*received audiobook for netgalley for honest review* Actually liked this more than i thought i was! wasnt sure i was going to like this but looking forward to the rest of the trilogy

I ended up DNF'ing this title around 15% through. I absolutely hated the narration and the story wasn't interesting enough to keep me going. I would consider giving this book a second try but it would have to be the ebook or physical book. I have considered trying to continue with the audiobook but I find myself dreading it to the point where I'd just rather not read/listen.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. A solid pirate story, By Sea & Sky takes the reader through pirate battles, betting schemes, and maneuvers for power. While the characters themselves could use a little more depth, I found myself glad that I read this book. I loved the original world and the different fantasy races, and would enjoy diving into this universe again.

This is not like any other Pirate story you have read before! This is a pirate fantasy inspired by the West Indies, The Swahili Coast, and Arabia, full of sea, sky and magic!

Zala and Jelani are part of a pirate ship crew out of desperation. Jelani is a sea whisperer and every time he uses his power in a certain way, he turns more into stone skin. Zala, who loves her husband more than anything, is trying to find an antidote for his condition. So even when their crew is in the midst of a battle, she is out in the search of ingredients of the potion that will give Jelani his skin back as well as his life. Because, as his skin turns to stone, his life slips away. Until a day their pirate ship is being attacked by an airship. Then everything goes downhill. Some of the pirates find themselves out in the sea or at a nearby island. Some others are held captive by the airship. Their captain is gone and they need to find a way to go back to Kidogo without being attacked by other pirates or the navy.

Karim is second in command in one of the empire’s ships. As a matter of fact, this ship is rather special, as it is the empire’s first airship! It’s their first mission in the new craft and they are still testing its abilities. Karim is trying to prove his worth and deep inside he knows he is destined for greatness. Only that, the right people must recognize his value. When they have a go on a pirate ship and their captain is injured, Karim becomes acting captain and does his best to complete the mission. His way of thinking is different than his captain’s but his crew respect him as they respect hierarchy so they follow his lead.

The story follows Zala and Karim and we get to see each side of the story. Each one of them has their own reason and their own motives, even though the are on opposite sides, I can understand where each one stands and I respect them for what they are doing and the decisions they make. We don’t get to see much of the the character development, but we start to get to know them and the code they live by.

I was glad to see a story that does not evolve around European pirates. The different cultures that inspired the story give a colorful tone and the language is so different than what we’ve used to. Sure, pirates love rum and so do these pirates, but the words they use for everything is so new and exotic that brings a new fresh view of the theme.

The world building is not an easy one. The fact that everything is dashed with unknown words, or at least words that are so unlike I could think or have heard of, given they don’t come from a western language, made it a bit more difficult to understand. The fact however that there were magical or inhuman creatures really caught my attention and made it easier for me to absorb the different meanings.

I really enjoyed listening to this audio book. The narration is a charm! John Rogers makes his voice sound as if he is actually from somewhere in the Swahili Coast! It really lightens up the whole story! It was very easy to recognize the characters, as for every one of them there was a different tone in the narrator’s voice. One of my favorite things in audiobooks is the emotions that go into the narration that can help create a more vivid picture of the story. This part was greatly depicted while listening to “By Sea & Sky”. I could feel like I was part of the fight. I became one with the crew and part of the ship! It was an amazing experience! I highly recommend it!

Thanks to NetGalley and Bandele Books for the opportunity to listen and review this audiobook.

DNF

On paper, this book sounds right up my alley: Female sky pirates, yes please.
However, nothing in this book matched my expectations.
From the cover I expected more of a YA feel, but this book is definitely for adults. The main character is older and married. At the beginning of the book she is in a pirate gang with her husband but doesn't know any of the other pirates and doesn't care that many of them were killed on a meaningless raid.
I had no sympathy for any of the characters and felt that the first five chapters, at least, could be cut, since the intro did nothing to connect me with the main characters.

I was also surprised that the audio was read by a male narrator since the main character is a woman.


I was lent an audio version of this book from Netgalley for review purposes.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, so when I saw that the audio version was available on NetGalley... I was intrigued. I mean, this book has a 4 star rating on Goodreads so this pirate book might be good. Yeah, no, this rating is filled with lies. The synopsis sounded great because sky pirates? Heck yeah, I'm into that.

Yet, I felt nothing for anyone in this book. In it, you will meet Zala who was ehh okay. Not my favorite person in the entire book world. She is trying to find her way to her husband because they were separated. Throughout the book, there are so many action packed battles or fights.. that did absolutely nothing for me. I feel like I zoned out for so much of this book.. but have no fear - it's on Kindle Unlimited.

Other than that, I got to the end of the book without even knowing it. I think I might've sat with my headphones still in my ears for about 5 minutes before I realized that the audiobook was over. Even though it had potential to be a good book.. this just did nothing for me. I'm sure the second book might make more sense but I have no desire to dive into that.

This was a very original tale. The world-building was fascinating and the setting was very unique. The only thing I did not like about this audiobook was that the plot was slow at times, and I would have to speed up some scenes to speed up the story. Nevertheless, it was a thoroughly enjoyable tale. The narrator was an excellent reader. She helped make the audiobook come alive. She gave each person she was portraying a distinct personality. I would gladly listen to this audiobook again.

I'm sorry, but this wasn't for me. Sky pirates do sound really awesome, but the action sequences were difficult for me to follow (maybe if I read instead of listened it would be clearer) and the plot in between I found boring. It seemed like the whole point was Zala trying to rescue Jilani and also steal something from the other guys (don't know who they are exactly) that may help with stone skin?

Zala wanted to be a leader but she's not good at persuading people to follow her and her temper gets the better of her often. Karim also wants to be a leader and is better at it, he just struggles with his lazy, cowardly captain stopping him. They had parallels, I just would have liked more backstory so that I could relate to them.

The ending was kind of a bummer, nothing is resolved and you have to read the next book to see what happens. I think this has potential, but it lacked world building and the characters felt a bit one dimensional to me.

I received this audiobook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Ugh.

My rating is based on my enjoyment which was close to non-existent while listening to the audio. I wanted to like this book but unfortunately, this book wasn't for me. My biggest issue was that I never cared for anyone in this story. I liked the idea of having a married couple as our main characters but we had no backstory, nothing to make us really care (other than him being sick) and that felt lazy.

And since listening to a never-ending-action-packed book where I don't care about the characters is not an enjoyable way to pass the time, it's no wonder I wanted to quit many times. But I didn't because I was curious enough to see what the ending was going to be like. I wanted Zala to be reunited with her husband and spoiler alert --> <spoiler>She didn't! YAY!</spoiler> Sooo that was disappointing and I clearly won't be reading the sequel.

I feel like there was no character development or world-building and that's so important to me. If you want to read an adventure book about pirates against an Empire, maybe this is for you but if you're like me and want to feel for the characters, you should probably find something else to read. If you like YA where the story happens mostly on sea and islands, I recently read [book:Fable|44012880] which was great.

<i>(Thank you for letting me listen and review an ARC via Netgalley)</i>

Writing a premise for this book seems difficult as the one provided by the publishers seems to give away a big part of the story. I’ll try my best to come up with my own. Zala is a pirate. Her and her husband are pirates by necessity as they need money and resources to brew a remedy for an affliction her husband has. When the ship is attack, Zala’s life is thrown into the biggest upheaval ever and she’ll need to use her wits to get her husband, her friends, and herself out alive. Karim is the second-in-command on the first even naval airship. Their mission? To test out the ship by hunting pirates. He knows he can do a better job than his captain, but has to sit back and watch as more and more bad decisions are made. Can he help the ship and crew complete its mission?

This book captured my attention and it did so fast. I’ve never been a huge fan of pirate stuff but I love me some airships so I decided to give this a shot. I’m glad I did. This book could have easily been sucked into a downward spiral of pirate tropes and Jack Sparrow rip-offs, but author Antoine Bandele knew what he was doing. The original premise for this book says that it’s “inspired by the West Indies, The Swahili Coast, and Arabia,” and these inspirations are easy to see. The greatest part is that Bandele may have taken inspiration, but he’s made his story and the world it takes place in, his own.

Zala is a great main character but there were times where she frustrated me. It seemed like she didn’t know how life on a pirate ship should work. Maybe, just maybe, don’t continuously question the captain and disobey orders. That could be mutiny. The good news was that each time Zala did something dumb or made a mistake, she was either called out for it, or it didn’t go well and she had to learn from her mistakes. A main character that’s not perfect AND learns from their mistakes? What more could I ask for? I could ask for Karim. A character who has a little in common with Zala (They’re both exceptionally smart, smarter than their captains and want to prove so,) but is more than just a passing thought. Karim and his story was just as fleshed out as Zala’s so we get two stories that intertwine at certain points but can each carry the story when their apart.

Bandele did a fantastic job with this story. He created wonderful characters and put them in a colorful world. I never felt overwhelmed with information like some books can do when they infodump everything you need to know at the beginning and hope you remember. The knowledge came fluidly as the story progressed. My only gripe is that I still don’t know much about how the magic works and I would gladly have read (or listened to) a slightly longer book if I got a better grasp at how it works, but that was really the only down side. Well, that and the pirate songs were a bit cringy.

I experienced as an audiobook and the narrator, John Rogers, did a great job. Each characters voice was unique and the accents were fantastic.

By Sky and Sea is fun and I can’t wait for the next book. I received this audiobook as an Advanced Listening Copy from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Zala and Jelani are some of the nicest pirates you’ll ever meet – and that sometimes was a little boring for me. There’s plenty I liked about this story and yet I never really bonded with these two main characters. It’s the pirate life, as the story keeps reminding us. That means ruthlessness, cunning, selfish behavior, cursing, peeing into the wind, and sometimes blatant murder, right? And yet we have these sweet characters to follow around. They felt out of place in this incredible, complex setting.

I really enjoyed the world building for this book. It’s an us versus them tale – pirates versus the over-controlling empire. Sometimes it’s even Zala and her crew versus brutal pirates. Then there’s the magic – different kinds, different ways to use it. Toss in an airship and you have a great fantastical tale in the making. I also liked that not all the characters were human. WE have a cat-like humanoid and another with wings.

Zala seems too trusting and nice to win in this world of pirates. She’s always watching out for her friends and crew, polite helpful, etc. Yet pirates do as they do when pirating, right? I never could really see Zala murdering and stealing with a joyful heart. Karim, an officer of the Empire, was a more compelling character because he fit the mold. He was as expected and that made it easy to grasp his purpose in the plot and fill in the blanks with my own imagination.

Over all, it was OK. I didn’t find it compelling but it was nice to have on in the background while I did chores. 3/5 stars.

The Narration: John Rogers did a decent job. I thought he was an interesting choice since the bulk of the story is told by Zala (our heroine). He did plenty of accents and had unique voices for all the characters. His female character voices usually sounded feminine but sometimes they needed a little polishing. The pacing was good especially for the fight scenes. I liked how he expressed Zala’s impatience, anger, and frustration throughout the story. There were no tech issues with the recording. 4/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. my opinions are 100% my own.

This was an interesting story with many many characters. I think it would have been easier to follow the plot if I had read this physically instead of listening to the audiobook. The audiobook is well done. I loved the sea sounds between chapters. I loved how action-packed this story is but again it was difficult for me to keep all the characters straight. I did love all the powerful female characters. I'm a sucker for a strong badass woman.

You will see my awkward attempt at a proper review below. But I kept distracting myself with what I really want to say:
Pirates! And sky ships! And magic! And adventure! And love!

I received an audiobook copy of this title, in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to read this story because it was a voice that was unknown to me, and because I haven’t read many books that I would place in both “adventure” and “adult” categories. It took me a bit to find my rhythm with the book, but based on how much I ultimately liked it, I strongly feel it was because of these factors. I decided to mention this, because I want others to give it a read, and to be open-minded if it’s not their usual genre.

The book focuses primarily focuses on a husband/ wife duo, who have decided to become pirates (PIRATES!) in the hopes of getting the funds to cure the husband from a deathly illness. The wife is the brains of the team, and the husband is the soul. When the pirate ship they’re on meets with disaster, the couple is separated. While they both work to save themselves, their connection and love is still the thing that keeps them pushing forward.

Note: While the intended audience feels to be adult, this is also a clean novel and I cannot recall anything illicit (outside of the piracy and scuffles) taking place.

By Sea & Sky follows the story of two main characters - a female pirate named Zala, and Karim, an officer of the Empire. It was a character-driven story with a lot of action and battle scenes, inspired by the West Indies. Unfortunately, I really didn't enjoy it. Let me tell you why.

The characters:

For a character-driven story, the character work is very important. Here, sadly, I found it not nearly good enough. All the characters felt one-dimensional, with little-to-none depth behind their motivation and goals. Zala is written to be smart by making every other pirate (except her friends, which are few) being incompetent and stupid. Both the pirates' and the soldiers' captains (and crews for the most part) had the same feel about them (even though the pirates were forcibly shown as the "good guys" ). I really didn't care for any character and their fate.

The plot:

It's a bit generous to call it plot, but whatever. The story initially started with a rather long battle scene as means to introduce Zala and the pirates, and after that jumped to another one, and one after that. I really don't think that's an ideal way to introduce the characters, as the reader doesn't care for them at all at that point. It might work in other medium such as manga or comic-books, but very rarely (if ever) in books. The whole story was basically "the pirates vs the evil empire" and nothing more.

The prose:

The book wasn't actually badly written, I found the action-scenes to be rather well handeled. However, as I didn't really care for the participants in them, I found them hardly holding my attention.

The audiobook:

I read this one as an audiobook and that was actually the best part about it - the narrator did a good job handling the different accents and making them sound authentic. If it wasn't for the audiobook quality, I don't think I would've finished it..

Thank you to netgalley for giving me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for a fair and honest review.

If it wasn't for the fact that this book was available to try out netgalley's new audiobook feature, I don't think I would have chosen this book but I'm glad I did. The genre is not something I would normally be interested but the author's writing style and characters really kept me hooked into the book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. It has been published in April 2020.

"By Sea & Sky" by Antoine Bandele is a highly imaginative swashbuckling adventure packed with action, with a touch of fantasy and historical fiction thrown in for good measure.
In this story you'll meet pirates, shapeshifters, nobles and many more unforgettable characters, all of them exquisitely well-rounded, full of complexities and contraddictions.
I particularly loved how the characters - every single one of them, not only the protagonist - kept subverting my expectations and challenging my preconceptions.
You won't find a single stereotype in these pages, and if you think you do, it's going to be overturned in the next chapter.
It's awesome how the author managed to create a whole new universe where racism, gender-based discriminations and homophobia don't exist, and things like a black female leader or a gay couple don't raise eyebrows and are just *implicitly* accepted, so that the narration doesn't even focus on them.
Extra points for giving a voice to people who are discriminated on the basis of a disease, and to their loved ones who also suffer as a consequence. It's a theme almost untapped in genre novels, and it's masterfully done in "By Sea & Sky", with a kind perspective and absolutely no self-pitying.
The narrator of the audiobook also did an excellent job, creating a very different voice and accent for each and every character, and even singing the songs with an amazingly tuneful pitch.
The sound effects marking the beginning of each new chapter were also appreciated.
This is the first novel I read by Antoine Bandele, and now it looks like I'm hooked.

Thank you NetGalley for finally releasing audio books, this now means I can listen and read and get more books in. This was my first book by this author and it certainly did not disappoint. Listening to the characters come alive was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book.

DNFed at 56%
I was looking forward to getting stuck in, being that I've never read a pirate fantasy I was ready to expand my horizons. The book promised characters of African/ Caribbean decent, and that's what really got me interested in the first place. African pirates? How could you not give it a go? The world has lots of promise, unfortunately the world building just didn't quite do it for me. There were mentions of people and creature who seemed to be important, gauging from the responses of the character's when they were mentioned, but no explanation was given as to who they were or why they were in fact so important to this world. Even the religion felt glossed over.

This is a book that was easy to listen to and I may go back at some point to finish. The points I've mentioned may in fact be resolved later on, but at this time I just don't feel invested enough in the story or characters to complete it.

(Would prefer not to give a star rating on a book I didn't finish, but sadly no choice on this)

Link to Full-Length Goodreads review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3467202159
Link to Pending Amazon Review: https://www.amazon.com.au/Sea-Sky-Esowon-Pirate-Chronicles/dp/B088N9KX4R/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1596580916&sr=1-1

By Sea & Sky was fast-paced, action-packed, and overall an enjoyable read. Where I think the book excelled was in the development of not just the main characters, but most of the supporting cast as well. They were all fighting for something, though their ways about doing so often varied. This, to me, made for an interesting and compelling story. Zala, the main protagonist, was one determined and unyielding woman. She was not going to allow anything or anyone interfere with her mission to find her husband, Jelani.

Admittedly, I found myself most intrigued by the parts of the book that were slowed down and explored the characters' individual and group dynamics. I believe I would have equally enjoyed the plot if I better understood the world By Sea & Sky took place in. It was not until nearly halfway through the book that I had a better grasp of the scene and the circumstances that led to Zala and her crew to be in the predicament they were in. I fully recognize, however, that my initial confusion may have been impacted by my infrequent reading of fantasy books and lack of familiarity with this level of world-building. It also appears as though there are several books that precedes this that are also set in this world. Although By Sky and Sea is the first in this specific series.

Regardless of this factor, this book was engrossing. I was so excited to immerse myself in a "pirate fantasy inspired by the West Indies, The Swahili Coast, and Arabia". As a Black reader, one with roots in the Caribbean, it was nice to see some familiar themes and mythos.

Now, focusing on to the audiobook itself. The narrator, John Rogers, did a wonderful job. There were so many characters who he had to voice and I think he did an incredible job differentiating. Additionally, there were sound effects at the beginning of each chapter (and sometimes in the middle of a chapter), that added to the ambiance and overall listening experience. Personally, I would have loved to see this as a full-cast production, with more sound effects, because the entire time I listened, I was picturing this as a movie. And I truly believe this would adapt well from page to screen. The only issue I had was that at times, my audio would cut out (forcing me to force close the app and start over) and the sound would sporadically come out echoey. I tried to listen on several devices as a result, but was met with the same issue. I am assuming that I unluckily received a copy with quality issues,

Thank you Netgalley for this audiobook copy and allowing me the opportunity to review this book.