Ashes

by Laurie Halse Anderson

First published 2016

Isabel has survived years of struggle alongside Curzon, but her greatest challenge still lies ahead. Her younger sister Ruth was torn away from her long ago, and Isabel doesn't even know if she's still alive. The Revolutionary War rages around them as Patriots battle the British, yet Isabel and Curzon remain caught between both sides. Neither army offers true liberation to people like them who were born into bondage. Bounty hunters track their every move, ready to drag them back to captivity. Isabel dreams of more than just escape. She wants land of her own, a real family, a life where she isn't forever running. But first she must find Ruth. The search takes them deeper into a country at war with itself, where choosing the wrong side means death. Isabel faces an impossible question: how can she fight for a nation's liberty when that same nation has denied her own? Her journey toward Ruth becomes a race against time, enemy soldiers, and the hunters who want to steal her freedom forever.

Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, young-adult, african-american-historical-fiction

Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking

Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family

Setting: United States

Period: Revolutionary War

298 pages · Hardcover · Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Content warnings: slavery, violence

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