The Final Strife: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller: Book 1 (The Ending Fire)

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All can join but not just anyone can win; it requires great skill and ingenuity to become the future wardens of Strength, Knowledge, Truth and Duty. The empire is run by the four wardens: Warden of Strength, Warden of Truth, Warden of Knowledge and Warden of Duty (There is also a Warden of Crime to take care of the underworld).

During the Night of the Stolen, this group sneaked into the homes of several noble families, swapping Sylah and the other highborn children with their own blue-blooded babies. In this series starter, El-Arifi has laid the foundation for a truly spectacular series as well as book.

Therefore we don’t’ get any of the fun moments of Sylah and Anoor’s developing relationship, nor Sylah and Hassa’s friendship.

There were different sets of trials for each guild, and the trials for the next Warden of Strength shown through Anoor’s perspective were about more than just fighting opponents. This is not for the fainthearted, but El-Arifi does a great job of conducting a painstaking exploration of classism, racism, and so much more. If we end up resulting in one sided broad stroke thinking, are we not doing what our oppressors are as well? YA giant Clare makes her adult debut with a whirlwind epic fantasy featuring secret plots, ancient magic, and hidden identities. I loved the character of Sylah, she was just so beautifully flawed, hard, edgy, and suffering from extreme loss and addiction.Anoor is a rarity, having reached young adulthood after being left in another child’s place on the Night of the Stolen. That said, it did seem a bit short-sighted that there didn’t seem to be any runners-up in training just in case the next Warden has some sort of accident like being wiped out by a tidewind before starting their term. The way Saara El-Arifi parcels out information leading to bigger revelations is expertly done, and there are some great twists—even when they’re expected, they work well because of how it gradually builds to the clear conclusion. Despite its length, the book reads quickly, switching back and forth between the two leads’ points of view, though the voices aren’t distinct enough to be clear. Overall, I am blown away by all aspects of this novel; the world-building is believable and intriguing without being too confusing, the characters are well-developed and engaging, and the plot kept me hooked throughout – I was shocked after finishing reading the ARC on my kindle to discover that the hardback is around 600 pages!