March 7, 2022
El-Arifi debuts and launches the Ending Fire series with a fast-paced epic fantasy inspired by Ghanian and Arabian folklore. The Wardens’ Empire maintains a violent social hierarchy based on the color of one’s blood. There are three classes: the Embers, the red-blooded elite; the Dusters, a blue blooded second class; and the Ghostings, clear-blooded slaves with virtually no rights. Scrappy heroine Sylah lives among the Dusters, working in their fighting rings while struggling with addiction to deadly joba seeds. But Sylah has a secret: she was born an Ember. She and 12 other Ember children were stolen as babies by a Duster-led resistance called the Sandstorm, who hoped to raise them “to destroy the empire from within.” A brutal massacre of Sandstorm’s ranks left Sylah the sole survivor, and she’s lost all hope of a revolution—until someone she’d thought long dead walks back into her life. Now Sylah works to pick up the pieces of the rebellion with help from her friend Hassa, a clever and resourceful Ghosting, and Anoor, the Duster with whom she was switched at birth. El-Arifi keeps the pages flying even while building an intricate secondary world, allowing readers to learn its rules through action rather than exposition. This sets a high bar for the series to come. Agent: Ginger Clark, Ginger Clark Literary.
April 15, 2022
Sylah was raised to lead a revolution, but that was a long time ago. She's the only one left now, and she uses her training to make money fighting in rigged, late-night brawls, spending all of the profits on her Joba-seed addiction. Anoor is one of the elites, but her deeply abusive mother, the most powerful in the kingdom, has made sure she knows her own weakness. When Anoor decides to compete to be the next Warden of Strength, Sylah agrees to tutor her in order to steal secrets from the heart of the empire. El-Arifi's book, the first in a trilogy inspired by Ghanian and Arabian folklore, drags somewhat at the very beginning, but once the main characters are established, the narrative rushes by. Sylah, Anoor, and the mysterious Hassa are compelling protagonists who slowly unravel the truths and intrigue behind the Embers' seemingly unshakeable power. The undercurrents of friendship, betrayal, and sapphic love, and the twists and turns of the competitive trials and political intrigue, come together to kick off a magnetic and appealing new series.
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July 15, 2022
In the first of a trilogy, three women disturb the social order of a rigidly caste-based society poised on the brink of disaster. The red-blooded Embers command, the blue-blooded Dusters work, and the transparent-blooded, mutilated Ghostings serve. Sylah is a secret Ember, stolen as a toddler by the rebellious Duster sect known as the Sandstorm, who left a Duster in her place and raised her to revolution. Soldiers slaughtered the Sandstorm, and Sylah has spent the past several years as an aimless drug addict and fighter in an underground betting ring. A fellow Sandstorm survivor reenters her life and encourages her to enter the Aktibar, the fierce competition to become an heir to the empire's ruling wardens. Due to some poor choices, Sylah ends up training another competitor instead: Anoor, a young woman everyone believes to be the Warden of Strength's daughter when in fact she is one of the Duster children left by the Sandstorm. As Anoor advances in the Aktibar, Sylah must decide whether to rejoin the new Sandstorm or follow a different path to rebellion. Meanwhile, Hassa, a trans woman Ghosting who's a friend of Sylah's, seeks freedom for her people, all the while hiding secrets which strike at the Empire's very foundations. The concept of people having different blood colors seems implausible and basing prejudice on it, ridiculous; but then, this is the same genre in which enormous dragons fly and breathe fire in sheer defiance of physics, appearing in stories written by authors from a world that foolishly constructs prejudice around skin color. Racism based on blood color also leads to some interesting possibilities for "passing," which the author exploits to their fullest extent. The message is hardly subtle, but our current climate does not support much subtlety, and this blunt allegory--which also draws from Ghanaian and Arabian tales--is crafted into a compelling story with sympathetic characters. The depictions of Anoor, overcoming both the na�vet� of a woman brought up in a pampered bubble and the bruised self-esteem of an abuse victim, and of Sylah, battling confused loyalties and a devastating addiction, are particularly well done. Timely themes and a gripping narrative draw the reader in and keep them there.
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