Review: SKY IN THE DEEP by Adrienne Young
Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young 
Published by Wednesday Books on April 24, 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 352
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
As soon as I realized Sky in the Deep was about Vikings, it immediately became one of my most anticipated reads of 2018. (Have I mentioned that I love Viking stories?) I was hoping for an exciting, action-packed read, and I’m thrilled to say that I got that and so much more. Sky in the Deep opens with our main character, 17 year old Eelyn, and her Aska clan engaged in battle with their lifelong enemies, the Riki clan. The fighting is fierce and the energy is electric, but all of that fades away when Eelyn sees something on the battlefield she never expects to see – her brother, who she watched die in battle five years ago, apparently alive and well and fighting for her enemy. It’s a total WTF moment and I was immediately hooked and, like Eelyn, I had so many questions that I wanted answers to.
How is it possible that Eelyn’s brother is there if she actually saw him die? And why in the world would he be fighting against his own people and for his sworn enemy?
During one of the clashes between the Aska and Riki, Eelyn is captured and taken up into the mountains to the Riki village. If she can survive winter in the mountains surrounded by all of her enemies, she has the opportunity to confront her brother face to face and demand answers.
But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan who has also attacked the Aska village in the past – the same clan who killed Eelyn’s mother — Eelyn becomes desperate to get back to her family. It becomes clear that if the Aska and the Riki are going to survive, they’re going to need to work together to defeat their common enemy.
Can Eelyn convince her father that the Riki are not their enemy and that they need each other?
Eelyn was such an epic main character. I really loved her. She’s a fierce and proud Aska warrior and her loyalty to both her family and her clan knows no bounds. Some of my favorite scenes from Sky in the Deep are those scenes where Eelyn is out there fighting like a total badass on the battlefield. What I also loved about her character though is that she’s not all fierceness and badassery – she’s also a vulnerable and conflicted sister who fears that her brother is a traitor to her people and doesn’t know what to do about it or how to feel about it. I thought the author did an incredible job of conveying every emotion Eelyn was feeling. Her pain was palpable, as was her anger, her initial hatred of the Riki, her feelings of betrayal, etc. Everything about Eelyn was so vividly depicted that it was just very easy to feel a connection with her.
Sky in the Deep is one of those books that I would consider to be the best of both worlds – if you enjoy action-packed battle scenes, you’ll love it, but if you enjoy character and relationship-driven stories, you’ll love it too. The battle scenes were truly thrilling. There were axes and swords flying everywhere and I was on the edge of my seat each time Eelyn fought, hoping that she would make it through unscathed. The scenes were vivid and somewhat graphic but didn’t really veer over into outright gory territory, which worked well for me.
As if those action-packed scenes weren’t fabulous enough, the book is also filled with relationships that just really got to me. I’ve already mentioned the conflicted relationship between Eelyn and her brother. That one just broke my heart because Eelyn was so crushed to think her brother was a traitor. I really wanted to hate him for hurting Eelyn with his betrayal, but then we hear his side of the story, and everything I initially thought of him got turned on its head and I just wanted brother and sister to reconcile so badly.
The brother-sister relationship takes center stage when it comes to relationships, but it’s not the only relationship by far. I thought the author did a beautiful job depicting the evolution of the relationship between the Aska and Riki clans once they realize they face a common threat and need to band together if they hope to survive. I loved the range of emotions that she has the various Aska and Riki clanspeople, Eelyn and her captor Fiske in particular, move through – the long-standing hatred, the mistrust, the curiosity, tentative acceptance, friendship, etc. These relationships were all so messy and so realistic and I just ate them up!
And yes, there is a romantic relationship as well. And guess what? I didn’t hate it! Why? Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that it was a subtle relationship that gradually developed over the course of the story and I never felt like it took over the story or distracted from anything else that was going on. There’s no insta-love at all – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s enemies to lovers all the way, which apparently I’m a huge fan of!
Even though I loved Sky in the Deep overall, I did have a bit of an issue with uneven pacing. Those action-packed battle scenes had me absolutely flying through the pages, as did the scenes where Eelyn confronted her brother or where she clashed with her captors. But then I would hit the occasional lull when the story focused more on the day-to-day life of the Riki and Eelyn’s thoughts as she watched them and did chores for them.
These domestic-focused chapters were still beautifully written– let me be very clear on that– and they definitely served a purpose, which was to show Eelyn that her sworn enemies are normal people just like she and her fellow Aska are. My issue was mainly that reading about sewing and gardening and other chores just felt a little mundane in comparison to the adrenaline rush that goes along with reading about someone slashing and hacking their way across a battlefield. I think this would have been a 5-star read for me if there had been fewer passages that dealt with household chores.
Sky in the Deep is a fantastic read that has something for everyone. If you’re into character-driven books that feature fierce females and plenty of complicated relationships, then this is a book for you. However, if you’re into action-packed stories that feature warring Viking clans, this is a book for you too. And finally, if you’re into a slow-burn romance featuring enemies who suddenly don’t hate each other quite as much as they thought they did, then yes, Sky in the Deep is for you as well.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
OND ELDR. BREATHE FIRE.
Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and 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.
Faced with her brother’s betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family.
She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend, who sees her as a threat. 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 family while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life hating.
About Adrienne Young
Adrienne Young is a born and bred Texan turned California girl. She is a foodie with a deep love of history and travel and a shameless addiction to coffee. When she’s not writing, you can find her on her yoga mat, scouring antique fairs for old books, sipping wine over long dinners, or disappearing into her favorite art museums. She lives with her documentary filmmaker husband and their four little wildlings beneath the West Coast sun.
Review: SCHOOL FOR PSYCHICS
School for Psychics by K.C. Archer 
Series: School for Psychics #1
on April 3, 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 368
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
K.C. Archer’s School for Psychics is the first novel in a new urban fantasy series of the same name. I was initially drawn to this book because I have a thing for books that are set in boarding schools for young people with special abilities or skills and when I read the synopsis for this book, I immediately got vibes of the Harry Potter series and Nevernight. Those are two of my favorites so the idea of a similar book but that focuses on training psychics instead of wizards or assassins had me totally on board.
School for Psychics follows twenty-something Teddy Cannon, a bright and resourceful young woman who has an uncanny ability to read people. Even though Teddy is smart, however, she has apparently made some questionable decisions in her life and is currently living in her parents’ garage in a make-shift apartment. When the story opens, we learn that Teddy has also been banned from nearly every casino in the Las Vegas area. She has been using her ability to read people to win money in the casinos and also gotten into some trouble with some unsavory individuals that she now owes a lot of money to. We meet Teddy as she is dressed incognito trying to sneak into a casino with money she has “borrowed” from her parents in hopes of turning it into major winnings so that she can pay back her gambling debt. Teddy’s plan goes awry, however, and she tries unsuccessfully to make a fast getaway. A stranger intervenes and gets her out of trouble, only to then tell her that he has been watching her. He informs her that she can read people the way she can because she is actually psychic. He then invites her to come to the School of Psychics where she can train with others like her in areas such as telepathy, telekinesis, investigative skills, and SWAT tactics. Upon graduation, she would go on to serve the U.S. government, using her skills to protect America, and the world.
Teddy is of course skeptical but ultimately agrees to come to the school. In her mind, she has been a screw up for most of her life and would love to finally be able to do something to make her adoptive parents proud of her. At first the school is pretty much what Teddy expected it to be. She slowly begins to settle in, get used to her classes, and for the first time, actually make real friends. But then strange things start happening – there are break-ins, students go missing, and more. It leads Teddy to become part of a dangerous mission, one that will ultimately cause her to question everything she thought she knew – her teachers, her friends, her family, and even herself.
Teddy was definitely a big draw for me. I liked her character from the first moment I met her, trying to scam her way into that casino. She was the ultimate underdog so I immediately found myself in her corner. She’s also one of those complicated, messy characters that I so adore. I saw that right away when she demonstrated street smarts and tremendous confidence with just a hint of guilt about what she had done to her parents. I liked how conflicted she was and wanted to not only learn more about her, but I also wanted her to succeed, not only in the short term when it came to getting herself out of trouble but also in her desire to finally do something to make her parents proud.
She’s also a very realistic character in the sense that she is in no way perfect and tends to make questionable choices quite often. One that immediately comes to mind happens almost as soon as she arrives at the school. She shows up late to one portion of her entrance exam because she got drunk and hooked up with a guy. I just sat there like “Whhhyyyyyyy? How are you supposed to turn things around and make your parents proud if you get kicked out before you even start?!” She frustrated me to no end with decisions like that, but it made her character growth as I moved through the story that much more satisfying. She’s still not perfect by any stretch by the end, but she has come so far.
On a slightly different note, I also found her psychic abilities quite fascinating. All of her classmates had interesting abilities as well, but Teddy’s abilities were quite rare and apparently were inherited from her birth parents who died in a car accident when she was very young. Her rare abilities make her of particular interest to those in change.
The setting also really appealed to me, both the Las Vegas setting where Teddy starts out and then the island off the California coast where the school is set. I was especially intrigued by that since at one point, it’s mentioned that some students can see Alcatraz prison from their windows. I just thought that was cool.
Finally, I liked the mystery that comes into play by about the halfway point of the book. It moves the story to a whole new level by having it be about more than just this group of young people attending classes and honing their skills. I don’t want to go into any details about what the mystery is about, other than to say it basically turns Teddy’s entire life and everything she has ever thought she knew about herself and her birth parents upside down and it also opens the door for this series to take an exciting and possibly darker turn as we have to consider what the government could be using people with Teddy’s abilities for. Is it all solely for the common good?
While I did end up enjoying School for Psychics overall, I do have to admit that my reaction to the early chapters was mixed. The opening scene with Teddy running her scam in the casino hooked me immediately but then surprisingly enough, once Teddy got to the school, I found myself less interested and actually more confused than anything else. Why? Mainly because Teddy and her new classmates are supposed to be young adults, with Teddy in particular being in her twenties, but most of them seem so immature. Teddy confused me the most in this respect because while she was running her scam at the casino, she came across as very street smart and worldly, but then as soon as she stepped onto the campus of the school for psychics, it’s like her personality changed and she became obsessed with every cute guy she came across. It was a little off-putting how immature she suddenly seemed and I thought about giving up on the book at that point, but thankfully Teddy quickly settled in and began to focus more on her classes and less on the guys.
One other issue I had, which was also early on in the book was what I considered to be a case of flawed logic. It made no sense to me why this school would recruit students, have them pack up all their belongings and fly to California, only to tell them once they arrive on campus that they have to pass a series of tests in order to determine whether or not they would be a good fit at the school. In Teddy’s case, she is recruited and told that if she gives them four years of her life, they’ll settle her gambling debts and make sure her parents are safe from the guys who were threatening Teddy when the novel opens. Why make a promise like that to her but then have her take these tests to see if she can stay at the school? Again, I was glad I persevered since I ended up enjoying the rest of the story, but for a few chapters there, it had me wondering what I was getting myself into.
Even though I got off to a slightly rocky start with School of Psychics, the story definitely got stronger and stronger as it went along. I think it’s a solid first book for this new series and I look forward to seeing what’s in store for Teddy and her classmates in the next installment. I’d recommend School of Psychics for anyone like me who enjoys books set in boarding schools, as well as for anyone who enjoys urban fantasy and/or mysteries and has any interest in psychic abilities.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
An entrancing new series starring a funny, impulsive, and sometimes self-congratulatory young woman who discovers she has psychic abilities—and then must decide whether she will use her skills for good or…not.
Teddy Cannon isn’t your typical twenty-something woman. She’s resourceful. She’s bright. She’s scrappy. She can also read people with uncanny precision. What she doesn’t realize: she’s actually psychic.
When a series of bad decisions leads Teddy to a run-in with the police, a mysterious stranger intervenes. He invites her to apply to the School for Psychics, a facility hidden off the coast of San Francisco where students are trained like Delta Force operatives: it’s competitive, cutthroat, and highly secretive. They’ll learn telepathy, telekinesis, investigative skills, and SWAT tactics. And if students survive their training, they go on to serve at the highest levels of government, using their skills to protect America, and the world.
In class, Teddy befriends Lucas, a rebel without a cause who can start and manipulate fire; Jillian, a hipster who can mediate communication between animals and humans; and Molly, a hacker who can apprehend the emotional state of another individual. But just as Teddy feels like she’s found where she might belong, strange things begin to happen: break-ins, missing students, and more. It leads Teddy to accept a dangerous mission that will ultimately cause her to question everything—her teachers, her friends, her family, and even herself.
Set in a world very much like our own, School for Psychics is the first book in a stay-up-all night series.
About K.C. Archer
K.C. Archer is a pseudonym. School for Psychics is the first book in a new series.
Review: STARRY EYES by Jenn Bennett
Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett Also by this author: Serious Moonlight, The Lady Rogue
Published by Simon Pulse on April 3, 2018
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 432
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
Starry Eyes is a young adult contemporary novel that follows teens Zorie and Lennon. Zorie and Lennon used to be best friends but, because of something that happened at the homecoming dance, they are now sworn enemies and do everything they can to avoid one another at all costs. I had never read a book by Jean Bennett before and knew absolutely nothing about these characters, but as soon as I read that in the synopsis, I was dying to know what happened at that dance to drive them apart.
I then read further down the synopsis and saw that these enemies somehow not only end up on a camping trip together, but somehow they end up stranded in the wilderness together. It sounded like a recipe for disaster, but also a recipe for a fantastic read!
As if the mystery of what happened between Zorie and Lennon and whether or not they would kill each other on this camping trip wasn’t compelling enough, the synopsis goes on to describe their parents as modern day versions of the Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet. That right there was more than enough to have me dying to read this book. I mean, seriously…bffs who now hate each other and who have families who are also feuding? Does that not just scream “READ ME”? Well, it did for me anyway…
And I loved every page of it. Jenn Bennett delivers a moving story filled with characters that I fell in love with. Even though on the surface, Starry Eyes is a book about a camping trip gone wrong, it’s also about family, love, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, and so much more. It captured all of my emotions and was just everything I hoped it would be.
Zorie. I just loved everything about Zorie. I found her addiction to planning and organization, along with her sense of humor and her fondness for astronomy, so endearing. I also found her incredibly relatable at times, especially when she first encounters Lennon. They’re enemies at this point and she would rather do just about anything than have to come face-to-face with him. Haven’t we all been in that position before? Equally relatable was her questionable taste in romantic interests. Zorie has a crush on a guy named Brett, and I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but I’m just going to say this guy is just the worst. I couldn’t figure out what in the world she saw in him. But again, haven’t we all been there at some point? I think what I liked most about Zorie, however, was how much she matured throughout the story. Again, no spoilers, but between what happened with Lennon and what has been going on within her own family, Zorie has a lot of issues that she is dealing with and I think she shows tremendous growth as we move through the story, In many ways, it’s actually a coming of age story for her.
Lennon. Even though I thought going in that I would side with either Zorie or Lennon, I found myself equally attached to both of them. Lennon is just this cool guy. He’s a little dark and emo at times, but he loves reptiles and he loves camping and nature so he’s a pretty well rounded and interesting individual. He really won me over though in an early scene where he’s working in a pet shop and showing reptiles to a young child. He was just so great with the child that it warmed my heart and made me all the more curious about what happened between him and Zorie. I mean, how could you not want to be friends or even more than friends with such a great guy!
Zorie and Lennon together. Yes, you read that correctly! Even though I almost always whine and moan when there is a romance in a book, I adored watching Zorie and Lennon together as they attempted to rebuild their relationship. Their chemistry felt real because they already had so much history together, and I loved how authentic the awkwardness felt when they first start trying to talk to each other again, and because I liked them both so much, I just really wanted them to have a second chance, either as friend or hopefully as more than friends since they seemed so perfect together.
Great secondary characters. Bennett does a fantastic job with most of the parents in this story. I loved Lennon’s moms and their Toys in the Attic sex shop. They were hilarious and also two of the best parents I’ve come across in books in a long time. I especially love how protective they are of Zorie, even though they’re supposed to be feuding with Zorie’s dad. Zorie’s stepmom is wonderful too. The bond she has with Zorie was lovely, especially since they aren’t related by blood. Zorie’s dad is a different story in that I loathed him, but I will say he was not a flat character either.
Glamping. I confess that I completely related to Zorie’s aversion to going camping because I don’t do the outdoors either, especially the whole sleeping in a tent with nothing but some canvas between you and whatever else it out there in the wild, lol. That said, however, I could totally get down with glamping. It sounded fabulous, especially the wonderful sleeping accommodations, the showers, the chef, and the cocktail hours. Sign me up!
I could literally go on and on about what I loved, but you get the idea…
Aside from wanting Brett to get eaten by a bear, I didn’t really have any issues with this book.
This may have been my first Jenn Bennett read, but it will most certainly not be my last. If you’re looking for a heartwarming read about family, friendship, and first loves, I’d highly recommend Starry Eyes.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
Ever since last year’s homecoming dance, best friends-turned-best enemies Zorie and Lennon have made an art of avoiding each other. It doesn’t hurt that their families are the modern day, Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets.
But when a group camping trip goes south, Zorie and Lennon find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Alone. Together.
What could go wrong?
With no one but each other for company, Zorie and Lennon have no choice but to hash out their issues via witty jabs and insults as they try to make their way to safety. But fighting each other while also fighting off the forces of nature makes getting out of the woods in one piece less and less likely.
And as the two travel deeper into Northern California’s rugged backcountry, secrets and hidden feelings surface. But can Zorie and Lennon’s rekindled connection survive out in the real world? Or was it just a result of the fresh forest air and the magic of the twinkling stars?
About Jenn Bennett
Jenn Bennett is an award-winning author of young adult contemporary romance books, including: Alex, Approximately; The Anatomical Shape of a Heart; and Starry Eyes. She also writes romance and urban fantasy for adults (the Roaring Twenties and Arcadia Bell series). Her books have earned multiple starred reviews, won the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award, garnered two Reviewers’ Choice awards and a Seal of Excellence from RT Book Reviews, and been included on Publishers Weekly Best Books annual list. She lives near Atlanta with one husband and two dogs.