Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young

Sky in the Deep (Sky and Sea, #1)

by Adrienne Young

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 neighbor 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 rumored 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.

Reviewed by inlibrisveritas on

3 of 5 stars

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Sky in the Deep was one that I have seen pretty much everywhere lately and with the Viking plot and the promise of badass young women I knew I had to give it a shot.

Eelyn is a seventeen-year-old Askar warrior, she protects her village and she is beyond fierce. This girl takes all manner of violence in stride, gritting her teeth to pain and standing her ground against those much larger than her. I could seriously read a series centered around young women like Eelyn, who hold up their village with both care and brute strength, and these sections of the book were absolute perfection. I loved the closeness between Eelyn and her father, as well as her friendship with her best friend. The fighting was awesome and the look at their way of life was really interesting, unfortunately, there was a downside of this one that sort of dampened my ability to immerse myself fully.

The romance in this one they tell you is coming the summary, but about halfway through the book I seriously didn’t see a need for it. Even after I finished it I thought that her relationship with Fisk was the weakest part of the book. I wouldn’t have minded a friendship that could be built up more, but I just didn’t find myself enthused by the somewhat ‘convenient’ romance between them. The fight between their clans was really interesting and I was super curious to see how and if they could find a way to unite them as allies, but the fact that Fisk and Eelyn were also building a relationship during all this felt a bit too Romeo and Juliet.

Khristine Hvam does a fantastic job with this one and really gets to gruffness of the characters, even bringing through the surprising softness in each of them.

Overall I enjoyed it but I don’t think this will be one that sticks with me for long. The action and fierce nature of the book are fantastic, but it just seemed to be missing something vital to making it truly standout for me. Despite that, I think Eelyn is definitely one of my favorite characters from this year’s reading.

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  • Started reading
  • 7 August, 2018: Finished reading
  • 7 August, 2018: Reviewed