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The Decaying Empire – Book Review

The Decaying Empire - Book Review

Plot:

When eighteen-year-old teleporter Ember Pierce wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, she remembers only the basics: she’s been trained by the government as a spy, she’s sent on dangerous missions, and her last assignment—the one that landed her in the hospital—was a setup.

Caden Hawthorne has spent the past ten months of his life grieving Ember’s death. So when she shows up in his room like an apparition, he can’t believe his eyes. But this Ember is different. Her hair is longer, her skin is paler, her gaze is haunted. She tells him what he’s already begun to suspect: someone he trusted betrayed her.

Now, uncertain who is friend and who is foe, Ember and Caden face the toughest mission of their lives—to stay together and survive, as they run from danger toward an unknown future.

Review:

The Decaying Empire is the sequel to The Vanishing Girl (you can read my review of that here), and it was everything that I was hoping it would be after I loved the first book so much.

After being set up and seriously injured at the end of the first book, Ember Pierce thought she was a dead woman. Teleporters can’t just poof back to their original location unharmed after being injured on a mission—teleporting with a bad wound usually leads to a teleporter being spliced, or torn apart, while trying to get back. Most can’t survive being spliced, but amazingly Ember does. When she wakes up 10 months after her accident, she is keen on seeking revenge against the program that has taken her life and decided to put it in danger.

Ember, along with her pair Caden, wants to escape the facility that has them “imprisoned”, and along with the help of some outsiders, expose the program that has taken their lives and put them in death’s way on a daily basis. But once the program gets wind of this, they ship Ember and Caden off to their other facility—where they send teleporter couples that want to start a family.

The duo decide to go through with their plans to escape and expose the program, but not without many complications along the way, which tests the strength of their relationship.

This book is written in a way that flows well and at a fast pace, which really allowed me to speed through it as I was reading. I love reading books that don’t feel like a chore to get through, and The Decaying Empire definitely qualifies.

Overall, I give this book 5/5 stars.

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Categories
Book Reviews

The Vanishing Girl – Book Review

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Plot:

Each night after Ember Pierce falls asleep, she disappears. She can teleport anywhere in the world: London, Paris, her crush’s bedroom, or wherever her dreams lead her. Ten minutes is all she gets, and once time’s up, she returns to her bed. It’s a secret she’s successfully kept for the last five years. But now someone knows.

A week after her eighteenth birthday, when frustratingly handsome Caden Hawthorne kidnaps her, delivers her to the government, and then disappears before her eyes, Ember realizes two things: One, she is not alone. And two, people like her—teleporters—are being used as weapons.

Forced into a quasi-military training camp for teleporters, Ember discovers she has been paired—perhaps for life—with Caden, the boy who got her into this mess in the first place. Now, she has to work with him on a series of teleporting missions, each one riskier than the last. But Caden just might hold the key to Ember’s escape plan, if she can survive her missions without losing her heart…or her life.

Review:

The Vanishing Girl is the book I never knew I needed in my life until now. Immediately when I started reading it, I felt like Ember was a character that I could relate to. She’s a strong leading character who has no problem questioning what she’s told to do if she doesn’t believe that it’s right.

Ember can teleport in her sleep, but only for 10 minutes before she returns back to her bed. She believed that she was all alone until she is taken by the government. Her parents, who struggled to conceive, were a part off a government fertility program, where the government secretly altered the children’s genes, thus allowing Ember and others like her to teleport.

Then there’s Caden, Ember’s pair. He is the type of guy who’s hot and he knows it, yet Ember still falls for him. He helps teach Ember things she will need to survive like sparring and weapons skills.

This book has a story unlike anything else I’ve read. I really enjoyed reading it and can’t wait to see where the next installment takes Ember and Caden.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.