Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies
Tales of Ciel Book 1
A gifted girl takes to the skies, leaving her sister behind, in the richly imagined fantasy novel Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies.
In Z. Bennett Lorimer’s series-opening fantasy novel Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies, two sisters with different gifts grow into their own.
In a world made up of floating islands, Effie and her older sister Vanna were orphaned after pirates attacked their home. They were saved by the intervention of the Celestials, who took over the island. As they both come of age, Effie proves unable to control the air around the floating isles as expected, though. As Vanna is ordered into military service, the sisters’ trust in one other, self-perceptions, and understandings of those in power start to shift.
Effie and Vanna are developed in terms of their contrasts. Effie is driven by pride and a desire for status, and her plotting reaches exasperating heights. Vanna, meanwhile, is a hesitant heroine, speaking to her commanders with care. The sisters are sometimes outshone, though, by the book’s secondary characters, including Kai, Effie’s contemporary, who goes from following behind her to distancing himself once his gifts emerge and hers do not. Elsewhere, Ava, the village apothecary, watches the Celestials with suspicion, and Sire Ansel, the governor of the island, is subjected to Effie’s scheming.
The prose is playful and descriptive, but it places too high a degree of focus on the girls’ emotional states at the expense of establishing the setting in full. For example, the mechanics of the world are underexplained beyond undercontextualized details, as of creatures that live in the air, which is likened to a sea: They “came in hues ranging from blue and gray to pink and violet. They navigated the skies by the grace of two dorsal fins, four ruffled flippers, and a star-fluked tail that spun like a propeller.” Elsewhere, it is noted that the preferred pirate punishment is “The Long Drop,” where the victim falls forever. Beyond such distinctive information, though, the worldbuilding is patchy—and made more so because only one of the sisters is able to explore the world much.
The world’s magic system is intriguing, but it is also insufficiently fleshed out: Some people have the ability to manipulate certain elements, and this appears somewhat tied to genetics; groups like the Celestials build caste systems accordingly. However, mischievous deities lurk in the book’s background, and while it’s hinted that they could show that the whole system is wrong, these elements are not seen through in this volume. Indeed, the story in this volume is slow to start. The first substantial shift occurs midway through the book, making interest in the girls’ story hard to generate and sustain.
In the intriguing fantasy novel Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies, sisters come of age, growing apart but into themselves, while living among the clouds.
Reviewed by
M. W. Merritt
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