Hunted by the Sky

Hunted by the Sky is the first book in a fantasy series inspired by ancient India, telling the stories of two youths being oppressed in different ways by a cruel regime. Gul has been hunted all her life by the king’s Sky Warriors because she has a prophesied birthmark: she could be the one destined to cause the king’s demise. When the soldiers find her family, her parents sacrifice themselves to save Gul, and she vows to kill the king in revenge. Even after training with a group of rebel women, however, her magic does not seem strong enough or useful enough to help.

Cavas has grown up in the tenements where non-magi are forced to live. He works in the palace stables and spies on Major Shayla of the Sky Warriors for a mysterious man to earn enough money to keep his sick father alive. When he encounters Gul being harassed in a marketplace, he assumes she is non-magi like himself and helps her. The truth of her magic means they cannot trust each other, especially because of the secrets both are keeping. But Cavas’s mysterious spymaster—whom no one can see but himself—encourages him to help Gul.

Cavas reluctantly helps Gul sneak into the palace as a maid. The two get caught up in Shayla’s treacherous plot to kill the king and only escape with the help of the rebel women and living spectres, a version of ghosts that Cavas learns he can see and speak to. They are led to a hidden city where all those opposed to the cruel king’s rule have been waiting for the prophesied Star Warrior to help them restore peace and justice. Gul will have to accept her destiny and learn to control her magic, and Cavas will have to uncover his birthright so that in the next book they can fight against Shayla who has killed the king and made herself queen.

Hunted by the Sky has a rich, lush setting, well-described with plenty of sensory detail to ground the reader in an imaginative world influenced by Indian and Persian mythology. Gul goes through a satisfying magical coming-of-age when desperate circumstances force her to explore the limits of her powers. Cavas’s magical inheritance is a mystery that is slowly revealed; his discovery that, rather than being a non-magi, he has always been able to see living spectres, makes a nice parallel journey with Gul’s more obvious development as a magi.

Gul and Cavas have believable and compelling motivations for the decisions that drive the plot forward and for the fraught attraction between them. Supporting characters are interesting and well-developed with backstories that reveal more of the history and politics of the complex fantasy world.

The magic and politics are overly complicated for a single book to handle, resulting in some awkward info-dumping and explaining, as well as the introduction of magic and peoples that aren’t fully explained. Presumably the second book will help make sense of all the gods and prophecies and magical beings that are toying with Gul and Cavas. The book is best when it focuses on the main characters and their struggle to make sense of their place in the world.

Fantasy lovers who love to see Own Voices diversity in their secondary worlds will love Hunted by the Sky for its well-fleshed-out characters, gorgeous setting and fascinating mythology. Readers who appreciate female characters with agency will enjoy Gul’s journey, and YA fans who like their plots spiced with romance will not be disappointed.