Hero At The Fall by Alwyn Hamilton
‘Once, there was a desert under siege, and no one to defend it…
The rebels are crushed: most are captured, burned out or dead. Except Amani, and it’s up to her to protect the survivors.
But how can one girl save a whole rebellion?
Then foreign armies begin advancing across the desert plains and the Sultan starts hunting the rebels through the streets of Izman.
Now Amani must prove that she’s not just a desert girl any more, that she’s learned a few tricks since then…
Here begins the final battle for the throne. Who will lead, who will triumph, who will live and who will die?
All heroes are mortals in the end…’
This book destroyed me. There was a period where I took my glasses off to make it easier for me to cry and read at the same time. ALWYN HAMILTON WHY BREAK MY HEART, AND PUT IT BACK TOGETHER AGAIN?! WHY? This book was perfect. I don’t think there would have been any other way for it to have been better plot wise. Character wise, it was kind of obvious who was going to die. Not completely obvious, but Alwyn Hamilton likes to build up the side characters before they die. So before I got to the main death of this book I had a feeling about who it was going to be, and I got it right… sadly. This is the best book she has written, and I am hoping that in the future that her characters are harder to figure out who is going to die. I’m going to be buying all her books.
The plot of this book was perfect. It was faced paced, but it slowed down for the romance, and emotional bits. The use of the third person chapters killed me, but they were so cleverly used that they added so much more to the stories, and the characters that they were following. Plus, there are a lot of twists and turns that you don’t see coming. Most of the deaths are surprising, and characters are like wild cards. One of my favourite scenes in this book was the reunion scene. That gave me all the feels. The ending was super good. It rounded off the final battle, and the general overview of what happened next was perfect. It really rounded off the story. I am intrigued to see what will happen next in this universe.
The characters. I loved Amani. I probably liked her the most in this book. I didn’t find her annoying at all, which makes me love her. I kept on thinking that she was more bloodthirsty than she actually was though. I kept on thinking that she was going to kill characters, but she didn’t… I think I wanted her to be more ruthless than she actually was haha. I liked Jin the most this book too. I think it’s because there wasn’t enough time for there to be any relationship drama, and the kisses were at good times (like they weren’t being shot at). I love the sisterhood between Amani and Shazad. I wish that we could have seen more of Shazad, she is my favourite character of this series. I loved the banter between Amani and Sam. Sam was my favourite new character of Traitor To The Throne, and I liked this bigger role in this book. My favourite new character was Zaahir in this book. I loved his sass (I wish more people in this series had his sass), and I loved the fact that he just kept on popping up. I would classify him as an anti-hero, but he gave me devil symbolism too. I hope that we get to see more of him in the universe.
I gave this book 5/5 or 10/10. This book made me cry, happy, heartbroken… it’s sad to see this trilogy end because I don’t want to let the characters to go. But I am really intrigued what Alwyn Hamilton will write next. I would definitely recommend this series if you like reading YA fantasy stories, like the tropes of rebellion, super powers, but this series is unique in the fact that the main character is not the main character in the rebellion. She’s a part of the rebellion. I will probably reread this series again in the future, especially if Alwyn writes some more books in this universe. I am sad to see this trilogy end, but I am excited to see what will happen next.