A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) by Sabaa Tahir

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Strong language, A couple of moderately descriptive sex scenes.

Note: This is a YA series that is definitely written for older teens. There is quite a bit of violence, and some darker themes and I feel like the sexual content in this particular book would not be appropriate for young teens. This is the kind of content that I've read in adult romances in the past and also just a few years ago would have been classified as New Adult instead of YA. I find this trend disturbing since it is hard for parents to always monitor what their child is reading, and I'm sure there are plenty of younger teens that have picked this series up to read.

 

Picking up just a few months after A Reaper at the Gates left off...

The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning.

At his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.

Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory--or to an unimaginable doom.

And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life--and love--he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save--or destroy--all that he knows.

  

This is the fourth and last book in the series and I've been waiting for it for a long time. Originally I thought it was a good idea for this to be a four book series, but after reading books three and four I feel like it should have been kept a trilogy, which is what I think the author had originally planned. Each book in the series got weaker, and instead of going out strong it just felt more like a whimper. By the time I got to the end of this book I was well over it and was ready to move on, and that's a shame because I gave the first book in this series 5 stars, and the second book 4.5 stars. I would still recommend reading the series, and maybe reading them all one right after the other would be a better experience then having to wait so long between books. I will say that once I got to the end I was happy with the way things ended up for most of the characters. There is only one exception and I could see that tragedy coming from a mile away.