A REAPER AT THE GATES BY SABAA TAHIR // spoiler-free book review: my soul was reaped from my body and this book destroyed me… you should read it though <3

I said if I stopped after book 2, we’d be another 84 years, and I only have mild regrets *cue nervous laughter*

Also, I feel like it’s a good time to mention I was also rewatching Game of Thrones during the time of this reread and thus living my best life! But enough rambling, into this book…

Title: A Reaper at The Gates
Series: Ember Quartet book #3
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Page count: 458
Date published: 12 June 2018
Genre: Young adult epic fantasy

⚔️

Synopsis:

Beyond the Martial Empire and within it, the threat of war looms ever larger.

Helene Aquilla, the Blood Shrike, is desperate to protect her sister’s life and the lives of everyone in the Empire. Yet danger lurks on all sides. Emperor Marcus, haunted by his past, grows increasingly unstable and violent, while Keris Veturia, the ruthless Commandant, capitalizes on the Emperor’s volatility to grow her own power—regardless of the carnage she leaves in her path.

Far to the east, Laia of Serra knows that the fate of the world lies not in the machinations of the Martial court, but in stopping the Nightbringer. During the hunt to bring him down, Laia faces unexpected threats from those she hoped would help her, and is drawn into a battle she never thought she’d have to fight.

And in the land between the living and the dead, Elias Veturius has given up his freedom to serve as Soul Catcher. However, in doing so, he has vowed himself to an ancient power that demands his complete surrender—even if that means abandoning the woman he loves.

⚔️

⚔️

STAR RATING: (5 out of 5 stars)

This book is the worst thing I’ve read in my entire life, actually. Like that’s not me being funny. It was an awful experience, and I don’t recommend it for anyone’s sanity. That’s all I really want to say. But alas, I should probably unpack some trauma today.

⚔️

What in the holy mother was that? Like, I don’t have words.

I’ve heard complaints about the pacing of the books, but I’ve never really noticed that. Maybe that’s because I’m a character-driven reader above all else, because to me this book was BAM BAM BAM all the time.

Tonally, this book is different from the series, I would say? Without giving away too much, the premise has a sort of “stable” political background, which I think works really well with fleshing out what each of the characters needed to do in order to accomplish the point of the series: to end the empire. Wow, that was a lot of high-fantasy thinking, Ruby. But I hope that made sense.

I just need a minute to ask: please explain to me how the Commandant can get worse? I don’t understand. Sabaa is crazy for that. Like, how does an already terrifying villain become scarier? Didn’t think there could be more hatred for her.

I’ve hinted about talking about Helene, but tell me why she’s become my favourite character? And I genuinely hate Sabaa for it. I can’t say much without spoiling the whole series, but what Helene goes through is crazy, and I learned to love her through all of it. Which is really a testament to Sabaa’s writing.

I don’t even want to talk about Harper, my second-born son. He deserves the world, and I will give it to him. Actually, maybe I should reconsider that. Helene will murder me.

Laia’s growth in this book is CHEFS KISS? Highlight this for a minor spoiler:That devastating ending really shoots her into some dark places, but we stan a powerful woman. Her steady growth throughout the series has been wonderful to watch. Maybe we could be besties tbh. Would be happy to welcome her to the inner circle.

But the best part about the book? The major plot twists and EPIC battle. My brain was splattered across the floor, I’m not even kidding. And it’s written so well? Tell me how I get skills like this? Insane actually. But yes, I was shooketh to my very core, clutching my beating chest and my pearls. It was a lot, and I didn’t survive.

This book is epic, grand, it’s got ~some~ romance to destroy your soul, and I promise very worth it. Onto the next review 🫡

“Hope is stronger than fear. It is stronger than hate.”

⚔️

“Skies save me from the men in my life and all the things they think they know.”

⚔️

“Love. I sigh. Love is joy coupled with misery, elation bound to despair. It is a fire that beckons me gently and then burns when I get too close. I hate love. I yearn for it. And it drives me mad.”

⚔️

“Needing protection is not a weakness. Refusing to trust your allies is.”

⚔️

“Everyone believes that nothing concerns them until the monsters are knocking on their doors!” She winces at my shriek, but I do not care. “Until they are burning down your homes and destroying your lives and killing your families!” 

⚔️

“There is success,” I say. “And there is failure. The land in between is for those too weak to live. Duty first, unto death.”

⚔️

“But I must prepare myself, for such stories are dragons drawn from a deep well in a dark place. Does one summon a dragon? No. One may only invite it and hope it emerges.”

⚔️

“I will not let you torment her to death, even if stopping you tears my own body to shreds. All the world can burn, but I will not simply leave her to suffer.”

⚔️

“Because I know this feeling sweeping through me far too well, the feeling that all my effort, all I have worked for, means nothing. That everything and everyone is a lie. That all is cruel and unforgiving and that there is no justice. I have survived this feeling before, and I will survive it again. In this fiery hellscape of a world, this mess of blood and madness, justice exists only for those who take it. I’ll be damned if I’m not one of them.” 

⚔️

“I witness myself through his eyes: angry and cold and weak and strong and brave and warm. Not the Blood Shrike. Helene. And I would be blind not to see what he feels for me. I am woven into his consciousness the way Elias used to be woven into mine. Harper is always aware of where I am, of whether I am all right.”

⚔️

“I draw on every last bit of strength I have. I am a thing from the Barbarian’s nightmares, a silver-faced, blood-drenched demon of the hells, and I will not let them pass.”

⚔️

“The stories we tell have power, of course. But the stories that go untold have just as much power.”

⚔️

“I have tried not to think of Elias. But he haunts my thoughts, a ghost who is always on my mind and always out of reach.”

⚔️

“I think back to the hours spent with Avitas, learning to shield my mind. Hours listening to his calm voice explain how to imagine my innermost thoughts as gems locked in a chest, hidden in a shipwreck at the bottom of a forgotten sea.”

⚔️

“Do not wait for her, child. Sometimes those we love are lost to us, as surely as if Death himself had claimed them. All we can do is mourn the divergence of their path. If you try to walk it, you too will fall into darkness.”

---

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT DID YOU THINK? IS THE SERIES ON YOUR TBR? WHO’S YOUR FAVOURITE CHARACTER SO FAR? LET ME KNOW!