{Waiting On Wednesday} An Ember In The Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

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.

Vow your blood and body to the empire.

Keep your heart for yourself.

Expected publication: April 28th 2015 by Razorbill

Why I Can't Wait To Read This

Because it sounds AMAZING, that's why! This is a debut, so I don't have anything else by the author to compare it to, but the fact that it's being published by Razorbill is already a good sign (Razorbill is the division of Penguin that released Vampire Academy and Bloodlines). So, I have high hopes. The ARC reviews & ratings on Goodreads are really good already, too!

But even if this novel was the first book being published by a completely unknown publisher, it sounds effing good! I just like the fact that the heroine is so dedicated to her family that she'll go against everything she knows to knows to keep her brother safe, while still obviously keeping her wits about her by going undercover. That, and Elias sounds like he'd make a good book boyfriend, doesn't he? We shall see...

What do you think?

And if you haven't done so already, feel free to join in by linking-up to your own Waiting on Wednesday post over at Breaking The Spine.