Ah! So many questions! Alright, @abookishhobbit, here we go.
An Ember in the Ashes (by Sabaa Tahir) is a light fantasy/romance novel about a slave girl and a trained assassin. I'll get to my rant in a minute, because things sould be in order.
The Forbidden Wish (by Jessica Khoury) is another fantasy/romance I stumbled on (I wasn't aiming for romance this week, I swear) which I found when looking for one of Khoury's other books, The Mystwick School of Musicraft, which has very fun characters and strong worldbuilding. Sort of a collision between a Ben Aaronovitch-style urban fantasy and Harry Potter's soft magic system. Anyway, The Forbidden Wish is basically a "what if Aladdin's genie was a girl" romantic reimagining. Well done so far, but I'm not even a full chapter in.
Finally, Firebringer (by David Clement-Davies) is a talking animal story, something like Watership Down, only about deer in ancient Scotland. It's got prophesies and adventures and reunions and teenage angst. It's great. I reread it every couple years.
I have a major problem with An Ember in the Ashes, and it's mostly in the characterization of the various players on the board. An intelligent girl that can't follow simple directions (like "keep your eyes down"). A rebellion that sends an untrained youngling to spy for them, then get upset when said youngling doesn't magically do well. A hardened, ruthless assassin who's haunted by killing and hates mistreating people, but also can't conceive of winning this contest to be emperor and changing things.
It's just... painful to read, honestly.
I want to rewrite the whole bloody thing, starting with the premise that the characters actually are the way they're described, rather than acting in completely different ways to enhance the "romantic tension" or whatever.
The worldbuilding is decent and the plot has promise. I want to see this story get the love it deserves.
