Title: A Fire in the Sky
Author: Sophie Jordan
Genre: Romantasy
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Source: NetGalley
Blurb: Dragon fire no longer blisters the skies over Penterra, but inside the lavish palace, life is still perilous – especially for Tamsyn. Raised in the glittering court alongside the princesses, it’s her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. Treated as part of the royal family but also as the lowliest servant, Tamsyn fits nowhere. So when she is tasked with the ultimate sacrifice of pretending to be one of the true royal princesses and marry Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, son to the great dragon slayer, Tamsyn accepts her fate even if it means tricking the deadly warrior.
The wedding night begins with unexpected passion, but ends in near violence when her trickery is exposed. Rather than start a war, Fell accepts Tamsyn as his bride … but Tamsyn isn’t what she seems. She harbours dark secrets, secrets buried so deep even she doesn’t know they exist.
For Tamsyn is more than the false wife of a man who now sees her as his enemy. And when those secrets emerge, they will ignite a flame bright enough to burn the entire kingdom to the bone.
Magic is not dead … it is only sleeping. And it will take one ordinary girl with an extraordinary destiny to awaken it.
Review: Dammit, I wanted to love this book – the premise was so interesting! – but sadly it fell flat on several aspects.
Firstly, the worldbuilding. Jordan somehow manages to write lots of it, yet not actually tell the reader anything important. We get that Tasmyn is the royal whipping girl, punished for her sisters’ transgressions because apparently genuine blue blood skin can’t be marked or something, but all the history is just dumped in huge paragraphs that I must admit to skimming.
There’s an unnecessary love triangle following Tasmyn’s “best friend” Stig declaration of love. I did like his character up to the point where he started telling her how she felt and that they ought to run away together. It felt very much like the nice man who thought he earned sex cookies by being nice.
Fell… oh gosh, where do I start? He’s known as the Beast. Okay, fair enough. Obvious inspiration is obvious, but I was onboard with that. I like fairy tale retellings and this seemed a nice flip on that. Until Fell and his cohort are described as having “dark curly hair, strong noses, and dark skin” and as “savages”. The racial overtones were very disheartening and have no place in fantasy. Find some other way to have the FMMC and MMC different. It’s 2024, for crying out loud.
Then there’s the “romance”. I was okay with the whole fake marriage thing and even Fell’s anger. I love a good enemies-to-lovers novel. Sadly, this book isn’t good. The journey to Fell’s homeland gave plenty of opportunity for him and Tasmyn to get to know each other. It’s not taken. She’s shunned by him and most of his soldiers, except for the times Fell decides she’s worth a shag. There’s no attraction, no chemistry. Just them shackled by a lie of a marriage.
I hate giving A Fire in the Sky three stars because I wanted to love it. I just didn’t.
Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this book.
Leave a Reply