This was different, and enjoyable. You never really know what is happening until the end, and then it leaves you on a cliffhanger which left me wanting to continue reading to see what will happen to Ember.

I really enjoyed Ember Burning! I loved how beautiful and descriptive the writing was. It made you feel like you were there experiencing it with Ember. I loved all the twists and turns! It’s fast paced too, which fits well with the story. This book is dark and does contain a few triggers so you should be careful if you pick this book up. Pick this book up if you want a dark, suspenseful book with some fantasy as well!

Thank you for the opportunities to read this book. I have attempted it on a number of occasions but unfortunately I haven’t been able to get into it.

The concept of Ember Burning is great and Jennifer Alsever is such a descriptive writer, but she fails to describe with enough detail just what is happening. It took AGES for me to catch onto what was happening, but the mixture of magic, fantasy, and Egyptian hieroglyphs just threw me off. There is a lot going on here and very little ties it all together. Sure, it's the first in a trilogy and normally it would be right up my alley, but this is one trilogy I won't be finishing. I think other readers will love this, but it's a miss for me. I want more depth to my characters and a whole lot more understanding if I'm investing my time into multiple books.

I found this book confusing but rewarding to read, I enjoyed how it made me think and try to connect the dots of the plot lines but sometimes I felt I was doing that a little too much.

Excellent novel. It ends with a cliffhanger. I am looking forward to the continuation of the series.

This is a very difficult review to write without giving away any spoilers. I’ll do my best but it will likely sound rather cryptic. I have so many questions and things I want to talk about but I don't want to ruin it for anyone else. To be honest even though I've finished the book, I'm not clear on exactly what was going on so my spoilers would be more speculation than fact anyway. So here's my spoiler free, annoyingly vague review:

After the accidental death of her parents, Ember unravels and masks her pain with alcohol and drugs. Some pretty dark things happen to her while intoxicated and I’m hoping we will delve deeper into the effects of this in later books in the series. I feel like it was such a major life event and yet wasn’t explored nearly enough. Ember escapes her depression and pain by escaping into Trinity Forest which has a spooky and dangerous reputation. She has more than a smidgen of a death wish. What she finds in Trinity is strange and unexpected, and seems like the perfect solution to her problems. The old adage “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is” is especially apt in this case. Trinity is much darker and more terrible than anything she, or I, imagined. Its tainted pleasures can’t cover up the underlying danger for long. The story was a lot darker than I was expecting and parts were pretty creepy.

Ember is a very interesting character with a lot of depth. Her seemingly charmed life was taken away in the blink of an eye with the death of her family. Her resulting addictions and recklessness reveal a total disregard for her own safety or well-being. She just wants to be numb and not hurt anymore. It’s a very relatable feeling although I’ve never felt anything quite so hopeless. Faced with the horrors of Trinity she’s actually quite brave and resilient. I think the situation brings out her inner strength. She isn’t a perfect heroine but she’s a real heroine, flaws and all.

The cliff-hanger ending was especially cruel and I immediately bought the second book in the series. It ended at the worst possible point and it was a bit disappointing and a lot frustrating. It did make me buy book two so I guess it did its intended job!

Thank you to Sawatch Publishing and Xpresso Book Tours for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

This book was certainly creative and reminded me of The Raven Boys a bit. It has the same magical/mystic feel to it although Ember Burning does not have a group of friends that are working towards the same end goal and/or solving a mystery.
I wasn't sure what to make of Ember. She seemed like one big contradiction because she would feel one thing but do something completely different. She didn't seem affected by certain things that happened in the book and this bothered me a lot. I don't feel like an issue should be added to a book if the author is not planning to take the time to delve into the consequences of that event on the character both emotionally and physically. I didn't find Ember to be a likeable character. She was extremely selfish and self destructive. I didn't want her to be successful in any of her endeavors because I didn't feel that she had any redeeming qualities.
Ember Burning was too trippy for me. I can understand what the author was trying to do but it just wasn't for me. It didn't seem like there was any triumph or joy in the story. I know that there is a sequel but there a lot of issues that are brought up within the book without any of them being resolved at all. It didn't seem like any of the characters grew throughout the book. I needed something to change or happen and it did not.

This was an intriguing premise - a girl escaping her life by entering a dimension almost frozen in time in the middle of a forest, before realizing that not only does she perhaps not want to escape her life but that the escape is somewhat poisonous.
Ember is not having the greatest start to her senior year, her parents are dead, her brother has gone off to college leaving her with a grandmother who just doesn't get her. She has also developed a somewhat weird obsession - collecting images and information on missing people, not aware that she is about to become one of those missing people herself.
Running from a life that is spiraling out of control, Ember enters Trinity Forest, a place she has been told no one should go. She soon discovers that there is a whole other world - one that promises freedom yet is a new form of imprisonment - one with terrible consequences.
I would actually give this book three and half stars as it really has some great moments but for me, there was a slightly dark undertone that didn't always work convincingly. It is a good read for older teenagers - I don't think some of the material works for younger readers in terms of the drug use and subtle exploration of sexual abuse. It was part fantasy/part harsh reality so I wasn't quite sure where the book wanted to sit. I was engaged for the most part with Ember's journey and certainly want to know what is going to happen next as it really did end on a cliffhanger. Worth giving a go if you like a story with mystery, dark fantasy and a strong female lead.

This book was nothing like I thought it would be. It was much weirder and at times even a bit confusing. In fact the characters themselves kept saying how weird each situation was and if that word wasn’t used so often I might not have thought of this book as being as strange as it was.


I really wanted to enjoy this book more, but I just ended up being put off by it. I think it focused on too many random things for me to be able to truly connect with the parts that I did like. This book is like a tangled web that you have to sift through carefully until it becomes clear, but in the end it just gets more tangled up. One of the biggest examples of this for me was that I could never understand Ember’s guilt which is a huge part of the story, she says she is the cause of her parents death, but when it is explained it still doesn’t seem like it was ever her fault. Ember’s subconscious is extremely affected by this so much so that it even is a factor with the ending of this book (which I didn’t really enjoy).


Ember Burning is just one of those books that wasn’t for me. There is were too many things that I wanted from it that just didn’t happen and then a lot of it was just plain weird. As a major fantasy lover I had some high hopes for this book, but sometimes some books just are not meant for you.

This book was so different than what I anticipated. Full of so much tragedy, sadness, blame, and hate Ember decides to take a detour one day and see what Trinity Forest is all about, wheat she finds makes her feel even more lost than before. This book is full of so many emotions and serious issues found hidden in the chapters, be warned that this is not a lite read this book takes the readers into a journey of darkness sadness, and hope. I cannot wait to read book 2. Thank you NetGalley and Jennifer Alsever for allowing me to read this book and write a honest review.

Ember is the reason her parents are dead. She knows it and she’s guilt is killing her. She has managed to push everyone away from her. Once a singer and a smart student, Ember is reduced to the forever-miserable girl. She has only one obsession- collecting pictures of people who went missing in the mysterious Trinity forest. Like her mother. she yearns to go to Trinity to know more about its secrets and maybe, to find a way to escape reality. In Trinity, she meets a bunch of kids who live in a big mansion, eat great food and are having the time of their life. But beneath all the happy faces are secrets- bizarre and scary.

The first book in the series, ‘Ember Burning’ is a mysterious journey through the Trinity. A forest that holds immense power- power that slows down time and promises a better life. Ember figures out something’s not right and she tries to escape. But will she win over the mysterious powers the rule over Trinity?

A gripping thriller, this book is going to hurt you and make you beg for things to be different. Each character has been perfectly placed, each having their own role in maintaining the suspense. Ember is a strong headed character who is broken and hurt and guilty, But she doesn’t want to give up on life just yet. The voices in her head- the voices of her dead parents give her hope and strength. But destiny has other plans.

‘Ember burning’ is so much better than your average thriller. The plot gets interesting over time. Even though some chapters are slower than the others, the story moves smoothly. It reminds me so much of ‘The Place called Here’ by Celilia Ahern.

I was just a bit bored by this one, and didn't find that it had enough depth. Although it skirted close to deep conversations about difficult issues (grief, drug use, a sexual assault on the protagonist), the romantic plot took over too much space and didn't give the protagonist room to develop on her own and explore her grief and coping mechanisms as much as they deserved. I disliked also that the one other teenage girl in the story is treated as an antagonist for the great bulk of the plot, because of some perceived rivalry over a boy's feelings. It's very white and heteronormative overall as well--the references to non-white characters are an off-putting fetishistic comment about Asian women (from a character we're supposed to find attractive!), and a brief appearance by an Asian character who died before the narrative began, and also a single brown-skinned character who is both magical and sinister. Overall very disappointing.