Review: From The Embers

From The Embers by Spring Horton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A copy of From The Embers was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Mathias and Dorian are immortal. They don't know how or why they were gifted with that status, but for both men it often feels like a curse. Their lives have been plagued by tragedy, loss, darkness and despair. Happiness has proven to be illusive, and as their lives intersect over the course of 300 years, each man struggles to find his purpose. Living in a world that, after reaching technological heights, has been forced back into the dark ages after experiencing what the remaining citizens of Earth call the End of Days.

The story itself is intriguing, with glimpses of each man's life at various moments in time. Unfortunately, I found Horton's narrative style to be difficult to follow at best. The timeline does not flow chronologically, but instead bounces randomly from year to year and character to character. In spite of my underlying frustration, the story line's lack of predictability did spark my curiosity and eventually drew me back even though I seriously contemplated just giving up.

The supporting cast of characters is engaging, and they are frequently forced to contend with ethical and moral issues that add intellectual depth to the story. I also found the complexity of the main character's sexual relationships intriguing. The ending is left open to interpretation and is either a cliffhanger meant to build anticipation for a sequel or deliberately vague, which would tend to fit with this author's writing style. I also noticed occasional editorial and grammar errors that were distracting at times but did not detract from the overall story.

I'm glad I read From The Embers, because it is a unique story in many ways, but the experience was frustrating, and I was not inspired to seek out other titles by this author in the future based on this book.

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