“Courage, she thought, doesn’t mean that a person isn’t afraid. It means having the strength to rise above the fear so it does not consume you.”
This book starts off quickly, and with a lot of intense violence and disturbing imagery, so for anyone who would like to read this I will start by giving a blanket trigger warning.

A Flight in the Heavens follows a crew who band together under the most unlikely of circumstances to defeat the evil ruler of the land who has possession of his own dark god to do his bidding. Pirates and deities who reside in mysterious temples must be met and allegiances both good and unsavoury must be struck.

Overall, I had a good time reading the novel, even if the middle sections were repetitive and the tone gave me some whiplash. I found myself uncomfortable at some moments with the Armand sections and some of the romantic parts which did not seem to come at the right time for me, but this may just be personal preference. It also did not help that Farrah and Feras – the main romance – had very similar names.

Thank you to Netgalley for supplying me with an ARC . This is an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 – 3.5/ 5 stars!

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and the SFWA Team for the eARC.</i>

A Flight in the Heavens has all the basic ingredients to be a book I enjoy and eagerly anticipate Part Two of. But somewhere in the process, all of this didn't mix well.

The basics are this: a group of renegades needs to go on a dangerous quest in order to find the means to overthrow the tyrannical leader of their country. You get a promise of found family, chaotic sapphics and tragic backstories. Also, the author doesn't shy away from letting you know immediately that the stakes are <i>high</i> here - yes, characters will be killed off. And in very gruesome ways, so be warned.

However, as much as I liked the premise of this, I just couldn't connect to any of the characters, and for such a long book that's a problem. There's the first POV character, Slay, who is a well-meaning, fun guy that gets mixed up in the whole rebellion business accidentally and then stays because he wants to do good and develops a crush on Farrah. And sadly the latter is really his main defining trait for most of the book. Farrah herself is gorgeous, beautiful, stunning- no, really, every character and their mother has to emphasize that. In fact, as I've seen other reviewers mention, it gets shoved in your face the entire time that every single woman in this book is beautiful. We get it, Iscar has a great gene pool. Other than her beauty, Farrah does get a personality but it's just... meh. I know there is some big secret surrounding her (and I think I figured it out) but I think the book would have benefitted from revealing that instead of keeping it for part two. (Also her feelings for her love interest were revealed at the most inappropriate moment like... what? why?) The only truly interesting POV character was Feras, our sky pirate captain, who not only was often the only one making sense but had some personality and didn't bend over backwards for Farrah. I really liked that she stuck to her principles and values and wasn't immediately convinced to jump onboard a dangerous rebellion for the hell of it. Sadly, even Feras few chapters couldn't bring me to enjoy this book. There was an abundance of secondary characters who seemed far more interesting than the main ones we got stuck with - my girl Essan, Thorick who is unable to speak and instead of using sign-language gets a mention every ten pages, even Aslor - but none of them had enough meaningful time together to make me become invested in them or their relationships.

My other problem was with the plot. While the book starts off with a big bang, the action dwindles after that and doesn't pick up for a long while. Maybe the plan was to make this a character-driven book but for that to work, your characters need to be interesting and have a backstory. The only one who got that was Feras and, oh wonder, was the only one truly appealing to me. There was far too much talking back and forth about plans and Slay's ridiculous crush on Farrah for this to work. Speaking of plans, the plan of the crew goes entirely too smoothly for almost all of the book. While I enjoyed the world-building and crisscrossing the country of Iscar, the magic system (if we can call it that) is too much of a grey-area and used so arbitrary that my head was just a row of question marks. I don't know what the plan with the sequel is but I think this would have benefitted from advancing the plot less, more character development and some backstory reveals and magic building.
So sadly, since neither plot nor characters could really keep my attention, I don't think I'll be picking up part two.

.25 Stars. I like this to a point. It has some pretty high stakes, interesting characters, an awesome world, and flying ships. My biggest issue with this first book is that it gets a little too repetitive. Once the ragtag bunch of characters are setting about their quest, it feels a lot like an old Legend of Zelda game, where you have to go temple busting, then gather the thing at the center of it. In this case, these mortal characters have the bright idea to go find Gods to absorb them so they can fight the authoritarian man and his lackeys who've absorbed other Gods. These Gods slowly drain the mortal's life force, but give the mortal all the power they can possess.

So you have Farrah, who is a bit mysterious as the charismatic leader of a group of rebels that just got decimated at the beginning of the book. They end up on a notorious pirate ship, where they convince her to take them searching for gods so they can actually take down the monster that rules their homeland. The ship's captain, Feras, has a grudge against the current ruler, too, but takes a more pragmatic route to her rebellion. Farrah and Feras are strong personalities that clash over all manner of things, but their leadership skills are uncannily good. Farrah eventually finds that she's attracted to Feras, but Feras, though noting how beautiful Farrah is, doesn't seem as interested. This is kind of push and pull between the two is something that I am super stoked to see how it plays out especially there are some hints there. Yet, the pacing here is really slow. There's a lot of time developing characters but its done in the down time while the characters are between set pieces. So while stuff happens, it doesn't really feel like the plot is actually moving.

The story is narrated by Farrah, Feras, and a guy that acts as the audience stand in at the beginning of the book. Mysteriously he gets to narrate other parts of the book, even though he doesn't seem all that important. He pines after Farrah, often deliberately misinterpreting Farrah's obvious disinterest, and that stretches on through most of the book. Other characters at least understand Farrah's disinterest in romance, even if they hope that she and Feras get together. This guy really doesn't get it, and seems to thing there might be a thing there because Farrah is kind to him. It is a terrible subplot and I hate that it seems to go on for so long to justify keeping this guy in the crew.

I will still read the second book, and I hope the pace picks up a little bit, and allows Feras and Farrah to continue to bond. I am interested to see how the story wraps up (the blurb says this is a duology) and I do hope that the guy I can't remember the name to does not get to narrate the story in the second book.

*I received this ARC in exchange for my opinion.

Thank you netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a review

Sky pirates!! Lesbian sky pirates !!

The universe is complex, but the author manages to describe it while making it interesting : in many fantasy books, the first chapters are mostly focused on world-building, but here we dive straight into action. Despite the action-packed beginning, it took me some time to really get hooked by the book. But once I reached the 1/3 mark, I was hooked.
I loved the mix of fantasy and steampunk.
I would have liked a map tho, because the characters move a lot.

There's one thing that I really disliked, and it was the link between one man's bad actions and "madness". He's just a very, very bad person and linking his actions to "being deranged" is very harmful to people who live with conditions that are often associated with "madness", it perpetuates harmful stereotypes that we're dangerous.

Now I'm waiting for the second book!

Reading A Flight in the Heavens made me feel like a child again. I was bouncing in my seat, pumping my fist, and pleading with the book to carry my favorite characters to safety. This steampunk-influenced fantasy adventure swallowed me whole. Putting it down caused me anguish. There was a good balance of romance, character development, and world-building. Each was woven expertly into the story. The descriptions were fresh and engrossing. The camaraderie between the protagonists was endearing. I loved that Gabrielle introduced Daromas early on. It helped solidify the threat he posed, and from that point on, I was fiercely invested in the protagonists' plight. Then I reached the cliffhanger and blurted out a word I won't share here. I didn’t see the ending coming, which is good, but at the same time, it felt a bit rushed. Perhaps it's because I didn't want the story to end. Despite my desire for a few tweaks at the end, I still felt the conclusion was plausible, and this book as a whole succeeded in making me more than eager for the next installment. If you're looking for an adventurous, LGBTQ+ inclusive story that'll sweep you off your feet, The Theurgy of the Gods: A Flight in the Heavens by Gabrielle Gagne-Cyr is the read for you.

(Big thanks to the author for the free review copy! All opinions in this review are my own and are honest and unbiased. This review was first published on my review site, Kayla C. Reviews.)

Trigger warnings: This book is for adults and mature young adults. There are some brief scenes and mentions of torture/dismemberment, some gore, a couple of mentions of sexual violence, suggestive situations, and some profanity.