Read-alikes

Books Like An Ember in the Ashes

An Ember in the Ashes is trials & tournaments, rebellion & slow burn — sweet (1/5), dual-person, ending on a hard-won happy ending. These 12 romantasy read-alikes are ranked by how much they share with it, closest first — each one explained.

In a brutal empire modeled on ancient Rome, Scholar girl Laia agrees to spy inside the empire's most feared military academy — Blackcliff, a place built on cruelty and obedience — in exchange for the Resistance's help freeing her arrested brother. There she crosses paths with Elias Veturius, the academy's most gifted soldier who is secretly desperate to escape the violence he has been groomed to enforce. As a deadly imperial succession Trial begins, both must navigate impossible loyalties and a forbidden attraction that could cost them everything.