A Window To My Soul

Stealing Embers (Fallen Legacies Book 1) – Julie Hall

Synopsis

A realm of monsters. A world of lies. She belongs to both.

My name is Emberly, and everything I’ve ever been told is a lie.

Monsters don’t exist. Wrong.
The nightmarish spectrum world is just my imagination. Wrong.
In a few months, I’ll finally be free. Wrong.

It takes being dragged to a secret training academy in the mountains to unravel the truth. My captors–an elite race of angel-born warriors called Nephilim.

The deadliest of them all is an arrogant shape shifter, Steel. He’s gorgeous, lethal, hot-headed . . . and convinced I’ll be the death of them all.

Maybe he’s right. As soon as I show up, the monsters that have haunted me my entire life breach the academy walls. My only hope of saving my new friends is learning how to control my powers, but when a stunning betrayal hurts someone I care about, I have an impossible choice.

Stay and fight for a place to belong . . . or decide once and for all that I’m better off alone.

Enter the spectrum world, a realm in-between worlds where shadow beasts draw blood, reality is a maze of twisted lights and sounds, and life goals are whittled down to just one: survive.

Review

I press myself back into the shadows. Their dark arms are always there, waiting to comfort me. It’s where I belong. Hidden from view. Watching from the shade.

This book grabbed me from the start. I didn’t remember that others had mentioned fans of Jennifer L. Armentrout might enjoy this book, but while reading, I felt an impressive similarity to Covenant, one of my favorite series. It was more about how I felt moving through the story than the books being alike.

That said, the one it felt most similar to, again, as if they were in the same world, not as a copy, was The Mortal Instruments.

Let’s see, a girl discovers a hidden world that’s been in front of her eyes all her life, but no one else can see it. Suddenly, she’s completely absorbed by this world and ends up in an academy… Well, that’s the description of many other books, but I truly imagined the cathedrals the Shadowhunters used, and their clothes too 🤷.

Back to the book. Emberly, whose name I must say I love, has been forced to live as a homeless person after her foster family history ended badly. And by badly, I mean very badly, with families thinking she was crazy and wanting to send her to a psychiatric hospital because of her hallucinations in which she loses touch with the real world and is chased by “shadows” that leave her with quite real injuries.

This may be the first time I’m excited to see a rat in any form. Rats don’t exist in the spectrum wordl, so the furry corpse is further confirmation I still exist in reality.

When she finally feels she found a friend, this friend betrays and “kidnaps” her to take her to this academy, a safe place for people like her, the Nephilim.

I don’t like the sound of that, but follow her anyway. For better or worse, I’ve chosen my fate. Only time will tell if I’ve chosen poorly or not.

The Nephilim are demigods fighting against the Fallen, the true identity of the “shadows” that have tortured her all her life.

But Emberly doesn’t seem to have any power or ability. At least none other than annoying the most handsome and powerful guy at the academy, Steel.

“And here I thought you were all supposed to be the good guys.”

“Oh, we’re still the good guys,” Greyson says. “But no matter what fancy name they give this academy, it’s still high school.”

I must say that, although Steel is the typical bad boy you end up loving… I love his brother Greyson, although I’m sure he’s gay 🤔.

Ohhh, I just remembered one thing I loved about the book. While Steel saves Emberly a couple of times, the real damsel in distress is him, and no one will change my mind about that 😂.

I should mention that this book has quite a few clichés and some things that work too conveniently. Personally, I love them haha. But I found myself more than once saying “really?”, but with a huge smile on my face. It’s what happens to me every time there’s a ball in a book, for example.

Moreover, Emberly herself laughs at this. I like her a lot haha.

Is this a joke? She could’t be more cliché right now. Well, maybe if she was in a tiny cheerleading uniform—but a shirt that says princess? I can’t make this stuff up.

In case you’re wondering, there’s no ball in this book, but if there isn’t one in the series, I’ll be disappointed.

Special mention to Julie’s twist on the “only one bed” cliché.

It’s probably the characters in this book that make it amazing. Especially the friends Emberly meets at the academy.

“Don’t let him get to you, okay? I think you’ve spent most of your life with peopple telling you yu’re less-than, or not worthy somehow. But that’s a lie. You’re worthy of all the good things life has to offer. You¿re building true friendships here—don’t let them go easily. You, probably more than any of us, know how special they are.”

I would have given it 5 stars if it weren’t for the fact that the ending left me feeling that not much was resolved. However, it’s the first book in a series, so it’s totally reasonable.

And well… the truth is I like to put quotes in the middle of my review, but I had too many good ones, and I had some left that I didn’t know where to put and deserve to be known, so here goes a shower of quotes:

Someday I’ll find a place to live wher no one will bother me. Somewhere no one will judge me. That’s life goals, as far as I’m concernes.

“That’s how I survived on my own.! I march through the throng of Nephilim, who give me a wide berth. I don’t allow myself to steal a glance over my shoulder to catch Steel’s reaction. After all, no one ever got where they were going by looking back.

I let my head thump back against the chair and squeeze my eyes shut. “There’s just so much I dont’t know. Being a woman of mystery might sound exciting, but it’s darn inconvenient in an angel-born world.”

Why can’t I be one of those people who doesn’t care?
Considering I grew up without a soul watching out for my best interests, I should be programmed to stay focused on number one. Why can’t my inner workings be as hard and unfeeling as the shell I project?

“Apparently the fine angel-borns in this institution think stalking is a sign of true love.”

“What?” I squeak.

“Personally, I think it’s that sparkly vampire dude’s fault. That relationship was messed up. But for some reason chicks got it in their heads that codependency was hot.”

Bye bye 💕

Author

Julie Hall is a USA Today bestselling, 11x award-winning author.

She writes YA paranormal / fantasy novels, loves doodles, and drinks Red Bull, but not necessarily in that order. Julie’s daughter says that her super power is sleeping all day and writing all night… and well, she wouldn’t be wrong.

Julie currently lives in Colorado with her four favorite people – her husband, daughter, and two fur babies.