Joanna Hathaway’s historical fantasy debut gives a decent foundation for the beginning of a triology.

Jenn Dove’s (@imjenndove Instagram) fanart is what first drew me to check out this series and the idea of a pilot main character as I haven’t read any books situated in such a field. 

My favorite parts of this book were mainly from Altan’s point of view. I liked watching him step into the role of a pilot and seeing how his character arc took off. I felt like I got to understand him the most out of any of the characters and understand the world the most through his eyes. His first battle scenes and his friendship with Ceyar were highlights for me. I liked how the romance between him and Aurelia was a moderate build. While they spend like a max 8-9 days in person together, I think the letters do help build their bond especially as someone outside their norm with differing views and beliefs.

There are discussions of loyalty and power, and you get to see this play out in the grand scale of the politics between the countries and continents and microscopic within the families and characters. Intermix this with political scheming and backstabbing, moral lines become blurred and it’s hard to tell who to trust. As this is an original world, Hathaway spends the first half of this book setting up varying countries and their respective leaders, so I recommend finding the map on her website if you are listening to the audiobook and/or having a written copy to reference. I drew on the map to help organize where everyone is from which helped. 

I wanted to continue learning the dynamics between countries and characters; however, the entire plot is very introductory, and I never felt fully hooked in the story. The Southern continent/countries felt the least developed to me despite it being a large focus of this story. From my memory, Resya is the only independent country—though ruled by northern blood—so is the rest “claimed” territory like Thurn? What is the scope of the Nahir rebellion? WHY are Nahir rebelling-as we aren’t given much detail about these lands outside the northerners looking down on them and the north wants mythical riches and their animals as clothing items. In general, because everyone is secretive and lying, everyone’s motivations are still murky (reader POV) by the end of this book, despite later reveals, which makes the next book enticing but also this one feel like a drawn out prelude. 

I would even say maybe skip the “prologue”because it’s tone is a juxtaposition to the entirety of this book and appears to be a scene from MUCH later in this series (a snippet from a warn-torn world). 

Audiobook wise, Barrie Kreinik and Dan Bittner do a fine job with their respective narrations, and they sound like their characters.Sound quality was good and even.