A satisfying conclusion to this biology, Kamilah Cole does fantasy YA very well. I definitely enjoyed the first book more, and some of the pacing felt a bit off, but overall a great read. She does a fantastic job and blending island culture, fantasy, and social commentary into a magical a digestible story. We have great representation and I appreciate her ability to show characters acknowledging their age, fears, and traumas, they feel very fleshed out. Looking forward to more from this author in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and author for an advance copy of this book.

This Ends in Embers is the second book in The Divine Traitors duology. So Let Them Burn was one of my favorite reads from last year and I was so excited to jump into the second book to see how the story concludes.

One of my favorite parts about the book was the love between sisters and the faith they had in one another. We knew going in that the sisters would be separated but their love was still prominent throughout the novel. I also appreciate the reoccurring theme that age does not matter when making change and a difference in your world. I also actually really enjoyed the romance subplots and am hoping the author writes a romantasy in the future because the banter is really fun to read.

The book has some pacing issues for me and some plot points that didn't get completely resolved. I did enjoy the pacing of the last 50% though and wished that was the pacing throughout the whole novel. The beginning feels repetitive in the sense that the main characters kept talking about the issues/conflict rather than the plot moving forward. Then when we get to 50% and the real story begins, in my opinion anyway, it feels rushed. I also wanted to see more from Faron. I wish her motivations were more complex and I really wanted to see her take initiative and use the power and cleverness we know she has.

I also would have loved to see the author lean more into having more action scenes, because when they're there, they are so fun and intense. I think my expectation was that there would be so many more, especially with this title.

I will say that it is still a book I wish I had as a teenager and it's still a duology I would recommend. I am excited to read more of Cole's work in the future.

This Ends in Embers is a wonderful sequel/conclusion to the Divine Traitors duology. Picking up shortly after So Let Them Burn ends, we continue to follow Elara and Faron as they attempt to set right the many wrongs they accidentally caused. As with So Let Them Burn, Cole continues to explore the impact of colonialism and imperialism, reveals how building bridges can break down assumptions about peoples and cultures, and highlights the importance of family (both found and actual). While many of these themes are explored in other books, Cole does a great job mixing in the magical elements to really delve deeper and pulls in military strategy in interesting ways. Plus, dragons! If you liked So Let Them Burn, you’ll find This Ends in Embers to be a satisfying conclusion to the story.

This Ends in Embers is the second book in the Divine Traitors series and picks up after the shocking conclusion of So Let Them Burn. Cole continues to flex her world building strengths in This Ends in Embers. It was one of my favorite aspects of the first book, so I was excited to see it continue in this one. I loved getting to know more about the dragons and gods. With Faron and Elara separated, I thought Cole did really well to tie their storylines together into a cohesive story. As with most multi POV stories, I found myself drawn to Faron’s story over Elara’s. I did still appreciate Elara’s character growth, though. One element I struggled with was that Cole seemed to rely more on telling than showing at times. For the audiobook, I appreciate the choice to use two narrators, Kamala Minter and Keylor Leigh, to voice the separate POVs. It helped keep Faron and Elara’s stories separate in my mind. I also felt that both narrators brought appropriate levels of energy and emotion to the role to keep me invested. Overall, I found this to be a satisfying conclusion to the Divine Traitors duology.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
This Ends in Embers is the second book and conclusion of Kamilah Cole’s Divine Traitors duology, and I feel she more or less sticks the landing in bringing this story to a close. It picks up right where the first left off, further expanding on the world in compelling ways.
Once again, the story follows sisters Faron and Elara, and the two are once again on separate journeys, yet I appreciate how their connection as sisters amid all they’ve been through continues to be reinforced. And individually, both have grown so much as a result of all their experiences, especially Faron as she attempted to correct her mistakes, although Elara’s journey trying to live up to expectations as the new Empyrean was also exciting..
Plot-wise, the story was fairly engaging throughout, and it’s fairly evenly paced throughout, and it came to a fairly satisfying conclusion.
This was a satisfying conclusion for a first duology, and I’m excited for what Kamilah Cole writes next. I recommend this to readers interested in a Jamaican-inspired YA fantasy with dragons.

Thank you NetGalley for this highly anticipated ARC!

What an excellent sequel! It was dark and bloody and emotional and just SO satisfying!

An amazing author does it again with a killer sequel! This one is highly recommended for all fantasy readers--not just those who read book 1. Fast-paced, incredible story telling, and laced with humor. I absolutely loved it!

This was good, both as a book and as a conclusion to this duology. My rating more represents the fact that I just wasn't super excited to be reading this, and I should have set it down and read it at another time. I'll definitely read Kamilah Cole's next books, and I hope I'm in the right mood when I read them.

This Ends in Embers is an incredible sequel that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. The stakes are so high, and Kamilah Cole doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the emotional rollercoaster. Faron and Elara’s journey is heartbreaking, especially with the bond between them and their internal struggles. The themes of sacrifice, loyalty, and love are so powerful, and there are moments in this book that will stick with you long after you finish. It’s painful but beautiful, and the ending - wow. If you loved So Let Them Burn, this one will hit even harder, but in the best way. Definitely recommend!

To be perfectly honest, I was anticipating giving this book a lower rating for the first third. I’m getting really tired of a couple of elements that this book has: (1) using the platonic ideal of “sisters” where they’re so devoted to each other to avoid actually developing a relationship between sisters or developing either as people, and (2) brushing over the fact that colonizing powers and especially MEMBERS OF THEIR MILITARY are culpable for great violence towards the colonized people. So at ~1/3 of the way through I was really not feeling it.

But around the midway point of the book, things switched up, and I felt like we got good development on each of our sister characters and their relationship. They questioned the relationship but stayed strong, and the adversity of basically everyone towards them and their bond made the story ring way truer than it had been before. Things also started picking up at that point and we got to see the injustice and strategy in the politicking in a way that made me more comfortable with the book’s stance on imperialism (and not feel like it was just oversimplifying things). we got to see our MCs really frustrated with the way the world works and deciding how they would interact with the injustices that they were facing. It helped my reading experience a lot to see those things named, and it was quite moving watching each of the sisters deal with the world they’re in.

By the end, this book had made an impact on me, and I’d felt a lot of things reading it. I would definitely recommend it as anti-imperial queer (sapphic & more) YA fantasy with dragons, politics, and a lot of heart.

I am so thankful to both the publisher and Kamilah Cole for letting me get my hands on this early read of This Ends in Embers! I LOVED So Let Them Burn so I was really looking forward to this sequel.

I’ll start with what I enjoyed about the book. I loved getting to see where the characters went next. The story was action packed and there was some new depth and development for the characters.

However, I do feel that the author bit off more than she could chew for a duology. There were too many plot lines that were not given the development they needed. There was a lot of telling over showing in the characters developments, especially with Faron’s character. And I did feel that there were scenes that identically mirrored previous scenes that could have been time used to do something new, but weren’t. Overall, I was a bit let down by this follow up. But I loved the first book and I think it was worth the time to see how the story ended!

Picking up 7 days after So Let Them Burn, This Ends in Embers spends the first two chapters juxtaposing the first two chapters of its predecessor to show us just how far the Sisters have come.
Using beautiful pose and writing, this much awaited sequel takes us along as San Irie continues to try and hold its independence from various entities.
The story is fraught with betrayal, violence, and sacrifice.
Once again, Cole shows us the true cost of war and the lengths family will go to in order to protect those they love.
This book was devastating and heartwarming from the start. Absolutely incredible.

Unique and thought-provoking, This Ends in Embers solidifies the Divine Traitors duology's place as a refreshing presence in YA.

To prepare for writing this review, I went and reread my review for the first book and was pretty surprised to see that my feelings on both books were almost identical. I still really appreciated the world-building and the conversations on generational trauma and the costs of war.

During this book, we follow Faron and Elara as they are separated due to circumstance and the rising war. Because of this, the world and the politics got to be expanded. We learn more about the history of their world, the dragons, the gods, and how the general public views the sisters'.

However, for me personally, this particular installment fell quite flat.

I found much of the book to be redundant and over-dramatized, with powerful sentences being repeated so many times they began to lose their meaning. The sisters still both acted incredibly young, which was something I struggled with in book 1. This is YA, the characters are meant to be young. I know that. But when you have characters that have been stripped of their childhood and forced into these adult roles, it's hard to believe that they'd still be behaving this way.

This also fell into the unfortunate YA habit of feeling very... teachy? Sometimes, authors write YA characters as an adult writing teenagers (rather than putting themselves into the mind of the character), filled with all of the lessons they want to get across and the encouragement they want to give to young people. Which is beautiful and admirable! But it doesn't feel like these characters learning those lessons on their own, it feels like the author is telling me to get my confidence back and not to kill.

I also found this a bit confusing, but I'm not counting that against the book. I've been especially tired this year and I'm more than willing to admit that might have been user error. I would recommend rereading So Let Them Burn before jumping into this one, if you need a refresher.

Overall, I stand by the fact that this duology deserves all the hype and praise it's gotten (and more!) Kamilah Cole did something incredibly interesting with what could have been a very basic premise.

While this book didn't entirely work for me, I definitely recommend it to people that love YA fantasy (+ don't mind YA that reads incredibly young) and want to read something that doesn't feel like everything else.

4.25⭐
With Faron betraying her home and now taken by Iya and with Elara now the Maiden Empyrean, the sisters are separated again across enemy nation lines. While both try to acclimate to new powers, can they survive another war and come out the other side?

"She was so tired of living in a world that forced her to whittle down her edges until she was smooth and palatable, until she was what everyone needed her to be instead of who she was."

This duology has dragons, magic, politics, and power struggles, but the story is very character driven. If it's been a bit since you read So Let Them Burn, I would suggest a reread; Kamilah gives you enough exposition to get by, but there were moments when I would have benefited from a reread. This Ends in Embers is a satisfying sequel to the Divine Traitors duology.

Thank you to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This book is due to be published 2/4/25. Will post to Instagram closer to publication

I was really excited to see this resolution to Faron and Elara's stories. The author's writing style is engaging and flows so nicely, and the plot and character development kept me invested until the very end.

I am glad I decided to give the second part of this duology a shot - the story of sisters Faron and Elara, now fighting on opposite sides, gets a satisfying ending that begins right after the events of So Let Them Burn.

A new war is upon San Irie. The world this book inhabits is rich with tradition and mouthwatering dishes - the middle part of the story ran a little long and I wish those pages had been given to the ending, which feels a bit rushed after the transition in power happens.

I appreciated the realistic, mixed-emotions side of the ending - many times we get a perfect ending tied up in a bow and that would not have fit this story. A good ending to an immersive fantasy duology.

This book was a really satisfying conclusion to the Divine Traitors duology. I've long been impressed with Kamilah's worldbuilding - there's a whole WAR that occurred before So Let Them Burn that makes you feel as if you read those books already in preparation for this series (she didn't write those books, don't go looking for them and disappoint yourself!). It had been almost a year since I read So Let Them Burn that I felt a little lost in the beginning of This Ends in Embers, needing just a bit more exposition to catch me back up. I loved Elara's growth and the struggle to meet expectations in an unforgiving world. I connected easily with Faron's journey, the desperate desire to fix what you've broken when no one believes in you. I loved this series and will always recommend it to fantasy readers!

Thank you to NetGalley and Little/Brown Books for Young Readers for this advanced copy! You can pick up This Ends in Embers on February 4, 2025.

What a satisfying conclusion to a fantastic duology! Kamilah Cole really pulled multiple storylines together in a way that kept the plot moving while still letting us sit with the characters and their emotions. I really appreciated Faron's growth in this book as Iya, Gael, and Lightbringer showed her what it means to throw away your humanity. Even though Faron had the power to do the same, her decision not to was a great moment of growth and encapsulated her journey from that girl using the gods' powers for a footrace with her rival to one choosing not to kill her enemies.

While Elara's story didn't capture me quite as much, I did appreciate the evolution of her relationship with Signey and how they navigated it without being bonded anymore. I think it was important to show that soul mates can build normal, healthy relationships too without being "cosmically bonded."

Overall, this is a great political and action-packed YA fantasy with lots of dragons, lots of magic, and some great characters.

I loved So Let Them Burn. It was one of my favorite books I read in 2024. So perhaps my standards were set a trifle high, as I found this sequel disappointing in comparison.

My biggest issue’s with the narrative structure. Whereas SLTB had a great balance of peaks and valleys, tragedies and triumphs, TEIE often felt like a mix of plateaus and down-slides. Faron’s side, especially, felt like a litany of failure and misery. And I don’t want to underplay how monumental and consequential her screw-ups in SLTB were. It’s not that I found her despair and self-loathing in this book <I>unbelievable</I>. It’s that I found them incredibly <I>repetitive</I>. And too much down without any real up to balance it out results in compassion fatigue, distancing the reader from the character. Faron did manage to pull out of it by the end and accomplish some things, but honestly, after all the blahs, the accomplishments weren’t all that.

On a pettier level, I found the introduction of several climactic and shocking elements throughout the book a tad choppy, where literally a sentence or two more buildup would have heightened suspense and fear before the explosion. It’s the difference between ‘no, no, no, please don’t let the monster find me, oh shi—“ and “wait, what, I’m dead now?”

While this book expanded the scope of its setting, it was unfortunately at the cost of depth. SLTB made me fall in love with San Irie. The country felt detailed and lived in. I wanted to spend time there, even as Cole also showed its flaws. She even made me care about Langley and the Hearthstone Academy, although I was set pretty against them at the start. Here, what we get of Etolia and Joya Del Mar renders them nothing more than Nations of Hats, without a lot of development or revelation. I kept wanting to go back to San Irie instead, where Cole teased some really interesting plot elements, like the populace’s anger and disillusionment with its saints and crown, but didn’t really delve into these heartbreaking aspects, instead simply resolving them in the ending.

And the thing is, Cole’s prose is still very, very good. She kept the pages turning. I was never bored, even if I was occasionally frustrated. I fell in love with the characters back in SLTB, and I still loved them here. And I did love the way Cole developed Elara and Signey’s relationship. Hell, I loved Signey, and her role in this book, period. So it <I>hurts</I> me, to give this book three stars. But with all the flaws I’ve just listed off, a higher rating would feel disingenuous. I just… Yeah, that’s all I’ve got. Here’s hoping Cole’s next book is a lot more like her first.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown Books for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions found within are my own.

If you want a dragon book, this duology is one you need to read.

I am just completely in awe at how incredible this book was. It does not hold back in discussing the horrors of war, but it also has such a core of hope, one that allows for life to seep through every crack. And just, damn, every internal struggle, every fight to survive, it is so excellently done. It's truly amazing.