An Ember of Hope: War of Destiny by Theresa Van Spankeren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Matthew de la Roche is struggling with finding who he is without his ka-tet and his soulmate. He was betrayed by a member of his ka-tet which led to his capture, torture, and rescue. Unfortunately, his freedom resulted in the death of his soulmate, Christy, and the loss of his power over fire elements. Matthew walks away from his ka-tet and any resistance vampires in order to reset and figure out how to regain his power. As he is settling into his new city, he steps in to save a young girl from being trampled by a horse. In doing so, it puts him into debt with the Medici family. Matthew has never been one to spend a lot of time with humans, yet he finds himself drawn into their lives and becomes one of their closest friends. When strange attacks begin to happen and soldiers turn up missing, Matthew feels drawn into the conflict. He recognizes the type of attacks and begins to help train the Medici men on how to protect themselves and how to attack these strange men that only attack at night. However, he feels the lack in himself with the loss of his fire element. Can he regain what he has lost in time to protect those who gave him a safe haven to heal?

I have kept up with this series and I am really glad that the author added Matthew’s story to it. This book gives insight into what happens with Matthew when he walks away from his ka-tet members. It explains what struggles he has to overcome before he can even begin to forgive those who betrayed him. I think that he had a lot of self-discoveries to go through to get to a place of even considering forgiveness. I think the author did a lovely job of balancing the past with his present and defining his self-discovery path.

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