Sky In The Deep by Adrienne Young

Author: Adrienne Young
Publication: April 24, 2018
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Genre: YA Fantasy
Source: Publisher

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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.

Review 

I was initially drawn to this book because of the cover and I liked the idea of Vikings. Eelyn's perspective in the beginning comes through vividly as she battles with the Riki and I could sense her inner turmoil about seeing her brother fighting alongside the enemy. She at first thinks she couldn't possibly have seen him because she was there the day he died and saw his body. They leave the bodies on the battlefield in this story because of their beliefs but Eelyn has her own guilt that she's lived with for the past five years. The next day she sees her brother again and happens to get captured. This is when the pace of the story slows down and it's becomes more of a day-to-day thing with Eelyn having to come to terms with her anger and the revelation that her brother betrayed them. She's very observant and she comes to realize much about herself, the war and her enemy. One of her captors, Fiske, sees her brother as his family and though that infuriates her more, she tries to understand the bond that kept him from coming home. Now, not much happens action wise throughout all this but it picks back up towards the end with more bloody scenes. I think the author did a good job setting the scene for these sequences because I found it easy to visualize what was going on in these moments. 

What I liked about this book was the romance. The passion was slow and I liked that it wasn't an instant romance and they were able to learn about each other, even though they felt this pull. I liked Eelyn's fierceness but she also has a softness to her that's endearing. Fiske comes off as a tough character but there is more to him as well. I liked his little brother, he's such a cute character thrown into a world of blood and war. There are other characters that aren't as fleshed out but are apart of changes in Eelyn internally and externally. Overall, the writing is steady. The characters are okay, though some needed more development but I think anyone that likes fantasy and wants to read about Vikings may like this one.