Emily Vance Brown

by Saara El-Arifi

I just finished reading a Young Adult trilogy called Ending Fire. It was pretty far outside of my comfort zone and will probably be the only YA I read for some time now, but I thought the worldbuilding was incredible, and I hope to read more of the author’s work in the future. The trilogy consists of three books: The Final Strife, The Battle Drum, and The Ending Fire. The entire series is fantasy, but the first one leans more towards the romance genre and incorporates traditional romance tropes, such as enemies to lovers and a love triangle. The first was my favorite of the series by far (I’d give it alone a 5/5), and I could see myself re-reading it as a comfort book in the future. The second was equally compelling, although much more heavily embedded in traditional fantasy. I loved the Middle Eastern and African influence on the cultures, religions, and geography of the series’s world. The characters were also fantastic—even the terrible ones grew on me by the end.