Enjoyed this. I’ve never read anything by this author before but will definitely be checking out more.

3.5

Shout out to the audiobook narrator who did an absolutely great job! I will be honest and say I have felt a bit over-saturated by dragon fantasy books but I had a great time listening to this book! I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the plot but did find I couldn't connect to the characters.

I found this novel to be promising but unusually executed. It starts with a fast-paced adventure, where the reader is thrown in the middle of the action without much introduction. This was slightly confusing but enjoyable, as the characters and world-building were fascinating. The world is complete with complex history, myths, and stories. There are also unique creatures and an interesting take on a divided society.

The problem is the pacing is all over the place in this novel. The initial plot is suddenly abandoned. We then have a slower storyline introducing the reader to politics and expanding on world-building, just to be abruptly abandoned again in favour of the heist plot and then the dragon rider academy plot. The shifts in pacing and storyline were too sudden and confusing, making the book seem almost like a collection of discarded stories woven together without an overarching storyline. Some characters disappear from the pages, reappearing somewhere towards the story’s end.

Also, I’ve seen this book described as romantasy, which is confusing, as there is very little romance within.

To sum up, I loved the world-building, but the pace and storyline were too chaotic for me.

Amazing, From the acclaimed author of the Chorus of Dragons series, this soaring stand-alone fantasy combines conniving dragons, lightning banter, high-stakes intrigue and a little bit of heat.

Sometimes you just want to read a standalone with dragons and this book delivers!!! It’s a wild ride that’s high stakes as we follow a group of diverse misfits on a heist. The group has some fun dynamics and all of the characters are very much distinct. I absolutely adored the animal companions and the magical interweaving with the dragons. The book does throw you in at the deep end but the story is not overly complex and I feel it’s an accessible read. It’s action packed and maybe too action packed in a way, but I don’t know if that’s a more of a personal preference on my part. The best characters are indeed the dragons and the power they hold is something to behold. It’s an epic story set in a rich world, I highly recommend this book. I also recommend the audio as this just immerses you into the story and characters even more. It’s such a fun listen. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an audio ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

This book was an absolute delight from the first word! I loved the world, with its dragons and magic, thieves and schools - basically think of any fun thing in a fantasy world and they appear here, including sky pirates. I loved the various interactions between Anahrod, Ris and the rest of the gang and thought that the characters were really well constructed. The plot is fast moving and constantly evolving without ever becoming too confusing or bogged down, which I really appreciated and it was lovely to read a standalone that was completely satisfying. Would I read more books set in this world with these characters? Absolutely, but this story has a clearly defined ending, which is so refreshing. Overall, this has cemented Jenn Lyons as one of my favourite fantasy authors and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book's opening prologue was interesting and then it kind of went awry, This book has a bunch of individual elements that should really work but just never seem to come together,
This has an interesting take on the dragon c dragon rider dynamic (the dragons are essentially overlords), it follows a band of misfits and it has political intrigue, all things I normally love in fantasy but I ended up feeling very ambivalent here.
I fear this books main flaw is that it is trying to do too much and ends up not doing any one thing very well. The pacing of this story has some real issues too,

This was my first Jenn Lyons book and I was drawn in by the promise of dragons and found myself reading the interesting story of an outcast drawn back into the world she once knew through a complicated series of events. Anahrod is clever, brave, and resourceful. All these traits come in handy on her adventures in this book, with a heist to take on and perhaps a few lives to save. It's hard to say much without giving anything away or going into any complicated explanations but I will say that there were some good characters in this book and interesting dynamics between a band of misfits. I would have liked to feel more of the emotion in this story, as well as the chemistry, as it didn't feel convincing to me. I also found it really confusing trying to keep track of all the different characters, though especially the dragons. It's a fairly long read so lots of different names introduced throughout and I was boggled, which detracted from my enjoyment of the story and understanding of the plot. The narrator was great and offers nice variations for voices of different characters that helps to distinguish them from each other.

I received a free copy of this book. All views are my own.

3.5 star
1 spice
High Fantasy
Dragons
3rd person

High-fantasy, dragon filled adventure with an heist, bit of revenge plot. A standalone book too.

The pacing was off and I found it took me longer to get back into the book there were a lot of characters and world building so it was very heavy. The world building was good and there were such a wide range of characters, although maybe it was because it was the audiobook but I sometimes lost track of who was who.


The narrator did a really good job and I enjoyed her style. Different voices for different characters was a help in keeping track of such a large group of people.

Overall the dragons and riders story side was really good but I felt it dropped off for quite a long time in the middle and I didn’t care to pick it back up for a little while as I wasn’t connected to anyone in the story. It did redeem itself at the end and it was a very satisfying ending

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan UK Audio for the audioARC

Unfortunately this title was archived a day after I began it and despite downloading the audiobook on the app I am unable to access it. I did enjoy the first 10% of the book, the setting was well established and the characters intriguing. I will definitely be finishing this book as soon as I have a chance to purchase my own copy!

“Never correct an enemy when they make a mistake”

This is an adult fantasy standalone with dragon overlords, a group of misfits and a heist!

I really enjoyed the book and I highly recommend the audiobook. The narrator did such a great job bringing the characters and the story to life and I was hooked from the beginning.

The story begins with MC, Anahrod, being saved from a local warlord only to be told she is being recruited by them to steal a dragons hoard. A dragon that wants her dead.

The world building was incredible, it was vivid and immersive and I loved seeing how the world worked and we get to see quite a lot of the world as we travel with Anahrod.

The group of characters were all developed really well and had distinct personalities and motivations that drove them. They were also a range of ages and had a great dynamic in the group.

Anahrod is witty & sarcastic, has great survival skills and I loved seeing her slowly open up to others after being alone for so long.

The story was action packed from the beginning and the author does a great job bringing all the threads of the story together at the end in a satisfying way.

📖 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪 📖 ★★★★★
𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲: Sky on Fire, Jenn Lyons
𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: Fantasy
𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁: e-ALC, MacMillan UK Audio

𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲:
🐲 Dragons
🚔 Heists
⚔️ Standalone books

Yep. Dragons and Heists, the combo you didn’t know you needed. The FMC is badass as we’d expect but there were lots of other really interesting characters - also with surprise connections 👀. It really does feel creatively unique too…but with some similar themes from the Hobbit / Fourth Wing and Can’t spell Treason without Tea. There’s even a sprinkling of romance too with great banter/ sarcasm (ft spice ++ in a couple scenes too).

It’s not a short read at 450 pages but with it being a standalone there’s no cliffhanger or waiting for the next book to feel satisfied! So much content and I absolutely loved it!

Thank you so much @netgalley @panmacmillan and MacMillan audio for the advanced listening copy! Aaaand it was released yesterday for anyone who wants to dive in!

"It's something much harder to kill than a lie: it's a story"

The Sky On Fire is... a puzzle.
Its individual elements are all things that should work, and work for me, specifically. This is a competently written book, with decent worldbuilding and an interesting take on the dragon/dragonrider dynamics. I love a book that drops you in the middle of the action and leaves you to figure things out, demanding your attention. I love a heist. Love dragons. Love a band of misfits on a quest. Love a queer-normative world. Absolutely adored the narrator and her different voices for every single character.

And yet. Here we are with another two star rating. No one is more distraught about this than myself.

To start off, the pacing is absolute whack. You get dropped in the middle of the action (love), and after all the exposition-laden dialogue (don't love) you're left thinking oh this is a political drama. But then it's a jungle adventure. Then it's a band of misfits on a journey? THEN things get horny out of the blue? Then for some reason the protagonist joins a ship crew? Then it's a heist. Then... I don't even know. This book jumps you from situation to situation, from place to place to place in so short a span that none of it even feels distinct anymore. This felt direction-less for a huge part of the narration, and it didn't help that by the halfway point a main motive for the protagonist (who, I have to say, made me doubt my own degree of comfort with silly names in fantasy with a name such as Anahrod) had not yet been established. To this day I am not entirely sure Anahrod has something she wanted, or if she was just getting carried by the plot to wherever she needed to be next.
The directionless-ness comes to a climax in the last 20%, where so much happens: there are revelations, lore drops, deep dives into a magic system previously ignored, character deaths, kind-of-sex-scenes apropo of absolutely nothing, huge battles and new characters introduced, and there's virtually no time to let any of it have the gravitas it deserves. I'm still reeling.

I maintain my opinion that this book should either have cut significantly on a lot of elements to focus on what was really important, or been a trilogy. Or at the very least a duology. There is so much that suffers from the massive under-development of this unfocused mess, first amongst them all the characters and relationships. I mentioned Anahrod having no real characterisation or motive to speak of, but what bothered me most were her relationships to other characters, especially the romantic ones. The insta-lust was insta-lusting, so to speak. Half the time I forgot characters were supposed to be in their thirties (or older), because they kept acting like horny teenagers. Calling the relationship with Ris "rushed" would be paying it a compliment, truly: entirely based off of attraction (which I was not feeling, but that may be me), and yet after a couple of days Anahrod was acting as though they had known each other forever and she could read Ris's innermost thoughts.
The spice level was so inconsistent I almost ragequit for that alone. Throughout the narrative there is some teasing, some flirting, some much appreciated conversations about sex, a tasteful fade-to-black threesome, and then, just when the story is coming to its climax, genuinely out of the blue there is this public quasi-sex scene with explicit dirty talking that made me want to close this book and never open it again.

But more than the insta-lust, more than the inconsistent pacing, more than the protagonist with no driving motivations... My biggest gripe is how this "queer-normative" world handles queerness. Nobody is more surprised and disappointed than myself, I promise you.
I cannot begin to tell you how much I HATED the whole concept of garden rings. Social rings I could absolutely get behind, ones indicating one's profession, place of origin, marital status, all that jazz. Wearing rings that tell all about your sexual or romantic preferences, down to your <i>kinks</i>, for everyone to see? Miss me with that. No, the existence of a "prefer not to say" ring does not make it better. This may be down to personal preference, but my favourite aspect of queer-normative fantasy is the total absence of labels, the non-issue of categorising one's gender identity or attraction. The sheer freedom of that is, for me, the absolute pinnacle of what queer-normative means. Repurposing labels and making them into neat shiny rings defeats the purpose, especially if displaying them is *expected*. And they came up so much, too! I don't care about the preferences of a random guy on the sky ambership if that's never going to come up naturally, or have any bearing on the plot or characters! What even!!
Worse, any instance of trans people being mentioned ("late-blooming", in this world, which I actually don't hate) is coated in so much virtue signalling and tokenisation to be cringeworthy. For instance, Anahrod finds out one of her parents came out as trans while she was gone, and goes to see him for a brief scene. They don't talk. She sees him and runs away. This never comes up again.
So... what was the point? Was there meant to be a reflection on changing, on finding your place, on how Anahrod's father found himself while she herself was not allowed any of that, on how she doesn't even know her own parent anymore? Because there was absolutely NONE OF THAT ON THE PAGE.
Another minor trans character is later introduced. This was my second almost-ragequit. It is so patronising to see the mental gymnastics the PoV character demonstrates to correct herself, to note that "admittedly, the girl was late-blooming, but still a girl". I feel like if you have to continually remark upon the fact that your society has trans people and is soooooo good at accepting them "even though they're trans"... Then I think we're missing the point of your world being queer-normative, at least in part? It feels clumsy, it feels patronising and virtue-signalling.

(Note: the queer community is not a monolith. Some people may appreciate this kind of narrative device and storytelling, and if you do, that's valid and I'm happy for you. I still fucking hate it though)

I'll conclude with some things that I actually liked.
I love everything about the main gang. Don't care if they're not revolutionary in characterisation. They feel like a DnD party: goofy, edgy, nerdy and tropey in the best possible way. There's a reason if the formula works, and it's that it WORKS.
The last 30% of the book, when the action gets really going, is actually quite enjoyable.
The sections that were specifically about the heist had me giggling and cheering, sitting at the edge of my seat in anticipation.
That's the most frustrating thing about The Sky On Fire, I think. When it's good it's great! When it's bad, it's TERRIBLE.

This book was great! It has Dragon overlords, a heist, a group of cool/ deviant characters and high stakes. It starts strong with a fantastic prologue that introduces you to the delightful world to come and has a a diverse set of characters. This book has great pacing and some sexually mature content as well as, adult overarching themes in general .

As for the audiobook side of things, it was clear and well suited narration. The narrators voice somewhat fit the characters well and this made it a bit difficult sometimes to connect with some characters in particular but it worked very well for other characters. However, the style of reading allowed for a smooth listen and the pacing/ overall flow of the audiobook made it sound so much shorter than it is (which is a good thing)!

Overall i rate it 3.5 stars

THE SKY ON FIRE is a standalone fantasy full of dragons, magic, and the fight against tyranny.

There is so much packed into this book that I don't quite believe the page count (448 pages listed everywhere.) I'm guessing the font must be small given the number of hours of audiobook (over 12) and also how much was in this book. There are chases, a heist, time for friends to become enemies and become friends again. There are multiple dragon attacks and a romance to sizzle up.

It makes for an action packed book, running from disaster to disaster (all while Anharod tries not to deal with her clear interest in two people and then does just before there's no time to deal with it.) It's very pacy and I was swept along in the fight to get revenge and money, and then to survive and defeat the dragon causing all the trouble.

The audiobook is narrated by Lauren Fortgang who does a great job at bringing dragons to life, giving them a gravely voice that doesn't quite feel human. The book is mostly told from Anharod's perspective, but I liked that Gwyneon got to speak a few times as he's precocious and clever and I wanted to protect him from the start.

I really appreciated getting to read a standalone dragon book that isn't almost a thousand pages long. You get a story in one go, reasonably short to listen to, while still getting all the magic and battles of dragons. The ending wraps up nicely and gives you enough information to imagine what would come next in the world without needing another book.

DNF at 16% then skipped through to the end.

It started off strong with an intriguing prologue but the first few chapters left me a little confused as you're thrown into the world with so much info dumping and many characters I couldn't get invested in.

Disappointing because the premise sounded good but couldn't get into it or the characters, and by 16% I realised I didn't care to know.

It just wasn't for me that's why I'm giving two stars instead of one.

If you are looking for an epic fantasy heist book with dragons (a lot of dragons too!) then I would definitely recommend this 🙌🏽

This is a stand alone book which would be a great introduction to Jenn Lyons writing style for anyone who hasn't read her before. Especially if you’re thinking of diving into ‘A Chorus of Dragons’ series.

This starts with our protagonist Anahrod who thinks she’s on a normal sword-for-hire job but some early twists in the plot show she's clearly mistaken. Her new crew of mercenaries may not have her best interests at heart (no surprise there). It’s hard to hate them for the betrayal though- they're written almost as well as Anharod is and their entertainment value is excellent.

I love Lyons' writing, she manages to hit the mark on characters, intricate plots, family relationships and humour. Safe to say this did not disappoint at all! It was non stop, fast paced, action packed and full of adventure from start to finish. Bits of it had me wondering what was going on 😂 - Classic Lyons.

Both worlds and characters had some similar themes with her other series, with this being a little more concise - probably because Lyons doesn't have a whole series to expand into!

On that note... I kinda wish this was a series because it feels like there are so many more adventures this group of misfits could go on!

This book was a fast paced and fun fantasy ride! I enjoyed the narration, it was well done! The story kept my attention from start to finish. The band of characters were interesting, and some were more likeable than others! It was full of dragons, magic and all sorts of weird creatures! This was my first book from Jenn Lyons, but I can't wait to read more in the future!

Dragons and dragon riders,
A heist,
A magical school,
Finding a sibling,

It's all here!

I won't rehash the plot but I will say it started off
with a bang and then levelled out, maybe too slow with all the heist planning, we'll maybe too slow for me!

I did like the characters however!

Anahrod - what a beaut!
Sicaryon - LOVED!
Ris - took a bit for me to warm up to!
Gwydinion - loved from the get go!

I didn't love, love it but a good read for heist lovers!

Headlines:
Exciting but slowly paced
World building density
Heisty-dragon fun

Lock in your concentration because there's a lot to The Sky On Fire. It started out with full on excitement but settled into a more slowly paced journey over jungle, seas, courts and tribes. There was a cast of characters to get your teeth into that promised and delivered on found family and romantic connections (more on that later).

The characters in this book were different species, with a range of gifts and magic; we got drakes, trolls, dragons and dragon riders, then some more average folks too for balance. Lyons painted a vivid picture of the lands, sea and air, almost to the point of sense and smell. It was a gritty tale and not that fun for the characters in parts.

I spent some time in trust during this book...where was it going...what was the end goal...who was conning who...who could be trusted. The heisty tones were well done, the cast of characters stretched my capacity for who's who a little but it ended up worth the ride.

I'm not sure I got wholly invested in the romantic elements but kudos to the author for what they did with the emerging love triangle. I did like the core characters and was intrigued how they forged their way out of scrapes repeatedly.

Lauren Fortgang's narration was excellent and kept me interested as slower moments.

Overall, lots of depth and world building with a solid story underpinning.

Thank you to Tor for the review copy.