I really wanted to love this novel, and did read it faster than usual over a couple of days. I found the FMC compelling and likeable.

The premise was really interesting and unique - and the cliffhanger at the end definitely left me intrigued for book 2 - however I found the book to be slightly too predictable for my liking, and the character development and storyline to be a bit too rushed.

There was a great deal of potential in the chemistry and the developing romance within the plot - however this also felt too rushed and not well-developed enough. The reveal at the ending also felt very rushed and unexplained.

I also found the jumping between the use of more period-style language and modern language to be slightly distracting.

With all of this said, I am indeed intrigued for book 2 and would probably read it to see how this story develops.

A thank you to Sophie Jordan, HQ and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my review.

A good romantasy that kept me hooked: well balanced mix of fantasy and romance, spicy scene that don't interrupt the flow (or bored me to tears). fleshed out characters
I appreciated the storytelling and the world builing
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This book is perfect for romantasy fans! With such a great mix of romance and plot.. plus there is dragons!! Hello?! The action throughout plus unexpected twists and turns made this such a quick fun read! Thank you for this eArc

Why didn't I know it was going to be a series. Of course it is.
The pacing was pretty all over the place and the ending was the typical rushed cliffhanger. The ebook formatting needs a lot of work, hopefully it was fixed for the actual publication.
It is not YA, due to themes of abuse and violence, and explicit scenes.
I enjoyed the world building but found the love triangle tiresome. Yes I'll read the next book.

I am still trying to decide exactly what to make of this book. I was hoping for something with a bit of grit and excitement and that is exactly what this isn’t.

This is the story of Tamsyn, she was a foundling in the keep at Penterra and the King and Queen decided to raise her as the whipping girl for their daughters (a fact that we are REPEATEDLY told throughout the story). Despite being the whipping girl, she is raised alongside the princesses and develops close relationships with them. Then the lords from the borderland visit the keep. The border lord Fell, known as ‘The Beast’ has come to demand the hand of one of the princesses in exchange for keeping Penterra safe from raiders. Hesitant at first, the King and his advisor eventually agree but secretly decide to give Fell Tamsyn making up a story about how it is their custom to keep the brides face veiled until after the public bedding when it will be too late to renounce her. Fell falls for this trick and is livid when he discovers the deception. Even so, he demands that Tamsyn travels to the borderlands with him the following day. The trip promises to be demanding for Tamsyn and soon she is revealing a secret about herself that not even she knew….and it would appear that dragons have returned. Fell now has his hands full looking for his missing wife and hunting down the dragon that took her…

Yes the story is a fantasy so can’t be held accountable for believability…however, there were elements of this that just didn’t ring true. How could Tamsyn have concealed her secret for so long after everything she has been through and then suddenly it gets revealed under the slightest provocation? How could Fell have also had a secret and been unaware of it for all this time? Why was Fell repelled by Tamsyn upon discovering she was a whipping girl but at the same time suddenly forget all of that without their being any kind of discussion or addressing of the situation? There are other questions I have about this but it would reveal too many spoilers.

The writing is also a bit weak. There is an overreliance on repetition – we are repeatedly reminded that Tamsyn is a whipping girl, we are repeatedly told that Fell is ‘The Beast’, that the ‘Skrog’ is dangerous and no one travels through it etc etc. To me this read as Young Adult fiction that had some graphic sex scenes put in to lift it out of being young adult fiction – delete the sex scenes and you would have a better audience for this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Looking for your next romantasy obsession? Look no further!
Sophie Jordan has crafted a fascinating world with extensive lore for A Fire in the Sky, and she had me rooting for Tamsyn from the outset. An abandoned child, taken in and used as a whipping girl for the royal family? You bet I was rooting for her.
I loved how the relationship between her and Fell developed, and how I slowly grew to like him as the story progressed. This was slow-burn well executed, for sure. I didn't see the final twist coming, and absolutely cannot wait to see where this goes from here!
4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 from me!

I wanted to love this book more than I did. The worldbuilding is fantastic and I loved reading about Tamsyn as the royal whipping girl – I would have loved an entire YA novel about her teenage years in the position. More than I loved this.

The main couple, Tamsyn and Fell, have an interesting beginning and pull to one another. Unfortunately, the introduction of a love angle with Stig ruined some of the experience; not only was it forced, there was little acknowledgement of Stig's nonconsensual actions. It made it difficult to read.

What brought this down to three stars was the repetition. I enjoyed the author's writing style in general, but the repetition became tiresome, lazy, and frustrating. The last chapters were the worst for it, making reading difficult and a slog.

I think the world here should be expanded on, and I might even be interested in reading the author's other books set in this world, if not for the repetition.

This was my first book by this author and I’ll definitely be reading more. This book was a quick and easy read and I’m excited to see where book 2 goes

Thank you for gifting me this book to read, I'm so grateful to have been able to read it. I enjoyed the book, anything romantasy and dragons is a win for me and I enjoyed being able to watch the world building grow and delve into this new world. It wasn't my favourite book to read but it was fun and easy to get into, therefore would definitely recommend on

A book about dragons, of course I'm going to read it!
It pulled my in from the start, the innocent whipping girl Tamsyn and the fear Lord Fell, it was bound to be good and it was.!

An easy read that I enjoyed but it was all about the set up for book two. I did love the twist at the end though!

There was a lot to like in this book but there are some fairly large structural issues with the writing, and they stopped this being a big hit with me.

My main issue is the pacing. Most of the book is spent on a journey to a secondary location and it felt more like a very long introduction than a completed novel. When it ended I was a bit confused and thought is that it? But not much has happened? The plot twist at the end is fairly obvious from the beginning and a certain characters betrayal I could see coming from a mile off. It felt more like the start of a plot, and could have benefited from some more complex storytelling. Finally there is very little chemistry between the mcs beyond finding each other attractive. They never really overcome their differences or have to work with each other in tandem to solve problems. So the ending for them felt unearned.

On the positive side this book reads quickly, and has easily digestible prose. I was able to read it in a single sitting and the story was compelling enough that I finished it despite my issues with it. The leading lady is a likeable heroin with an interesting past I’ve never seen used in a romance novel before. That’s unusual with how many authors rely on tropes to sell their stories these days. I was very interested in the lore of the dragons and the ending hooked me enough that I would definitely consider reading the second one. A 6/10 from me

Ive never read a romantasy, so thought I would try the first in a new series to find out why they are so popular. Although it was well written and a page turner the magic and dragons weren't really for me, and I think I will leave my education there!
Thank you to netgalley and HQ for an advance copy of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Dragons seem to be all the rage in fantasy/romantasy at the moment, but Jordan somehow finds a twist that hasn't been done to death. I did see it coming from quite a distance away, but it was well-done enough that that didn't really matter. Outside of this, a fair amount of the novel felt quite cliche (particularly the love triangle element and the characterisation of the main male protagonists). Fairly fun, and I'm intrigued enough to keep reading.

I hate giving a poor review but I really didn't enjoy this book unfortunately. It was poorly written, the characters were just awful. I struggled to get through this and wanted it too end. Sorry.

I only found myself stepping into the Fantasy genre this year when I read Fourth Wing and having read a few from this genre now I certainly find I am more drawn to dragons so the minute I saw the cover for A Fire in the Sky I didn't hesitate in starting it straight away.

The pace of the book is slow paced but this felt fitting as it really felt like the author was concentrating on developing the readers relationship with Fell and Tamsyn and the world building ready for something bigger to come in book 2. Although the pace is slow my attention didn't waver at all I was intrigued to see if an actual relationship was going to happen between them and was eagerly awaiting where the dragons were going to fit into this storyline.

One thing this book was not was predictable and I actually loved that the author taken a completely different and unexpected approach towards the dragons which I won't say anymore on as I really don't want to give any spoilers but it did make for a fresh take on this genre that I applaud.

This was more on the romantasy that had a slight YA feel but there is also a couple of sex scenes but these were wrote really well into the storyline rather than just feeling like a bit of spice thrown in for what seems like a current trend.

I actually really enjoyed the kind of royal historical feel to this too, I had never heard of a whipping girl and was applaud by this but it just made me warm to our main character Tamsyn even more.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book and I really hope I don't have too long to wait to be reunited with Fell and Tamsyn.

I definitely enjoyed the concept of this book and the overall storyline, I liked the characters and themes. I do feel it could have been less descriptive though with a lot more plot. I can see this is built up for book 2, but I would have loved to see more action. Looking forward to book 2

Tamsyn the whipping girl for the royal kids was such a strong fmc who grew throughout the book, from the start it was clear there was special I loved how she fought for what she believed in.
It was nice to read about the background she came from.
The mmc was strong and well written and I just loved him.
The world building,plot and the characters and all so well written that you just get so lost in a world of your own when reading.
I have recommended this book 100x over to anyone who will listed.
'I fell in love with Tamsyn and Fell. The way the relationship grew, and their sexual tension was on chef kiss'
Just sitting her patiently waiting for book 2

Rating 3.5/5

I have struggled to write this review, I think because it was a book that started on a bit of a bad foot with me and then took me on a bit of a rollercoaster of highs and lows.

The reason I was a bit put off to begin with was our main character Tamsyn is a whipping girl and honestly I was really not sure about that part of the story, I feel like there was maybe a better way to have her in that position and still be a resilient person. It felt a little redundant and for me, this was only confirmed by the fact that the author has pre-empted a reaction to this by justifying it in the acknowledgements.

Whilst that did give me a little more context I still felt like it could have been done differently and had the same effect, rather than it being Tamsyn’s whole personality. It could have made for some interesting dynamics had there been other motivations for her taking on the role that she does other than she’s been training for it her whole life.

The story was also really dragged out, it would get to a point where I was feeling that pull of the story and starting to get into the swing of it and then it would be at least three pages of Tamsyn overthinking the same thing again and again. It was as if the story needed to be bulked out but actually if you took a lot of that out then I would’ve been so hooked that I could probably forgive some of the other issues.

There was definitely chemistry between Tamsyn and Fell, it had a kind of enemies-to-lovers vibe going on, but I was hoping for it to be a slow burn and it went from zero to Fell abandoning all reason over her without a chance for them to build on anything. I feel like there could still be potential for them to achieve that in the next book, as they’ll have issues that they need to face together.

I feel like I’ve leaned a little more into the lows in this review but there were some good bits too, there were some glimpses of magic that I found intriguing, and a part of the dragon side of the story that I was interested in finding out more about. There was a lot more action in the second half of the book so the pace picked up and I felt a bit more engrossed in the story.

Despite there being a lot in this story that didn’t quite work for me I would still be keen to read the next book in the series as I feel like it just got to the most interesting part at the end.

Mmm I can't remember why I requested this book as fantasy is not my usual genre.
Book started well, interesting life in a palace of Tamsyn, a girl who takes the punishment if one of the three princesses misbehave. She is close to her three sisters and also to the King and Queen,although she suffers at the hands of others for her red hair. One of her friends is Sig, who help her understand her role as whipping girl.
The beast a ruler of the Borderlands visits the Palace and requests the hand of one of the Princesses, he is fooled into marrying Tamsyn and takes her to live in the Borderlands, after an eventful journey they settle there.
The next part of the story struck me as just too fanciful. The book does seem to be more a YA novel with the emphasis on emotions and sex. Thank you Sophie, NetGalley and Harper Collins for this ARC.