2021 Carol Award Finalists: Julie Hall & Stealing Embers

Hello again! Through tomorrow (culminating with a list of winners on Instagram), I have the privilege of chatting with all of the 2021 ACFW Carol Award Finalists! Today I’m continuing with Julie Hall and her speculative Carol Award finalist book Stealing Embers! You can check out a list of all the finalists HERE and you can follow along with the posts HERE.

FYI – There will be 2-3 posts per day, many of which are offering a giveaway, so make sure you catch them all!

STEALING EMBERS
SERIES: Fallen Legacies #1
GENRE: Inspirational Young Adult Fantasy/Romance
RELEASE DATE: September 22, 2020
PAGES: 454

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.

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I asked the author…

What is one of your favorite quotes from Stealing Embers & why do you love it?

“I think you’ve spent most of your life with people telling you you’re less-than or not worthy somehow. But Emberly, that’s a lie. You are worthy of friendship, and loyalty, and love. You’re worthy of all the good things life has to offer.” – Ash

This quote is one of my favorites because Ash, my main character’s bestie, calls out the lies that Emberly has believed throughout her life and combats them with the truth. I think the insecurities that Emberly battles throughout Stealing Embers are ones that a lot of us struggle with. Are we worthy? Are we enough? Will I be accepted? The truth is that you are worthy, you are enough, and you are accepted, but not because of something you’ve done, but because of what Jesus did on the cross. When life tries to beat you down with lies that make you feel less-than, it’s so important to remember that you are fearfully and wonderfully made by the God of the universe who loves you has adopted you as His child. If we are going to successfully battle the lies Satan tries to throw at us it has to be with weapons formed from truth.

I also love this quote because it models what type of friend I want to be. Relationships are never perfect, and that includes our friendships. There will always be ups and downs, but finding a few trusted people who will get in the trenches with you when life gets rough is so important. I’m so thankful to the people in my life who have lifted me up—and at times also smacked some sense into me—over the years. My hope is that the friendship between Ash and Emberly throughout my Fallen Legacies series inspires woman to appreciate the people in their life who pour into them without looking for something in return, and strive to do the same for others.

Julie Hall is a USA Today bestselling, 12x award-winning author.

She writes YA paranormal/fantasy novels, loves doodles, and drinks Red Bull, but not necessarily in that order. Julie’s daughter says that her superpower is sleeping all day and writing all night… and well, she wouldn’t be wrong.

Julie currently lives in Colorado with her four favorite people—her husband, daughter, and two fur babies.

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What about you? What makes you want to read the speculative Carol Award finalist Stealing Embers by Julie Hall? Or, if you’ve read it already, what did you love about it?