“She was fire and light, a burning flame in this hellhole of darkness, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.”
When Soraya Tollmere was just a child, her comfortable, cosseted life was destroyed with the death of Vordell’s beloved queen. Unknowing to her citizens, the queen had spent her reign holding back monsters locked beneath the crust of the earth after a brutal war trapped them there centuries ago. As her heart beat its last, the monsters rose up – leaving untold devastation in their wake. An Iron Sky descends upon Vordell, blocking the sun and cloaking the world in shadow.
Her idyllic childhood over, Soraya trains to become the most fearsome warrior her country has seen – one that earns her a dangerous reputation among the enemy. But when she is captured by a top-ranking soldier, the legend she has built up around herself begins to crumble and Soraya starts to view the war she has spent her life fighting in another light entirely.
Lately, I’ve been consistently disappointed by the romantasies I’ve been picking up. I began to question whether the genre really was for me, or if I’d just read my fill. But something about this got me! It reminded me of staying up way too late as a teenager reading – and proof of that is that I did end up finishing this one at about 2am…
I will say, it took the first third to win me over. While we do jump straight into the action, I found it quite slow to really get going – I think because it took me a while to truly get a grasp on the world and the characters. As soon as we meet our male main character, I started getting way more invested, as this is where a lot of the major players in the story get involved. But if the first third was slow, the last third went at breakneck pace! Throughout the book, there’s a bit of a mystery plot line and some of the plot twists towards the end were thrilling.
It wouldn’t be fair to write this review without a shoutout to Golla. If you loved the Gargoyle in the Knight and the Moth, and also those weird singing stone things in Frozen, I can guarantee Golla is going to be your favourite character. What is it about fictional rocks that manage to capture my heart every time…?
The natural comparison to make is to Alchemised (and A.T. Emerald has herself said she was inspired by Manacled when writing the original fanfiction version of this story). I think it definitely follows that if you liked Alchemised, you’ll like this, but it also reminded me of Silver Elite, in its military, dystopian setting.
Under the Iron Sky is out October 13th! Thanks to Del Rey UK for the digital ARC.
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