A Sky Beyond the Storm

An Ember in the Ashes, Book 4

By: Sabaa Tahir, Freddie Gaminara

Narrated by: Joe Gaminara, Samantha Sutherland, Aysha Kala, Julie Maisey, Freddie Gaminara

Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Prepare for the jaw-dropping finale of Sabaa Tahir's beloved New York Times best-selling An Ember in the Ashes fantasy series, and discover who will survive the storm.

Picking up just a few months after A Reaper at the Gates left off.

The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning.

At his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself empress and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.

Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory or to an unimaginable doom.

And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life and love he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save - or destroy - all that he knows.

©2020 Sabaa Tahir (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"A harrowing, haunting reminder of what it means to be human." (Washington Post)

"Takes you into a world as bloody and ruthless as Game of Thrones, but there’s a tender and humane heart to these books, too." (New York Times)

An underwhelming finish - worse narration

Not overly thrilled by how this series finished. The plot dragged on and the only character I had even the slightest interest in towards the end was Helene. The rest, including Laia and Elias - of which I have shipped SO HARD from the very beginning, had little development and did little to make me root for them. BUT that being said... I do feel that listening to the audiobook instead of reading the physical book most definitely did not help because the narration is absolutely AWFUL!

The narrators for this book are all new, which in itself isn't a problem. However, it is so painfully obvious that they haven't even bothered to listen to the other books to see how names and places are pronounced? Surely this is audiobook narration 101? I listened to all the four books back-to-back and the first three are fantastic, which it was even more disappointing having to sit through 16 hours of listening to even the MAIN CHARACTERS' names being mispronounced. It was painful. There were also other glaring things like 'skims' instead of 'sims' (5.37) and 'harbour' instead of Harper (4.49). Don't even get me started on how Helene suddenly turned into Helen and how the word 'says' was pronounced throughout the whole 16 hours by Laia's narrator.

My biggest regret is that I chose to listen to the audiobook rather than pick up the book itself. Do yourself a favour and buy the book in the store.