Stealing Embers

Fallen Legacies, Book 1

By: Julie Hall

Narrated by: Vanessa Moyen, Adam Gold

A realm of monsters. A world of lies. She belongs to both.

My name is Emberly, and everything I’ve ever been told is a lie.

Monsters don’t exist. Wrong.

The nightmarish spectrum world is just my imagination. Wrong.

In a few months, I’ll finally be free. Wrong.

It takes being dragged to a secret training academy in the mountains to unravel the truth. My captors - an elite race of angel-born warriors called Nephilim.

The deadliest of them all is an arrogant shape shifter, Steel. He’s gorgeous, lethal, hot-headed...and convinced I’ll be the death of them all.

Maybe he’s right. As soon as I show up, the monsters that have haunted me my entire life breach the academy walls. My only hope of saving my new friends is learning how to control my powers, but when a stunning betrayal hurts someone I care about, I have an impossible choice.

Stay and fight for a place to belong...or decide once and for all that I’m better off alone.

Enter the spectrum world, a realm in-between worlds where shadow beasts draw blood, reality is a maze of twisted lights and sounds, and life goals are whittled down to just one: survive.

Fans of Jennifer L. Armentrout and Cassandra Clare will love this Crescent City meets Crave mash up!

Buy Now to step into the spectrum world....

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020, 2021 Julie Hall (P)2021 Julie Hall

Critic reviews

"Filled with action, danger, romantic tension, and intrigue, Stealing Embers is absolutely addictive.” (Casey L. Bond, award-winning author of When Wishes Bleed)

"With a dark, thrilling plot and beautiful, compelling characters, Stealing Embers is a fantastic take on angel lore that will keep you flipping pages long after bedtime." (Cameo Renae, USA Today best-selling author of the Hidden Wings series)

Great world and character building

4.5 stars! The main character, Emberly, is a 17 year old runaway. She’s feisty and socially averse, and has been tormented by a “spectrum world” for as long as she can remember. The threat of being sent away to a psychiatric hospital is what spurred her to run, after too many injuries and incidents made her foster family worry about her safety.

Then, Emberly finds herself being scooped off the streets of Denver and taken to Seraph Academy, where she learns she’s an angel born, the decendant of a fallen angel/human woman, and that the “spectrum world” she’s been running from is actually the spiritual realm, and she may have some interesting powers there. While the story itself wasn’t super original, I found myself being reminded of a couple other books I’ve read with similar plot lines and characters, it’s still done well enough to feel fresh. The secondary characters are great, and often add a lot of fun and lightness. The romance is definitely slow burn, and almost falls into the enemies to lovers trope, but not quite. Steele is maybe more of a jerk, not quite a bully, to Emberly, but while it’s a crappy way to treat her, he’s got a history to contend with that we only get a taste of by the end of the book, and *maybe* you can see why he reacts to her the way he does.

This is the first book of a series - there’s a decent amount of exposition happening, and it’s pretty straight forward. She’s not familiar with the angel born world, so we learn as she learns. And while not unpredictable, really, there’s plenty to the story the keep it compelling. It moves along at a good pace, there’s not a lot of extra stuff happening that doesn’t seem relevant to moving the plot, so it stays interesting. Overall, a solid and entertaining kick off of the series, and I’m looking forward to the next book!

Vanessa Moyen is an excellent narrator, and she doesn’t disappoint here. She does a fantastic job capturing the snark, humor, and feistiness of Ember, along with her fear and confusion. At the very end we get a taste of Steele’s POV, and I loved it! I hope we get more of that in the second book, especially with this narrator, because he definitely captured the character’s vibe well!

Couldn’t put it down!

This book was so exciting! I really enjoyed the story packed full of adventure and imagination! I think the classifications of each being could have been repeated or described again as it was a little difficult to keep track of them. I think reading would have helped compared to listening to it, but it didn’t take away from the story at all. Can’t wait for the second one!

Interesting and engaging

The narrator does a good job at depicting the story. However, sometimes it is hard to tell when the sentence ends and the next one begin. It's also difficult to tell what are thoughts inside of the main character's head and what is actually being said

Great characters and storyline

I loved this story, I like how tough and scrappy Emberly is, she has survived alot and now she’s thrown into this crazy world. I really enjoy the characters in this story and of course who doesn’t love the bad boy Steele and his adorable younger sister and brother are just too cute. I think it’s great that she has a good friend in Ash. I love this kind of story with the hidden Academy in a different world and different creatures. When Emberly transforms she sounds amazing and I’m enjoying learning what she can do. I feel so bad for Steele and what he has learned about someone he loved .Then we meet someone new at the end that I just love, love, love. Excited for the next book

This is A Yes & A Buuuut.

Because, while you’re able to follow the storyline because we’ve read or heard almost everything in this book before; at least the characters names are different.

Ms Hall did a good job. It’s humorous. This helps you get through every time a reference is made, or implied from other books and storylines. To be honest, I do not believe I would have taken the time to read, read this book, but the narration was pretty good.

Now onto my likes and annoying dislikes. STEEL, is worthless! Help me to understand how a character who is the biggest and badness can’t even help himself. EMBERLY, stupid name. AAAAANNNNND! Please help me understand how the “newbie” can do soooo much? Why is she perfect n every way, but “all she did was”. She’s shy, and uncertain about herself. She’s allowed humans to bully her but she’s not even intimidated by someone with otherworldly powers?

I listened to this book while dong my hair. I’m not finished so I’m going on to book 2. This book is doable via Audible or whoever you use for this format. Reading it physically helps or via a kindle, idk. Again, we’ve heard and READ IT ALL BEFORE. It’s like JH picked out parts from all the popular Young Adult books, put them all together and name it STEALING Ember. Hmmmmm. BUT the narration was good, so. . . .

Anyhoo, read it r listen to it (preferred method), and decide for yourself.

what a treat

I've gotten so much more from this book. listening. I can't get so excited that I miss anything. Steel and Emberly are amazing together. their chemistry is off the charts. I can't wait for book 2

Wow

Loved the story and characters. Especially the world the author created. I really enjoyed getting lost in the words and the narrators did a fabulous job bringing the characters to life. I can honestly and recommend this. I can’t wait to get the next audiobook ASAP.

Interesting twist to Nephalim

Julie Hall did an amazing job bringing the world and characters to life. Emberly is coming into her own and growing into an amazing character.
She did an even more amazing job picking her narrators. They are perfect for the story.
I can't wait for the next book!

Great start

I really enjoyed this book great start to a new series I liked the characters and story I can't wait to hear the rest of the series, the narrators did a great job

All the stars to this amazing audiobook!

Can I give this book more than five stars?! That's what this book needs! It has everything that I love in a book. Excellent characters, a school setting, and a plot that kept me interested from start to finish. I thought I loved the print version of this book, but man, hearing it narrated just made the whole story come to life!

Our MC is Emberly, she's a bit different and a loner. She has episodes where she gets anxious and dips into what she calls "the spectrum". It's like this world, but brighter. She sees auras there. She knows she's different. She's been bounced from foster home to foster home and finally decided to hit the streets on her own.

Some big guys show up and try to take her away. They know her name and know she's different. Then the dude turns into a lion right in front of her eyes and she loses it. She fights back and they end up getting her anyway.

She wakes up at Seraph Academy and is told everyone there is like her. But she's still an anomaly even among her own people. The rest of the story is monsters coming for her and her trying to figure out what the hell Steel's problem is.

Why are the Forsaken hunting her? Why must she be the anomaly? And what the heck is Steel's problem?!