3.5 stars
My thanks to Net Galley and Bindery Books for a free eARC of “And the Sky Bleed” by S. Hati.
A sharp Political Fantasy standalone debut.
For the seasoned Fantasy readers, stories of colonialism and tensions between the occupiers and the natives over land or a precious resource is a familiar story.
But S. Hati brought a new perspective including climate catastrophe caused by the exploitation of the magic fossil fuel of this world, calor.
We follow three distinct points of view, three well developed characters that grow and change throughout the entire novel.
A common tragic event from the past affects each of these characters and even an entire community . The full extent of that event is left to be revealed at the very end and I am not entirely sure if that was the best choice. I think we would have understood much better some of the character’s choices and motivations with the awareness of at least some parts of that past event.
Also a small plot hole. Zain, one of the main characters is weaving two secondary characters in a web of lies and deceit and for some reason they never discuss those facts, but actually get attached to her. She actually falls in love with one of them even if they initially threatened the safety of her guardians.
But this is a debut and I'll keep an eye on what the author will come up next.

The first half of the book worked really well for me, with perfect pacing and build up. Unfortunately it stretched itself too thin in the second half due to a myriad of plot threads that didn't culminate quite satisfyingly enough. The author also spent a large portion on withholding a seemingly important twist which ended up having very little ramifications on the narrative at the end - this was supposed to be the knot that connects all 3 POVs together and it's... that? I guess? In general there's just a lot of hinting and implying and not enough actual showing how these characters interconnect, and when they did, it's not very believable.

I have come back to this book again and again over many months and unfortunately, it’s time I set it aside for good. The premise did its job and the promise of themes such as eco-capitalism and colonialism sold me. And while I fell easily into the world here, I struggled to connect with the characters, as they seemed deeply affected by events off-page and prior to the start of the book. In the end, the characters couldn’t hold me, but the writing itself was great.

This book was a confusing amount of… something. I’m not quite sure what though. For a debut novel this book is incredibly impressive, the pacing was good, the syntax was spectacular, the worldbuildin was intriguing, and the characters were fantastic. All the parts of a good story were there and bound together in a plot that sounded incredibly interesting. Except for the fact that this book is incredibly confusing to read. The plot itself has little coherency to it. Things happen that you never see coming, in a sequence of events that make little sense. Furthermore, while I understood the gist of the world, it’s never explained enough to make the situations being explained make sense. Like some characters are on an island, and others are in a city, but it’s not explained who is where until the end. Many characters also have a past, but similarly, the past is not shown until the end. The magic oil of this book has specific properties and is apparently dangerous, but once more, <i>it’s danger is not explained until the end</i>. In Hati’s seeming want to keep information from the reader to compell them to continue reading, they commit one major sin, which is not explaining anything enough to actually have their book make sense.

Ultimately while I did enjoy this book, and do think it was good, it could use another round of edits to just… make the reader feel less lost.

this was a pretty solid read! but it’s not something that i would recommend to my friends, unless they like fantasy. it seemed to me that the characters were very 2d, and it was just the surface that i saw when i hoped for more. the world building is phenomenal though, and if you are willing to stick around for that you might actually enjoy this book.

it also didn’t feel like it was a finished book, like it felt like it still needed some editing and tweaking if that makes sense.

Thank you NetGalley, the author, and publisher for an eArc in exchange for my honest review!!

Calor is an energy source that is almost entirely responsible for the way that the world operates. Calor has pretty much become nonexistent except in Tejomaya, where the blood rains provide a way for Calor to be extracted. However, the blood rains haven’t come in 6 months and even then are few and far between. The earth seems to be rebelling against the people and all kinds of horrible natural disasters are happening. So a slumlord, an heiress, and a thief (who are all interconnected in some way or another) are all trying to recover an alleged reserve of Calor for their own various reasons.

Things I love:
- super intriguing premise
- Character development and relationships between chapters are super well-written and fleshed out
- The world building is very good and you can see the entire world laid out in your head
- Great writing

Things I wish were a little different:
- I feel like the quest for magic took a backseat to the political landscape of the story.
- We found out some major things about the story in the last 20-30 pages and in a book where so much happened, it would have been nice to know some of that info earlier. It did it a bit of a disservice.

TW:
Very heavy themes are discussed such as colonialism, climate change, death, abuse, and illness

I haven't read much climate fiction books, but this is a stunning novel that I am genuinely shocked is a debut novelist. The overall idea is great, albeit a terrifying parallel to what is happening in the current world as we continuously ignore the way that we're destroying our planet. If authors want to know how to write an interesting story with fascinating world-building and a diverse set of characters, they really need to look no further than this as an example.

I think why this isn't a five star book is that it is sometimes clunky in it's exposition. The characters reference the fire that took place 10 years before the story begins, almost constantly, for 95% of the book until you get the full picture of what happened, by which point I'm just tired of hearing about it. This, and once again I'm on my box about forced romances in books. The romance wasn't bad, I see how it happened, but I still felt like it was very much the case of a man and a woman spent too much time together, so the narrative has to have them fall in love with each other.

Either way, I'm really impressed with this book and will be following Hati to see what she puts out next! She definitely has a bright future as an author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I did not dislike this book, however, I wanted more from it.
There were plot lines that I feel were not fully fleshed out and could have significantly added to character complexity and world building. I think even a few more passes in beta may have helped with the fluidity of the story. I feel like this book had a lot to say, and the meat of it was good, but some of that got lost in the writing.

3.5 — I thought this was an interesting fantasy debut! The world was particularly interesting to me, because it’s based around a climate phenomenon where it rains blood. I found it a little hard to connect with the characters, and while the 3 POV characters did have interwoven stories, we spent much more time hearing that “something” happened in their past than we did actually watching them interact. And, this “something” wasn’t revealed until the end, so the frequent references to it seemed to make it difficult to truly settle in with the characters. I think the story was well-contained, which isn’t always the case with fantasy standalones — the location it takes place in isn’t too big, which was a good choice!

Fantasy world where they are reliant on a fossil fuel that rains from the sky and kills but is now in short supply,
Three character POVs as they try to find a supposed hidden cache.

I just couldn’t get into this. I didn’t really understand the magic system/worldbuilding, the characters felt flat, and I was bored. Everything finally happens in the last 40 pages of the book (including a shoehorned in romance.)
This wasn’t for me.

I found the novel had an interesting concept.

The politics and political connections between the characters were some of the better parts of the book.

The novel does cover some heavier topics such as loss and grief and I think the author wrote about those themes in a respectful and beautiful way.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to get a grasp on the world building until at least half way through the book. I also didn’t feel compelled by any of the characters, they seemed pretty surface level and were all driven by “power” but why and to what end (other than greed at times) wasn’t clear.

I enjoyed that this was a stand alone, but the build up of how the characters all intertwined together for me was a bit of a let down. I thought they’d have a lot more interaction together besides the last 2-3 chapters of the book.

The book does give dystopian vibes so if that’s up your alley and you enjoy a slow burn than this may be a better fit for you!

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it will come out in October. I really hope to reread this again in the future, because normally these stories are right up my ally but I couldn't follow elements of the story due to the impact longcovid currently has on my brain. Despite of that I just kept on reading because what I could follow was interesting, and it was really well written.

And The Sky Bled is a unique standalone fantasy exploring climate disaster, colonialism and power.

I’m not sure how I feel about it though. I found it a bit hard to grasp the broad politics/worldbuilding and connection between the characters. There’s a lot in the details of the individual characters and what their lives are like living under oppression, but I couldn’t get a sense of wider things like - what elements were inherent to the world and what were recent changes as a result of the climate catastrophe? Maybe that’s beside the point - I just wasn’t sure of the overall context. Quite possibly that's partially an issue of my western viewpoint to a South Asian inspired fantasy, honestly. However I do appreciate that it’s a complete standalone story! Unfortunately I never felt super sucked into the book or connected to the characters - I also felt like the romance came out of nowhere.
Honestly I think a lot of this is a me problem - I would still recommend checking out this book if you're interested in character driven stories and unique fantasy concepts! 3.5*

And the Sky bled took me some time to get into but once I did I really loved it!

I'd say this book is a dystopian climate change fantasy books with some anti-colonialism sprinkeled in there as well (which I always love).

My only real problem with this book was with the first ~30% of the book. The POV characters of this book are all somehow connected in their past you don't get told how to build up suspense for the big reveal in the end. While I think the ending was really satisfying and everything came together nicely, I struggled in the beginning connecting to the MCs because you don't really understand their motivations without that background info. I think a slower start into the story to get to know the characters might have helped here.

Other than that I really enjoyed this book. It was a real page turner and I'd constantly find myself saying "Just one more chapter" when I should have already been sleeping.

The characters (once you actually get to know them) felt fleshed out and very distinguished from one another.

The writing was nice and I could picture the world pretty clearly in my head.

I'd definetly recommend this book to anyone who likes the central themes of this book and I'm looking forward to reading more from this author!

<i>DNF at 33%</i>

I wish I had known that this book is an offering of a new publisher built by and for “Booktok” influencers – that would have been my sign to ignore it. I’ve yet to read a single new book primarily pushed by Booktok that I’ve enjoyed – most of them, this one included, have catchy premises that are let down by subpar writing, clunky dialogue, and a lack of depth of themes or new approaches to genre. However, if you’ve generally enjoyed contemporary Booktok-pushed fantasy novels, you’ll probably like this one, since the premise is pretty cool, and you’ll probably feel differently about the issues I’m about to discuss.

I really don’t like to give negative reviews, and usually if I don’t finish a book, I won’t write a review of it. I'm a writer myself, and I know how much heart and work goes into any book, and I don't like the thought of making some new writer feel bad. But since this is an Advanced Review Copy that the publisher was kind enough to send me, I feel obligated to at least explain what the book is going for, why it didn’t work for me, and why it might work for you.

<i>And the Sky Bled</i> by S. Hati is a debut South Asian-inspired fantasy story constructed around a central climate change/oil politics metaphor: the substance “calor.” The book’s coolest piece of worldbuilding is that the world’s sky is like the skin of a giant being, and its blood, calor, is (1) the primary energy source and construction material used by the world, (2) most common, and at this point in history, exclusively located, in a conquered nation, and (3) toxic to most people after prolonged use and exposure. The main setting is Tejomaya, a city recently conquered by a clear European analogue nation, and the only remaining place under a still-bleeding sky – the last known source of calor.

The story is told from the rotating points of view of three primary characters: Zain, an orphaned “leech,” i.e., someone who steals from blood-collectors to help her people survive, Iravan, an older don of the city of de facto protector of the disenfranchised, and Anastasia, a princess of the conquering nation who was raised in Tejomaya and torn emotionally between her desire for power and her feelings for her homeland and native friend.

I can’t shake the feeling that this is a first draft. It has all the pieces of a compelling story, from a unique fantasy world engaging in contemporary issues, to a cast of characters tied together emotionally and by an important moment in their past. But nothing coheres in an interesting way. It has all the hallmarks of a beginner novel’s first fantasy: an astonishing amount of setting info-dumps right away, dialogue that’s clunky and obvious and cliched, way too many uses of an in-universe swear word stitched together with otherwise contemporary dialogue, and glaringly obvious foreshadowing.

At the end of the day, I just wasn’t grabbed by this story, and of all its faults, its rote dialogue and lack of character depth kept me from caring enough to finish. I hope that the author takes some more time to flesh out their next novel, as they’ve definitely proved they can come up with some interesting premises and the outline of something exciting, if only it had some more polish.

For an instance of a similar premise (dangerous magical substance that functions as an oil metaphor in a fantasy world with a story led by the disenfranchised), I’d recommend the upcoming <i>Metal from Heaven</i> by August Clarke, which is phenomenal, with beautiful prose, rich dialogue, and a deep exploration of queer desire, capitalism and colonialism. For a recent compelling fantasy written by a woman of color, I’d recommend <i>The Siege of Burning Grass</i> by Premee Mohamed, which creates an evocative world and compelling characters with just some sparse details.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are my own.</i>

And the Sky Bled is an ambitious standalone fantasy with three main characters involved in very different parts of an exploited city, valued for its calor, a limited resource that is dangerous to the touch. The world as a whole has become reliant on calor and during a global shortage, the rumor of a cache spurs all three to action for their own personal reasons.

The large scale politics of this book were easily my favorite part. Hati has created a unique world and her writing is addictive. Zain was my favorite of the main three, and while she is a familiar character if you’ve ever read dystopia, I think she’s a very interesting one. I enjoyed the way all the characters interacted, not just the main three, and I think there’s a really unique cast in this book for everyone to find someone to really fall in love with. Hati’s also tackling a lot of real world important topics, as lots of climate fiction does. I found the discussions around class to be particularly thought provoking.

An ongoing issue I seem to be having with debut authors this year is too much telling and not enough showing. Zain, Anastasia and Iravan already have tangled and complicated connections before the first page, but I felt like we heard about their history and one large event from their background far more then we ever see the three of them interact and butt heads on page. I think in my perfect world this book is maybe the second part of a duology, or at least a hundred pages longer. The speed of the plot is almost breakneck, and it feels like there’s a boot on the neck of all three of our leads. It makes for an exciting read, but I wanted more time to get to know our main three, especially Iravan, and spend more time in the weeds of the domestic and international politics. I was so close to really liking this book, I ended up feeling particularly frustrated that Hati was describing the book I wanted to be reading.

People who enjoy climate disaster fiction will enjoy this, and I’m excited for this book to reach its audience. I look forward to whatever Hati writes next as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bindery for the eARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bindery Books for the opportunity to read this book.

And The Sky Bled is a unique dystopian novel where the rapid depletion of calor, a vital substance for human survival, throws the world into chaos and threatens global peace. The story follows three main characters: Zain, a young woman fighting to survive in the slums; Iravan, a worshipped slumlord; and Anastasia, the colonizer's successor. Bound by the memory of a traumatic event from a decade ago, they now find themselves in a desperate race to locate a rumored reserve of calor, each with their own agenda.

I was captivated by Hati's writing. The author’s exploration of themes like colonization, climate change, and class struggle makes this story compelling. The prose is sharp and poignant, particularly in the vivid descriptions of the violent effects of calor. However, while I loved the imaginative and unique plot, the novel’s structure left something to be desired. I often found myself struggling to connect with the characters and understand the backstory, which made the narrative feel disorienting, like a surreal afternoon dream.

The ending, however, truly stood out and is the reason I bumped my rating up from 3 to 3.5 stars. I recommend this book to readers looking for something new and different, though be prepared for a slow start and some initial confusion as the story unfolds.

“The sky bathed the world in blood and fury.”

In a world reliant on the substance calor, 3 rivals in the chaotic and suffering city of Tejomaya fight to find a cache of treasure that could be the answer to all their problems. Whilst Zain, Anastasia, and Iravan all begin their stories separately, their paths tangle as more powerful forces beyond their control threaten to upturn everything they know.

“The decades had been merciless in teaching them about the fallibility of humans under a sky that bled … nothing was as effective at showing someone how little power they had as when the world decided it’s had enough.”

What an incredible story. It is hard to weave such a complex storyline with multiple characters into a standalone novel, but this was just perfectly complete. This book will stay with me for some time. It is so beautifully written and descriptive, I connected with all POV characters, which isn’t an easy thing to do. All I wanted was to give Zain, Anastasia and Iravan a giant hug. It had a good balance of world-building, action, politics, and more emotional, interpersonal parts. The build-up and mystery was also so well done, it kept me engaged till the end!

This novel explores some heavy themes, about loss, grief, abuse, and the hopelessness that can arise in terrible circumstances. However, it is a story of perseverance against insurmountable odds, and how hope and salvation can be found, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

“Just know you are worth more than you think. Make sure you’re fighting something worthy.”

Thank you Bindery Books and NetGalley for the arc of this book in exchange of an honest review.

The story started a little bit slow, but then I just couldn’t put it down. S. Hati wrote an amazing and heartbreaking story, with an incredibly original plot, and all in a standalone, short book. I feel like I’m going to keep thinking about and processing this book for a really long time, and I mean that as the biggest compliment.

Dystopian world, everything at stake, complex characters and even more complex relationships between them, aching heartbreak, exploration of grief and trauma, unexpected twists. Just do yourself a favor and read this book.

“Hard circumstances breed desperation. Desperation breeds innovation.”

Told through the POVs of three main characters (all desperate to unlock the secrets of calor, a valuable yet dangerous natural resource) And The Sky Bled is a compelling debut standalone sci-fi/cli-fi book.

Zain, Anastasia, and Iravan all had their own unique yet interwoven character arcs that provided really great views into the occupied-by-colonizers world of the story. I thought the world building was really well done, and the cast of characters really helped Tejomaya feel like a living, breathing city. The only thing I will say is it has a bit of a slower pace at the beginning but the story really picks up in the second half.

This debut is powerful and even devastating at times; it will stay with you long after you finish the story.