ARC review: Stranger Skies by Pascale Lacelle

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC (advanced reader copy) of Stranger Skies through Netgalley and I wasted no time diving in. This incredibly unique and whimsical fantasy romance is written by Pascale Lacelle and is the second book in her Drowned Gods series.

Stranger Skies picks up almost exactly where Curious Tides—book one—ends, with Romie and Emory in a strange new world and Baz still at Aldryn College, on his way to visit Kai and his father where they are currently hiding after escaping the institution they were trapped in. One of the biggest things I was looking forward to about this book was the multiple POV’s—Emory, Baz, Kai, and Romie—which was a nice change from just Emory and Baz in book one. I feel it is very important for me to mention that I find Emory absolutely insufferable, so I was definitely happy to have a break from her POV for awhile.

Pascale Lacelle designed an absolutely breathtaking world in Curious Tides, and she only made it that much better in Stranger Skies. Seeing the characters travel through worlds they had all read about in Song of the Drowned Gods was so beautiful and had me yearning to see more, and getting to meet Cornus Clover himself—the author of the aforementioned book—was so intriguing, especially considering Baz and Kai were several hundred years in the past. There were so many elements that were added to this story that truly added to the atmosphere and tied everything together. 

My only complaint—besides Emory—was that I felt like the book itself was too long. I genuinely feel like the same story could have been told in less than 600 pages, to the point that I was shocked when I reached the end and realized there will be ANOTHER book because of the cliffhanger. It also felt like the last 200 pages were just an opportunity to jam a ton more details into the story that just made it confusing, so I personally struggled with that. 

Despite these feelings, however, I am really looking forward to the next book to see how Pascale plans to wrap this series up. There are so many loose ends and with all of the characters stuck in various worlds and times, there are so many directions the story could go. Overall, I think this series is nothing short of stunning and should definitely be added to every romantasy lovers TBR.