Sky in the Deep
- Adrienne Young
- Albany, WA
- December 15, 2022
GOODREADS BOOK BLURB:
Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient, god-decreed rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: train to fight and fight to survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield ― her brother, fighting with the enemy ― the brother she watched die five years ago. Eelyn loses her focus and is captured. Now, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbour is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered.
But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan settling in the valley, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved Aska clan, which is rumoured to have been decimated by the same horde. She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend who tried to kill her the day she was captured. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one.
Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and find a way to forgive her brother while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life killing.
But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan settling in the valley, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved Aska clan, which is rumoured to have been decimated by the same horde. She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend who tried to kill her the day she was captured. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one.
Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and find a way to forgive her brother while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life killing.
SERIES / GENRES:
FIRST WORDS:
“They’re coming.”
I looked down the row of Aska hunched against each other, ducking behind the muddy hill. The fog sat on the field like a veil, but we could hear it. The blades of swords and axes brushing against armor vests. Quick footsteps in sucking mud. My heart beat almost in rhythm with the sounds, pulling one breath in and letting it touch another before I let it go.
I looked down the row of Aska hunched against each other, ducking behind the muddy hill. The fog sat on the field like a veil, but we could hear it. The blades of swords and axes brushing against armor vests. Quick footsteps in sucking mud. My heart beat almost in rhythm with the sounds, pulling one breath in and letting it touch another before I let it go.
MY REVIEW:
solid, good read:
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
It’s hard to believe that Sky in the Deep is Young’s debut novel. Having read a few of her books, it feels it could have been published at any time among them.
I’m starting to believe Young could write about anything. I’ve seen contemporary on an island filled with old magic, high fantasy pirates, and now we’ve got Vikings. Her strength comes from placing you so deeply into a world that everything else feels natural. And with Sky in the Deep, the world she describes is vivid, violent, and filled with stark beauty.
I’m not totally sold on the romance and how quickly things fell together in the end, but you can’t deny the accuracy with which Young has portrayed family. It’s complicated normally, let alone with rival clans and death around every corner. I like that for most of Sky in the Deep, it’s messy, and the characters are allowed to have more than one feeling about everything that happens. The complexity this lends to the relationships and, therefore, to the overall narrative made Sky in the Deep a compelling read.
I’m starting to believe Young could write about anything. I’ve seen contemporary on an island filled with old magic, high fantasy pirates, and now we’ve got Vikings. Her strength comes from placing you so deeply into a world that everything else feels natural. And with Sky in the Deep, the world she describes is vivid, violent, and filled with stark beauty.
I’m not totally sold on the romance and how quickly things fell together in the end, but you can’t deny the accuracy with which Young has portrayed family. It’s complicated normally, let alone with rival clans and death around every corner. I like that for most of Sky in the Deep, it’s messy, and the characters are allowed to have more than one feeling about everything that happens. The complexity this lends to the relationships and, therefore, to the overall narrative made Sky in the Deep a compelling read.
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