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4 stars! This review will contain no spoilers!
Summary:
The Burning Sky is the first book in the Elemental trilogy by Sherry Thomas. This story is a dual point of view book with Iolanthe Seabourne and Prince Titus as the main characters. Iolanthe is the greatest elemental mage of her time. She has crazy abilities and one day when she brings down lightening, her powers get noticed by the Prince and Atlantis. Atlantis is the tyrannical council that is taking over the Domain headed by the Bane, the long-lived all powerful mage of the past two centuries. Prince Titus is supposed to be the master of the Domain, but has become just a figurehead as Atlantis grows stronger in power. Guided by his mother’s visions and hatred of Atlantis, Titus helps Iolanthe evade capture and tells her of their destiny to battle and defeat the Bane. But first they have to make it past the Inquisitor, the Bane’s right hand woman, which will require lots of training whilst hiding from the servants of the Bane.
The writing! The snarky dialogue! The endless rollercoaster of action, evasion, and out witting your opponent! This book had me at the prologue in all honestly. The prologue is what makes you want to figure out what in the world is going on. Then first few chapters after the prologue take a little bit to get rolling, but just get to the lightening and it all falls together so well. Oh I forgot to mention the magic! Oh the magic system is wonderful. I felt like there were a lot of Harry-Potter-type connections to be made. Like how magic is executed because not only are there elemental mages, but regular mages that perform magic using a wand and incantations. Also, how the big bad Bane has extended his life for so long like Voldemort and how no one ever sees him, but he’s definitely there and definitely a threat. And how a good chunk of the story takes place in a school, though the school is meant for regular humans. This book is not a Harry Potter rip off at all though! Those aspects are thoroughly enjoyable because The Burning Sky makes them their own and is really a whole other story.
Please give this book a chance! If you like a flushed out magic and political system, action, the type of romance that stems from an uneasy friendship, plus a few Harry Potter feels, this book is right up your alley.
*Also, I read this book using Audible! The narrator for this trilogy, Phillip Battley, is wonderful! He is ah-may-zing at capturing the emotions of the characters during the dialogue parts.
Plot:
This book does revolve a lot around “destiny” and “prophecy.” A lot of this book revolves around his mother’s visions and the timing of the visions. This the exact reason as to why the Prince chose to help Iolanthe in the first place. He thought the greatest mage would be a boy, and in attending an all boys school that was no issue, but once he saw that she was a girl he ended up having to make her pass as a boy in his school. Hence, the prologue of the book, NOT A SPOILER. Being a boy is her major disguise from Atlantis period because they know Iolanthe is girl, so they’re looking for a girl. Iolanthe is thrown into a new country, with a new identity, and a new name, Archer Fairfax. Fairfax and Titus do all they can to train and keep secret but Titus is already under suspicion which makes everything so much harder.
Now, if I had to pick one word to describe the plot of this book, it would be ADVENTURE. Titus and Iolanthe (Fairfax) literally go on a series of dangerous adventures in order to protect each other and fulfill their destinies. I really cannot think of anything else to say without accidentally spilling some spoilers, but just know that there is a lot of magical action to come when reading this book.
Oh oh wait! There is one thing that bothers me slightly about the ending of his book. That is how I was slightly confused about how the "c******* p*****" works.. like I still do not get how they were traveling exactly. When you get to the end, you may be able to fill in those blanks. I may have just missed the explanation maybe, but oh well. Despite that, I still thought the ending was awesome.
Characters:
Iolanthe at first seems like a little girl, but she is so much more. She is independent, she is smart and clever, she is a great companion to pair with the Prince to bring his arrogance down a bit. You can seriously fall in love with her as the Prince does too. Her ability to pull of a smug boy persona is one of the comedic relief parts of the story that add another layer of likability to the plot. She’s just so good at it! Who knew!
My favorite character is Prince Titus in this book. May change in the next two, but right now I really like him. He has some of the arrogance of Jace Wayland (from the Mortal Instruments), the charm of the classic hot boy in YA like Dorian Havilliard (from Throne of Glass), and the passion of a son who has lost his mother and wishes to fulfill her dying wishes. I really enjoyed his POV’s. He’s not all honest on the outside, but once you get to see what he’s really thinking, I couldn’t stop myself from going “AWWWW.” a lot.
The major villain in book one is the Inquisitor, not so much the Bane, and damn was she written so well. She has that infatuated, blind type of loyalty to the Bane to the point were she doesn’t even care how destructive her powers are to whom she uses them on. You can really feel how scared the characters are of her and hate her along with them.
My overall feelings for this book are that:
I will definitely finish this series, I have no doubts about that.
I ship the romance all the way. I am so happy there was no insta-love.
I just know the next books will get even better, because even though the world building was A+ in this story, there’s even more that can be built onto to it and there’s just so much potential. I’m desperately hoping Thomas does well with the rest of the books.
Thank you for reading! :)
PS: Isn't this alternate cover gorgeous too?
