Darlene's Book Nook: #Audiobook #Review: 5 out of 5 stars for Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young @adriennebooks @MacmillanAudio @KhristineHvam

Friday, September 7, 2018

#Audiobook #Review: 5 out of 5 stars for Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young @adriennebooks @MacmillanAudio @KhristineHvam

TITLE: Sky in the Deep

SERIES: Sky in the Deep, Book #1
AUTHOR: Adrienne Young

NARRATOR: Khristine Hvam

PUBLISHER: Macmillan Young Listeners

PUBLICATION DATE: April 24, 2018

FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook

LENGTH: 8 hrs and 40 mins

GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy

ISBN: 9781427296986

Seventeen-year-old Eelyn’s world is war. Raised to fight alongside her Aska clansmen in a generations-old blood feud against the Riki, 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 if she wants to make it back to the fjord after the thaw. But when she begins to see herself in the people she's been taught to hate, the world Eelyn once knew begins to crumble. And after the village is raided by a ruthless clan many believe to be a myth, Eelyn is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend who has tried more than once to kill her. Together, they must end the blood feud between their clans or watch their people be slaughtered.

A lush, Viking-age inspired fantasy about loyalty, forgiveness, and the definition of family.

MY REVIEW:

If you are going to read one YA debut this year, pick this one!!! This book totally blew me away. I laughed, I cried, and I immediately had to re-listen to the ending because I just wasn't ready to say goodbye.

This 2018 YA debut has been on my radar for a while. With a kickass Viking female warrior and that gorgeous cover, I was immediately intrigued. This one did not let me down! I had requested it from my library on Overdrive, and my hold came in while I was painting my children's bedrooms. I essentially listened to the entire audiobook in one day. When I finished, I was bummed that it was over! I wanted more. The author wrote on Goodreads that there is a companion novel slated for release in 2019, and I can't wait!!

The heroine, Eelyn, is an Aska warrior. While fighting with her fellow tribesmen against the Riki, she is about to be slain when a voice shouts out to the man about to kill her and tells him to stop. Eelyn can hardly believe her eyes when she sees that the Riki man who stopped her would-be-killer is none other than her brother, Iri, who she thought died in battle five years earlier. When she tells her father about it later, he tells her that her it was her brother's spirit that saved her life and does not believe that he was actually there in the flesh. Eelyn is not convinced.

As the battle continues, Eelyn discovers that she is right. Iri and his Riki brother, Fiske, take Eelyn as their prisoner to save her life.

Oh wow, I loved everything about this story! I loved that the female warriors fought alongside their brothers and fathers and were not treated any differently just because they were girls. They were trained to fight, and their gender was not seen as a weakness. I loved the setting and the landscape, which the author so vividly describes. I fell in love with each of the characters, and I am hoping that there will be many more companion novels in this series. This is definitely going to be one of my favourite reads of 2018.

Kristine Hvam became one of my favourite narrators after listening to her performance in Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone. Although she didn't provide the same range of unique vocalizations in this book, she was still a delight. She's the type of narrator who oozes their emotions through every word, and she had me spellbound. Here is a sample of the narration: