As with most of Sophie Jordan's books, I liked the story a great deal, but the amount of internal monologues really cripples the pace and my enjoyment of it.

Fast summary:
Tamsyn, the royal whipping girl, is forced to marry Mel Gibson from Braveheart AKA Fell- the Beast of the Borderlands. There is deception, passion, and a guard names Stig. In a world that believes they had killed off all dragons, witches and any sort of magic, surprise: they havent!

I would totally read the follow up to this story, but will probably be skimming the internal monologues as I go.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This romantasy was decently well written in the first person perspective. There is a good plot and there is spice. If you enjoy webtoons, you will probably enjoy this book, The plot reminded me of several webtoons I loved.
3.75 Stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so addictive. Dragons, Witches, Magic, Family secrets, and so much more!!
Highly recommended for Romantasy fans!

This is such an intriguing fantasy, it was full of twists and turns and was definitely fast paced. I would recommend this to fans of Romantasy who want something a little different than the more popular ones. I will definitely be picking up the next one.

Long ago I read Firelight and I did try to remember the dragons and the lore of that first novel. Thankfully, it was not necessary for this adult romantasy. It really started out more as a sort of fictional Viking arranged marriage trope book. I actually did enjoy this as it felt different to other fantasies, with the concept of a whipping girl. It was new to me. The pace was fast for me which I enjoyed as I knew to anticipate dragon and glad to have gotten to that part too. It certainly felt like a fresh take on the theme and background lore for an old popular series which I do hope to return to and reread someday. The end did leave me wanting, wishing it had been longer and stretched out to learn more. Eagerly awaiting the next book instead.

Thank you for the ARC and the chance to review this novel.

I really liked this book. I just wanted a little more from it. More back story, more dialogue and conversations between the characters. More information, but maybe we’ll get that in book 2. Overall really enjoyed it though

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! What a fun twist ending. A little repetitive in parts but I’m hoping for a sequel. I need to know more about the dragons and what’s in store for Tamsyn and Fell. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

this story was absolutely phenomenal.

i was gripped from beginning to end and wanted to abandon all my adult responsibilities 😆

i loved the characters and their inner dialogue, the originality of the plot and how it all comes together. the special bond Fell and Tamsyn have ❤️ the surprises always got me every single time, till the very end.

all these characters have officially had their eyes opened...not only to their current situation and among their relationships but with everything they thought they knew about their world.

A Fire in the Sky, by Sophie Jordan, is the first installment in a brand new series. Set thousands of years before Firelight, A Fire in the Sky kicks off a brand-new series featuring dragons, witches, and deadly warriors. Between Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorn and Roses, fantasy and romantasy are all the rage. This is the perfect moment to return to the world of Firelight, a popular HarperTeen series Jordan released over ten years ago.

The story is set in a place called Panterra where Dragons no longer are seen in the sky. The key characters of this story are 21-year-old Tamsyn, Lord Fell Dryhten, and Sig, Captain of the guard and Tamsyn's only real friend. Tamsyn is called the royal whipping girl because any time the princesses of Panterra do something wrong, Tamsyn gets their punished. Fell, aka the Beast of the Borderlands, it is his responsibility to keep the country safe from border incursions.

Left behind in a bassinet when she was a baby, Tamsyn was taken in by the King and Queen as their own. She was raised in the glittering court alongside princesses Feena, Sybilia & Alise. Treated as part of the royal family but also as the lowliest servant, Tamsyn fits nowhere. Her only friend is Stig, Captain of the Guard, though sometimes she thinks he wants more than friendship. But things are going to change quickly for Tamsyn because of the arrival of the Beast of the Borderlands and his demands for a seat at the table and a marriage.

When Fell arrives in the capital, he has a plan. He needs to find a wife to marry and who better than one of the King's precious daughters? To save the pampered princesses from a fate worse than death, Tamsyn is commanded by the Queen to don a veil and gloves to hide her identity. She agrees to the deception even though it means leaving Stig, and the only life she’s ever known, behind. The wedding night begins with unexpected passion and ends in near violence when her trickery is exposed.

Rather than start a war, Fell accepts Tamsyn as his bride but can he accept the dark secrets she harbors? Secrets buried so deep even she doesn’t know they exist? For Tamsyn is more than a royal whipping girl, more than the false wife of a man who now sees her as his enemy. And when those secrets emerge, they will ignite a flame bright enough to burn the entire kingdom to the bone. Magic is not dead...it is only sleeping. And it will take one ordinary girl with an extraordinary destiny to awaken it.

This is definitely a enemy to lovers story. The more they spend together, the more they lean on, and get closer. As they make their way back to her new rough home both of them will realize that nothing has prepared them for the spark between them that they ignore but will soon burn out of control. The final chapters of this book were, honestly, the best. Forget one particular scene when one of Fell's men tries to kill her and she does something that leads people to believe that something bad happened to her.

The story itself ends on a whopping cliffhanger that will leave you gasping because it's apparent that both characters have been lied to about who they were, or where they came from for the entirety of their lives. I find it interesting that 12 years ago, the author wrote a young adult series called Firelight about dragons. A decade later, she was encouraged to write an adult fantasy romance series featuring dragons. The ending is probably the best part of this story. The almost love triangle seems to have gone down in flames. Of course, the book ends on a cliffhanger. Allegedly, the second book in this series, tentatively titled A Scar in the Bone, will be released in the first half of 2025.

Thank you so much for the ARC!! I’m honored to review this book.

Dragons and witches?! Count me in! 🙋🏻‍♀️

I was very excited when I got the notification I was approved for an eARC of A Fire In the Sky by Sophie Jordan! Based on the description, it had everything I love:

- Dragons & Dragon Shifters
- Witches
- Romantasy
- Magic
- Politics
- Betrayal

I just knew I was going to enjoy this story. I’m thrilled to say that this was such a great book!! Not only was the story unique but also a great time. I desperately need the next book and I really hope I get to read the arc 🧡💙

Do yourself a favor and grab a copy! I can’t wait to see the Fairyloot edition next month 😍

Overall rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oh I ate this up. A Fire in the Sky is positively brimming with all of the romantasy elements we know and love but with a story that is exceptionally fresh. My only gripe is the contrived <spoiler> love triangle </spoiler> . We got plenty of angst and turmoil from the fact that our protagonists are <spoiler> dragons (!!!) </spoiler> and the <spoiler> love triangle </spoiler> felt like filler.

I cannot wait to see where this series goes!

Spice: 2/5 - open door, explicit language

Very excited for the continuation of the series! This was an interesting introduction to the series. A bit short, in my opinion, for a fantasy. But we got a lot of things I’m very excited to learn in the next book!

This was just alright. I think it is a good start to a series but I was bored for most of it. The romance wasn’t slow burn enough for a series but it did have dragons and I love dragons.

An adult romantasy featuring amazing tension, spice, dragons, arranged marriage, and even a love triangle… what more could you want? This book had me hooked from the very beginning with manipulation and deceit set the stage for the arranged marriage between the FMC and the MMC. The journey they go on together was captivating and the ending had me so excited for the next book!

I do wish the magic system and dragons were more prevalent during the story as they did not become the focus until the last third or so.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Sophie Jordon, and Harper Collins for the ARC copy of this book.

I NEED THE SECOND BOOK! I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The world building was there but minimal. The main focus was the plot and let me just say, my jaw dropped multiple times. There were plot twists that I never saw coming especially at the end. Now I will say I do think it was a bit fast paced and I could've used more details at some parts, but overall it was quite enjoyable. I do need the second book to come out soon because that cliff hanger and all the unanswered questions I have will bug me! This has the potential to be an epic series with dragons, magical creatures, love, and war...I can;t wait to see me of tamsyn and fell.

A Fire in The Sky by Sophie Jordan was such a fun ride!

I was just mentioning how I have been in my usual summer rutt and was looking for a fun romantasy to bring me into Fall!

I love love loved A Fire in the Sky and did a combo read/listen (thank you @librofm !) and can’t recommend the narrators for this audio enough!

I found myself hanging on their every word multiple times during my listen and loved getting engulfed in the world through audio!

This one is PERFECT for lovers of:
🔥Enemies to Lovers
🔥Arranged Marriage
🔥Dragons
🔥Love Triangles
🔥Pretty Books - the first edition is GORGEOUS! -Swipe to see the pretty!

I first read Sophie Jordan as a Teen with her Firelight Series and I’ve been a fan of her regency romances for years! I was so excited to read her again with this romantasy. Give me more Adult fantasy please! ❤️

I loved the arranged marriage trope here which isn’t used ENOUGH in romance. I loved Tamsyn’s story and I cannot wait for book two!

I’m not typically the biggest fan of Love Triangles, but in this book the tension between the main couple was good and the love triangle wasn’t a constant so I didn’t mind like I sometimes do.

In this land the dragons are extinct… aren’t they?

And that’s ALL I’ll say for risk of spoilers! 😎

Thank you so much to Avon Books and Libro FM for the advanced listener/reader copies!

This one is officially OUT NOW and get it while the pretty first edition is in!

Are these stories becoming formulaic? To be honest this whole book feels like it exists to set up the next one. It was entertaining, anyways.

"Dragons live. Everyone believes they are gone, the last of them annihilated in the Threshing. Lost to the annals of time, to the fade of memory, to be recalled only by the bards. It is the arrogance of man that holds to this—the wish for it to be so. Wishing does not make it true, though." —Sophie Jordan, A Fire in the Sky

A Fire in the Sky is the first in a new romantasy series by Sophie Jordan that follows Tamsyn, a royal whipping girl, part of the royal family yet still a lowly servant, who is made to marry a border lord known as the "Beast of the Borderlands" to save her sisters from a fate worse than death. After a passionate yet tumultuous start to their marriage arrangement, as she begins to navigate life away from court journeying to her new home, she finds that there might be more to her story, and herself, that she'd been conditioned to settle for.

I really enjoyed Tamsyn's character concept! I think that her being someone who was so conditioned to serve, to endure and to always put others before herself under the guise of it being "her duty" as well as a "privileged position," not to mention an act of "love" and "protection" towards her sisters, allowed for significant character development as she comes to terms with the fact that while yes, she lived a childhood that was more privileged than most, it was still a violent one. She's definitely got a long way to go in breaking out of this mindset of compliance and abnegation, as well as learning to embrace herself, so I'm excited to see where Sophie Jordan takes her character in the coming installments in this series.

I think this book was written and published with bingeability in mind and they definitely accomplished that not only in the writing and pacing (I felt like I flew through it) but also in the way that the book/series is formatted, with a moderate amount of pages and a sequel projected to come out less than a year after the first book's release.

If you're looking for a fun, bingeable romantasy read with accesible writing that features DRAGONS, an arranged marriage, the forced proximity trope and major "touch her and die" vibes, I'd definitely recommend checking out A Fire in the Sky by Sophie Jordan.

Although this was a relatively short novel, it was very enjoyable. I liked that it switched point of view so you could get a better understanding of the story. While some of what happened was predictable, it was still a good read and I look forward to the next one.

3.5

Really curious for the next book in this.

I love Sophie Jordan's historical romance so I loved seeing her write in romantasy now. I think this was an interesting nad fun concept. A quick but enjoyable read.