4.5 stars. The Sky on Fire follows Anahrod, a woman from the Sylands (high altitude mountainous regions) who for some reason, that will be later explained, ended up living in the Unders - the swampy jungle regions at the base of the mountains. Anahrod has the skill of being able to talk to and control animals, and at the start of the book she has a Titan Drake called Overbite who she uses to travel around. A group of people find her when she is trying to stay out of the way of the King of the Unders, Sicaryon, and ask her to be their guide and basically stop them being killed by the various dangers in the region so they can get home. From this a heist is fored! The start of the book was a bit jarring - from being stuck in a place she's not from, to finding out the history of why she is there and then introducing a lot of other characters to Anahrod there is a LOT happening, but it does settle and each charcter comes into their own. There are multiple dragons who each have a bonded dragon rider and are in charge of the Skylands and lots of rules and structure to how they live and behave which was interesting. There's found family, family reunions, romance (MM/MF/FF and poly) and of course, THE HEIST!! I loved this book, as I said earlier the start throws a lot of story at you, but it's so worth getting to grips with it, it was briiliant! The narration is great as well, it wasn't an easy job to create different voices for multiple human and dragon characters and I think it was done really well.

A heist with dragons?!!!

A group of misfits save Anahrod, independent and wilful and capable of communicating with animals, from capture by the local warlord. In return, they plan to rob the most powerful dragon’s hoard. A dragon that wants Anahrod dead.

All of Lyonn’s characters are always extremely quirky, distinct, and oftentimes brash. In such a diverse group with varying ages, motives, skills, and identities, she is able to build a fun, strong, and bold dynamic.

”It was easier," Ris corrected, "when the only person I loved was a dragon." Then she realized what she'd just said and sighed, closed her eyes, hung her head. "You're both like damn jungle vines." Hopefully that was because they were growing on her, and not because she thought they both needed to be pruned with a sword.

Don’t worry - this is not nearly as complex as Ruin of Kings.

Lyonns is always genius with her worldbuilding. Here, citizens wear ring which denote different aspects of their identity: career, gender, sexual preference, bedroom activities, etc. This seems like such an easier way of knowing who to date.

One thing that remains the same from her Chorus of Dragons series is the teasing at BDSM. Whilst this isn’t a ‘spicy’ book per se, it’s more dialogue hinting at fantasies, I personally didn’t find it to my taste.

“Shame I couldn't find a ring that means 'I'm attracted to people who are vengeance -obsessed and prone to extreme violence! Would've been perfect.’”
“Very niche.”
“No, very niche is renic root, which apparently means I am sexually attracted to cloth dolls."

This could be read as a standalone, and only the epilogue hints at how the next book might start. I am always astounded at authors who manage to write a high epic fantasy that satisfyingly ties off most loose ends in one book.

Thank you to Tor for providing an arc in exchange for a review.