Exciting aerial action, magnificent, winged horses, and a relatable young heroine!

THE SKY KING is the second book in the middle-grade fantasy adventure series, SKYRIDERS, by author Polly Holyoke, and it is a wonderful follow-up to the debut novel. With exciting aerial action, magnificent, winged skysteeds, and a relatable young heroine, this new adventure had me glued to its pages and completely invested in the outcome.

Young Kiesandra “Kie” Torsun and her skysteed partner, N’Rah, have returned to their duties in the mail service after Prekalt’s victory over the Foul Ones. Still, rumors of rogue chimerae attacking isolated villages and fellow couriers prove all too true. As the Nexara, the physical link between humans and skysteeds, Kie is conflicted over her desire to safeguard her people and the danger to the skysteeds, whose involvement would be necessary to defeat the evil beasts. After a misstep in her relationship with N’Rah, she realizes she must convince humans and skysteeds alike that they must work together as equal partners for success. I could feel the love and respect between Kie and N’Rah throughout the story, and her relationship with the quirky N’Poda involved all my emotions.

The action sequences of the skyriders and skysteeds battling the chimerae and vultiren were exciting with edge-of-your-seat suspense. I also enjoyed Kie’s growing awareness of the magic available to her and look forward to this aspect expanding in future books.

The author’s writing style is engaging, and the storyline is suitable for a wide age range of readers, although younger children may be bothered by the monsters and off-page losses of skyriders and skysteeds in battle. This series would make a great read-aloud for the family, classroom, or after-school programming. While this is the second book in the series, new readers can easily pick up on the overall story.

I recommend THE SKY KING to middle-grade and older readers of fantasy and adventure stories.

I never read the first Skyriders book, so I jumped into book two, The Sky King, not knowing quite what to expect. What I found was something that used bonded pairs of humans and flying horses (skysteeds) in what felt like a delightful mashup of The Dragonriders of Pern and the Pony Express – in a good way.

While I felt the plot of the story – find the Sky King – was spelled out in too much detail in the synopsis, it's the execution that matters, and author Polly Holyoke pulled everything off with a deft hand.

Of particular note is the relationship between the central character, Kie, and her skysteed, N'Rah. At times acting as one being this bonded pair also argues. N'Rah even warns that the mission to find the Sky King will not go well, and is unhappy Kie accepted the task.

Holyoke also gives us a nice amount of action, with aerial battles against the vultiren, and brings back the battles against the chimerae – both species are mad, bad, and dangerous to know (though considerably more lethal than Lord Byron, who was originally described by that phrase.)

Overall,. this is an action-packed story that will have engaged readers laughing, cheering, and truly invested in the ending, which is both satisfying but also open enough for a third novel.

Goes well with: chili-cheese fries and a chocolate milkshake

First off, this book takes Pony Express to a sky-high level. These couriers provide essential mail delivery that helps tie the vast Empire of Prekalt together – via winged horses. That, in and of itself, is pretty cool but honestly, the main characters of this story are not your every day run of the mill mail carriers on horseback.

The story revolves around Kie, who is one special girl. Born to a lowly family, Kiesandra Torsun, through her skills and sense of responsibility, has risen to the rank of Junior Courier along with her bonded skysteed, N’Rah.
They have a magical bond which allows them to completely understand each other. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such a connection with another creature that you could literally know their thoughts and feelings?
All of the thousands of Skyriders (whether mail couriers or not) are lucky enough to experience this with their equine partners. But Kie has learned she can also communicate with other steeds. And with that ability comes great responsibility.

Kie and her friends are soon tasked with a seemingly unsurmountable task that turns them into true heroes who help rid the skies of monstrous flying creatures which threaten the peace of the empire.

This story was so interesting and exciting that I could not put it down. Mainly because it reminded me of unicorns. OK, there are no unicorns, alicorns or even any creatures called Pegasus here but it is full of beautiful winged horse-like beasts and that was enough to draw me in. Beyond that, Ms. Holyoke’s writing style made me want to know what was going to happen next. I laughed. . .I cried. . . and thoroughly enjoyed surprises around every corner.

I love the great artwork on the cover and cover page by Brandon Dorrman. It’s so good, it makes me wish there were more illustrations within each chapter.

There are a lot of characters in this book and it’s nice that the author lists them all in the beginning.. There are nearly 320 pages of story told within 28 fairly long chapters so I would place this within the epic fantasy range for tweens and teens. If you love reading long fantasy tales, you’ll love this book. This is a story that leaves you wanting more and I, for one, was very glad to learn that another book in this series was already waiting in the wings for me to grab when I finished this one. I highly recommend this fantasy and give it five stars.