the second book, I have a soft spot for Theo and her group of misfits. Soren especially, although the romance took a back seat to politics and strategy in this instalment, and for good reason: the latter was fascinatingly written.Maybe I won't remember much of this series in a few years time, but that's okay, because I enjoyed it while it lasted.“Careful with her!” Heron chides. “She’s a bit fragile at the moment.”Erik scoffs. “Queen Theodosia? I’ve seen boulders more fragile.”

I can't remember the last time a book captured my imagination & interest, made me laugh-out-loud, demanded nothing less than total emotional investment in multiple authentic characters & their relationships and, finally, even managed to bring me to tears with the final interaction between the female protagonist and her childhood friend. An exceptional trilogy by a talented writer

This was the third book of The Ash Princess Trilogy. Excellent story, good characters, full of suspense not knowing how everything would turn out. Would recommend this series of books especially if you are a fan of Sarah J. Maas, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare and Leigh Bardugo.

Absolutely amazing book I'm in love with the trilogy and haven't stopped reading since !! I have been counting down the days since July when I read lady smoke for this one to come out . I ship blaze x Theo and soren x Theo but most importantly Erik x Herron

I liked that it has strong female leads.I don’t like that it ends rather abruptly with her on the throne. No follow up chapter of ie 5years later what has been accomplished.People who love the touch of fantasy and not having every woman as a damsel needing saving will love following Theo and her accomplices on the journey to Queendom.

So glad that I had all three books to hand rather than waiting for the next to arrive and wait for the rest of the story. I couldn't put this book or the other two down. I honestly felt as though I was in this book, that I felt everything the characters did. Cannot wait for another book by this author, definitely my favourite books ever.