The Sky on Fire

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for an advance listener’s copy of The Sky on Fire. Anahrod lives only for survival, preferring to thrive in the jungles of the Deep with the titan drake she keeps by her side. When an adventuring party saves her from capture by the local warlord, Sicaryon, she is eager to return to her solitary life, but this is no ordinary rescue. Anahrod’s past has caught up with her. And these cunning misfits intend to spirit her away to the cloud cities, where they need her to help steal from a dragon’s hoard. There’s only one in the cloud cities, dragons rule, and the hoard in question belongs to current regent, Neveranimas - and she wants Anahrod dead. This book wasn’t bad, the plot was interesting, I love that it was a heist story with dragons. I love the whole found family x misfit gang mashup. But ultimately it all fell short. The narration was done well, Lauren kept me interested in wanting to know more. I think what I’m learning about myself is that high fantasy just doesn’t work *for me* in a standalone format. I need more world-building, more connection…just more.

“𝙄’𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙙𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙮𝙚𝙩,” 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙞𝙢. “𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙗𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚, 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙧 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙤𝙣, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙚𝙩, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙮 𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧.” Anahrod was supposed to have been put to death 17 years ago at the age of 15, but she’s still alive! And the head dragon is NOT happy about it! Ok, first of all, I love love love how dragons were used in this story. They don’t serve at the whims of humans, THEY are in charge! I also really loved this queer normative world. It’s not a main driver of the story by any means, but the way everything is presented was just a fun way of going about it. There’s romance, sapphic and hetero/“why not both”, but it’s not a main driver of the plot. The plot/heist/action is definitely the main focus here. It took me a bit to really get into the story, but once I hit ~15% I was in, and was definitely invested from that point onward. Audiobook notes: Lauren Fortgang!! 🙌 I know her voice well from all the entire 𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦 series, and oh I just love her narration. 10/10 here once again. Thank you to @macmillan.audio for providing me an ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review. What this book is giving: ✅ Fantasy ✅ Standalone ✅ Dragons ✅ Queer Normative World ✅ Found Family ✅ FMC in her 30’s! 🙌 ✅ Heist ✅ Dragon Battles ✅ Magic