Book Review: Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies

Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

Teenage sisters unexpectedly upend everything they know to be true of their colonized homelands in this high fantasy political drama.

Sisters Effie and Vanna, three years apart, have been orphaned in the violent plundering of their village and consequential imperial rule from the Celestials. Claiming to protect them from piracy, the Celestials proclaim that their “lands are too rich to avoid unwanted attention, and your Gifts, however bountiful, will not be enough to deter those who would do you harm.”

The Celestials host an annual ceremony where villagers who have come of age and demonstrated proof of magical powers are tested for a particularly rare valuable skillset. Winners are honored with the duty to use their talents at the imperial army’s will. No one questions this or the Celestials’ intentions because the lore of the bloodshed they were saved from hangs heavy and haunting.

Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies spans years, venturing with Vanna and Effie into hidden, unfamiliar places, from alternating points of view: Effie and Vanna alone on their journeys. This is a politically intriguing and morally challenging story, a coming-of-age, a reckoning with colonialism and corruption—and it’s rooted in authentic sibling energy that anyone who grew up with a sibling just a few years apart in age will understand and feel deep to their core.

All Effie wants is to manifest powers and travel the world doing the duty she’s dreamed of for all her fifteen years of life. When Vanna manifests powers and joins the dragoons, Effie’s powers remain elusive, keeping her home. Their relationship becomes tense, especially with Effie sulking as she grows desperate to claim her destiny.

Alternating chapters provide insight into their strained sisterhood: We read Vanna’s pride in and protective heart for Effie, while we watch the sisters (both under increasing stress) verbally clash whenever they meet; Vanna’s duty takes her away for days on end, and we feel Effie’s tangled jealousy of Vanna colliding with the ache of realizing she misses her sister.

When Vanna is sent to stop rebels in another village who have “taken up arms to deny our host her tithe” she learns about the corruption and control used to enforce the Celestials’ power.

Back home, a conniving, entitled Effie lies, cheats, and demands her way into the audience of people with the power to grant her the job of her dreams. The determined sisters follow their hearts and sense of justice—Vanna’s aligned with duty to her country, army, and humanity; Effie’s led by her belief that the life granted to those with powers is her birthright.

Along the way, both teenagers are unexpectedly faced with an awakening about the reality behind the Celestial empire. Confronted with the patriarchy masquerading as servants to their Celestial queen, they begin to question their allegiance.

As an older sister, and someone who was nowhere near as bold (and frankly, daringly arrogant) a teenager as Effie, I related most to Vanna. I appreciated her compassion and capacity to recognize the enemy rebels as untrained, unskilled fighters not much older than Effie. She sees them for what they are: “children playing at soldier, armed with deadly weapons they didn’t understand.” I loved the strategic moves reflected in Vanna’s chapters and how her heart shone through even more than her very capable skills on the battlefield. Effie’s plans to claim her “rightful” place are twisted and so typical of a teenager willing to risk it all. I was thrilled and entertained by the lengths she was willing to go.

“To work the craft, you need to lie truthfully. You need to be honest and false, mysterious and bare. You need to bend in half without breaking. How many men do you know capable of containing so many contradictions?”

With a brilliantly evocative representation of imperialist tactics, Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies’ stunning setting serves as a background to the teenage girls’ feminist fueling, empowering understandings of their own power, and reckoning with the rewarding reality of rebellion. I read this book while following the proceedings at the UN General Assembly and was struck by the sharp, incisive clarity with which the author was able to mirror the struggle and strength of countless nations represented at the conference.

Author Z. Bennett Lorimer’s glittering high-fantasy world mirrors ours with remarkable emotional impact. Readers can’t help but be struck by the heartbreak and manipulation of a town left in ruins “as a reminder of all they had lost —all they might lose again without their host’s protection,” even as Effie and Vanna’s people live in peaceful gratitude to them.

“You’re balanced on a knife’s edge over bare sky…You’re going to spend the rest of your natural life falling through it. You’re going to fall and fall and fall—until your heart stops or your organs give out.” I frequently paused in awe of the author’s vivid descriptions of moments like a side character changing their beard’s style, a lavishly worded villainous threat, or an already-shocking-in-context scene turning into a truly astonishing sight, so gorgeous that anyone’s jaw would drop. Z. Bennett Lorimer has a gift for not only imagining spectacular, staggering drama, but writing these moments with searing emotion felt from each character’s specific desires.

I’d recommend this book for readers who love magical stories with real-world impact, listen to Paris Paloma songs, and prefer their revolutionary ideology served with a heaping dose of magnificent fantasy worldbuilding. More than anything, I’ll remember this book for its representation of siblinghood. I have not read so true and honest a reflection of the tangled emotions between similarly-aged siblings who aren’t on the best of terms but remain the one person on the planet who knows you deeply and (in their own complicated, questionable way) can’t help wanting the best for you.

Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies is worth recommending for Vanna and Effie’s sisterhood alone, but it’s also an expansive call for young women to follow their desires, and to listen carefully when older women impart their riotous feminist wisdom.

Plot-wise, I’m extremely stressed and enthralled about what will happen next. Luckily, the author has given us a wealth of thought-provoking, bewitching implications for each storyline Vanna and Effie find themselves in. I’ll be thinking about every possible angle—knowing that author Z. Bennett Lorimer will certainly continue to shock both his characters and his readers in unimaginable ways—while I wait for the urgently-needed, well-earned sequel.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies by Z. Bennett Lorimer! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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