To be honest, I didn't really love this one. I liked the concept and the writing style, but the story just wasn't for me.

Debut Author Shina Reynolds A Light in the Sky is the first installment in the authors Clashing Skies series. This book has been marketed as being Red Queen meets The Scorpio Races in a high-flying new fantasy filled with passion, betrayal, and adventure. Seventeen-year-old Aluma Banks has always dreamed of soaring freely through the skies astride a powerful winged steed of her own. But flying is a privilege granted only to the Riders of the king’s Empyrean Cavalry, the aerial warriors who defend the borders of their land from the fallen Kingdom of Laithlann.

Aluma's father, Hearn, was a former Empyrean rider, and something of a legend. Aluma's mother left long ago, and her brother is a sneaky little snot who needs to be punched in the throat. Unfortunately for Aluma, and her family, they are hanging on by a thread thanks to the King's property rights rules, soldiers keep taking more than they need. Now, the only way to keep her family home, may mean that her father may need to come out of retirement and become a rider once more.

Each year, a select few people from each city compete to join the king's elite Empyrean Cavalry in the Autumn Tournament. Only the most skilled warriors and their equally remarkable horses are given a chance to participate. After, horses belonging to the new Empyrean Riders are granted their wings, going from a wingless horse to an Empyrean steed overnight. Positions in the Cavalry are extremely limited because of the power it takes to give the horses their wings, so the competition is fierce,.

Aluma, trained to ride and fight by her father, knows she has what it takes to prove herself worthy—if only her father hadn’t forbidden her from joining their ranks, in the hope of protecting his only daughter from the perils of war. To make matters worse, Thayer, Aluma’s best friend who could be becoming something more, is competing—and if he wins, he’ll leave her behind. When Aluma’s father is tragically injured just before the Tournament, she finds herself unexpectedly thrust into this year’s competition.

But as Aluma begins to pursue her dreams, she learns devastating secrets about the king and his never-ending war with Laithlann. After a battle against the "Scalers" Aluma finds herself in Laithlann where she meets Gattacan and his family which includes his sister Wolkenna. Of course, this is where the dreaded triangle of doom pops up its ugly head when her best friend Thayer arrives after believing that she was dead. Now, Aluma and her friends are considered to be traitors by Prince Sutagas.

In her quest for the truth, Aluma discovers a power deep within herself that may be the only way to save Eirelannia and the people she loves from the darkness that threatens to consume them all. A few things, the story ends on a brutal betrayal, and a cliffhanger. Where the story goes from here is anyone's guess. Aluma has been thrust into the spotlight by her own father, but her father didn't prepare her for what's to come in a world that sees her as a possible way to balance the light and the darkness. She's a naive character at times who does silly things that end up in bad situations. This book also has elements of a dystopian novel in that Laithlann is considered to be Old World where they have tall skyscrapers that existed in the world before numerous wars.

When i was 12-13 year old, i was very obsessed with horses , riding and just loved reading books that had horses in them. This made me so happy, it made me relive those happy memories and feelings. I loved the story, and look forward to see where it heads next.

From the premise I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this (I hated both Red Queen and The Scorpio Races) but I decided to give it a try. This one was just not for me but if you like either of the two books I mentioned then you might like this one.

#ALightintheSky #NetGalley

Definitely reminded me of The Scorpio Races and I enjoyed A Light in the Sky just as much. I'm really looking forward to reading more from Shina Reynolds.

Aluma Banks has dreamed of flying a winged horse in Eirelannia's empire cavalry yet that is a privilege she has to fight for, alongside her best friend. Only a few are chosen, and after her father falls in a disastrous public exhibit, Aluma is thrust into the realities of the king they all serve. Finding her strength, figuring out her love, and trying to right the wrongs is jus the beginning of the battle.

A light in the sky follows Aluma who dreams of being an Empyrean rider like her father was, the only problem is he has forbidden her from trying. Each year, Rider hopefuls across Eirelannia compete in the Autumn Tournament for the honor of joining the Cavalry. This year, Aluma finds herself unexpectedly joining the competition after her father has a tragic accident but as she pursues her dream, she learns devastating secrets about the king and his never-ending war with Laithlann.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one! It had good pacing and I loved the characters! Aluma had a really nice relationship with her dad and her friends. I was not a fan of the love triangle however, it's probably just me but I thought too much time was spent talking about how jealous the love interests were. I can look past that though because I loved the plot, I thought the world was described really well, and the magic was really interesting! And of course I loved the winged horses!

Overall, I recommend it if you're looking for a book with unique magic that's fast paced!

This is a very rare DNF for me. I was thinking about not writing this review at all, but I realized it might help someone to know why.
This book isn’t bad. It just didn’t grip me. I’m not invested in the characters, I’m not invested in the plot. Which is disappointing because as an equestrian, the concept intrigued me and I had high hopes.
Oh well. I have better things to do with my life than forcing myself to read a book I’m not enjoying

Let's see, this book was really well written with so many great characters that once you started it you couldn't put it down. The main character Aluma was very head strong and cared immensely for her friends. A trait I really loved.
Sometimes the story dragged but honestly it didn't bother me much because the rest of the book was so action packed with so many plot twists I didn't have time to get bored

As love triangles go Aluma was confused between her life long friend Thayer and the new stranger, Prince Gattacan. The thing I'd like to mention is that she sometimes dwelled on who to choose a bit too much and this internal battle took over important scenes which was a bit bothersome.

The author created a really interesting world and gave enough descriptions of the world without making it feel like info dumping. And the best part was that the action doesn't take long to start.

All in all I really liked this book, made me remember of the good old Hunger Games days!!

Thank you to the publisher and Shina Reynolds for an eARC of this book.

Aluma Banks has always dreamed of becoming an Empyrean Rider even though her father has never allowed her to join. After a public accident her dad whispers to her that she must join the calvary and that she needs to find a specific commander to help her understand why it is so important for her to join.

Another YA book where the protagonist is supposed to be saving the world but instead spends too much time trying to figure out her love triangle...This book felt really nostalgic dystopian and had a lot of the common young adult tropes. Love Triangle: Friends to Lovers and the mysterious dark hard stranger. Not resolved in this book

Reynolds is really bold with all of her names. The characters names, cities, nationalities all of it had really big clunky names that were confusing and also somehow too similar that it was hard to figure out where exactly they were talking about or the significance of why it mattered what nationality somebody was. It was complex but not really easily explained. Maybe in the printed version there is an explanation page that helps the reader connect the names with areas. The pacing in this book was not bad I found the beginning to be really exciting and fast paced. Everything was making sense and the need for urgency in the book was felt. At about the halfway part through the end the pacing felt off and everything just seemed to slug through. There were some places near the end where you felt that urgency again but it would not last long and then again it would drag from there.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this book.

This was so, so good! Exactly what I needed right now. I enjoyed the complexities of the world building, and the characters were pretty well developed. Some parts were a bit cliche, but overall I thought this was great. Will definitely be interested in reading more!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

If I were 15, I’m sure I would have rated this book higher. The book has a hunger games/divergent feel to it. Some of the twists were obviously coming and I wasn’t attached to the love triangle.

Otherwise, the book was enjoyable. The characters and story were developed well enough to warrant another book. The relationship between the main character and her father was enough for me to care about their outcome.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is definitely a first in a series where you need the sequel immediately, and those were my afterthoughts right as I finished it. The book has a very interesting set-up, though somewhere it lacks in execution.

The story starts off as any middle-of-the-road chosen-one fantasy. We get our protagonist who is chosen (with a few other people) to join an organization, and then we get the training montage. We actually will get another training montage closer to the end of the book! Our heroine has a love interest, her childhood best friend, with whom we get to spend absolutely no time to excuse their attraction. We know they are attracted to each other, but they don't have any means to prove that on the page. I wasn't a big fan of Thayer. The story slowly builds in this dynamic until about the halfway point, where we get our first expansion to the world, which thrusts you right back into the story were you not paying attention.

I really liked the revelation we see at that point, it added a new well-needed element to the plot. So if you want to give this book a shot, at least get to the plot twist before deciding whether to DNF it or not. Here we meet our second love interest. A, in my opinion, a lost more interesting and well-rounded character, and we have immediate attraction and chemistry between the two. At this point I was hoping Aluma just gives up Thayer for the second love interest, but instead, we get a love triangle. Now... a love triangle has no place in a book written after 2014, they are overdone and almost never well executed. That is one part of the book I actually hated.

But the plot was solid, and since I am mainly a plot reader over a character reader I was able to stick with it. Our heroine Aluma has a lot of people learning to do though, as signs of considerable behaviour in characters that were consistently obvious to me throughout the book were oblivious to her until it was finally revealed, and it was supposed to be a plot twist too.

I hold out hope the sequel takes the interesting plot dynamics and executes them much better!

Aluma has always wanted her own winged horse as a member of the Emperean Cavalry but her father would not let her apply. But when her father is horribly injured and circumstances seem to require her to apply, her dream is not at all what she thought it would be. Political intrigue and betrayal, power and greed, force and resistance. Enemies become friends, family becomes enemies. Aluma is pulled into a complicated world of power and ambition and often doesn't know who to trust or which way to turn.
Very exciting scenario. Complexities well handled. Characters are engaging and fairly well-developed. World building is not terribly original, but holds up well. And horses are quite splendid and definitely the best part. I mean, come on. Winged horses! What more could anyone want? It's worth it just for the winged horses, and the rest of the story is pretty darn good too.

This is a perfect YA fantasy for the lovers of the genre. After her dad was badly injured in was she believes to be a royal conspiracy, Aluma, the main character, sets on a quest to discover what is really happening there. Also, did I mention she has a flying horse? Well now I did.

Overall, the plot is pretty basic, but it's well executed. I liked that even though it's clearly a fantasy novel, we have huge hints in the book that show it's actually a dystopian wolrd, with mentions of boats, and cars which have become rare, and available only to the riches. This little detail made me enjoy the book more than I initally was. I would have loved to know more about this. Or maybe I'm totally wrong and she only took inspiration of cars and boat for the transportation of the rich!

Second, the conspiracy is a little cliché and predictable, but I still enjoyed following Aluma and her allies in the search of a way to free her father, and make sure the king can't set his evil plan in motion. Add some flying horses to this, and a bit of competition in the beginning, and it makes for a pretty cool adventurous read. There is a lot of action, and it was nice to be kept moving throughout the novel.

Thayer, Aluma's love interest, and the Scalers, who live across the border, and are depicted as villains by the kingdom were my favorite characters. They have interesting backstories, and make a good contrast with Aluma, whom I could absolutely not stand. Maybe it's because she's so reckless, or too vindictive for my liking, but I had trouble not rolling my eyes at many of her reactions. She kind of fell victim to the cliché side of the story. Still, she had awesome sidekicks, including her horse, and following her adventures was fantastic!

It is a great fantasy, that may be a bit cliché, but still well written, and the ability to captivate the reader until the very end!

In Shina Reynolds A Light in the Sky, Aluma Banks risks her life in order to save her father and gain possession of a flying horse. For Aluma this seems to be the ultimate freedom. Along the way she makes new friends, discovers life and finds out that freedom is harder to obtain than she originally thought.

This story is a good example of YA dystopian fiction with some notes of adventure and romance. In my opinion, the story skews towards the younger side of YA especially in the romance department. While reading the book I definitely saw some parallels to Mulan and Hunger Games with its focus on saving a loved one and dangerous competition.

I struggled a bit with the pacing of this story as most of the action doesn’t take place until the end of the book so at times the story dragged. The highlight of the book for me were the flying scenes and finding out the meaning behind the title. This is a book that I would recommend to primarily fans of YA dystopian fiction

A Light in the Sky was so much fun! It had a similar feeling to the dystopian YA novels I've read in the past (like The Hunger Games), but also felt knew. It was pretty fast paced, with certain scenes moving faster than I thought they would, which was were it differs from some of the other YA novels I would compare it to. I love the world that the author is setting up and the characters involved.

I was particularly happy with how the author wrote about the horses in the story. You can tell Shina loves horses and gives them personalities and makes them integral parts of the story. Growing up with horses, I was happy to see the horses written with love and being more than just creatures that get the characters from place to place.

This feels like a good start to a series, and I look forward to reading more.

First, let me say the cover is absolutely gorgeous and it's what initially drew me to this book. I'm a horse nerd and equestrian myself, I used to read tons of horse books as a teen, so this felt like something I needed to read.
And that's also what I loved most: the horses and the bond the characters have to them. But they aren't normal horses: they have wings! How awesome is that?!? It was so cool all this was such a big part of the story!

Speaking of the story, it was a bit predictable but I enjoyed it. In many instances it's your typical fantasy book: young heroine has a dream, but not everything in the kingdom is as it seems, and she finds out about a conspiracy and many dangerous secrets. It wasn't groundbreaking, but it was well written and kept me enganged.

Aluma was mostly a good main character. A bit naive at times and at one point caught up in a love triangle that unfortunately was very cliché and kinda unnecessary, but overall I liked her character arc.
My favorite character was probably her closest friend Thayer. They worked really well together.
The whole book actually reminded me slightly of The Hunger Games from time to time, the vibe was a bit similar with some sort of Games/spectacle in the beginning, and the rich society stuff. But it didn't feel like a bland copy, not at all! I rather enjoyed this vibe and it helped to develop the world and give us an understanding of it.

So even though the book was at times pretty predictable, I overall enjoyed it and I would recommend it for the horse part alone!

This book isn't for everyone. What I mean is that I love fantasy novels however, this didn't keep my attention. Yes it was a good book but I almost had to force myself to keep reading. Although there are moments that did pique my interest but then it was withered away.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me this ARC.

One of the most original, creative, and intriguing books I've read in a LONG time!

***Thank you to NetGalley and the pubisher for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ***

*I received a free copy of this ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

Since I absolutely love The Hunger Games and The Scorpio Races (two books mentioned in the description), I was very excited to read A Light in the Sky. Unfortunately, I lost interest in it pretty quickly and had to force myself to finish it. It seemed to take certain elements of each book (for example, one character was essentially a carbon copy of Caesar Flickerman, including his role in the book) and plug them into this one.

The basic plot itself could have produced an interesting book, but for some reason, I just wan't a fan. It often came across as overly important, if that makes any sense. Aluma (17) irritated me quite frequently, though I can't quite figure out why beyond the love triangle. She knowingly strung both boys along, kissing each of them. It wasn't even necessary and felt as if it was there just for the sake of having a love triangle.

Note: Can't recall anything bad.