This book was a surprise, it was a lyrically written treat, with great world building done with a character based focus:

An engaging main character with a unique universe whispering power there was a lot to like her despite some minor pacing incosnsistencies that the author will definitely have a chance to rectify with future entries in this universe.

Unfortunately I did not manage to read this book at the time; and it is no longer a book I'd be interested in reading. Many thanks to the publisher for approving my request, and my apologies for being unable to provide a full review.

This one took me a while to start because I thought it was going to be very information heavy and more classic sci-fi, but I was wrong. This story is incredibly unique, very interesting and really thoughtful in the way it's written. Our protagonist, Elyth, wields words as power. She talks her desired outcome into existence, and the universe responds. She has a mission, and she fully believes in it. She is the ender of worlds. But after stumbling upon something that shouldn't be possible, she has to question everything she's been led to believe and even who she is.

The description made me think this book would feel quite large and overwhelming, but the way it's so focused on Elyth really dispels that. She is such an complicated woman, so devoted to her cause of destruction and yet so caring about the worlds she visits. It's an interesting dynamic, and one I didn't expect. She's also funny and a bit sassy which I loved. I also loved all the other characters she met along the way, so three dimensional and well thought out.

Overall, 3.5 stars. Did not round up as I don't think I'd read the second one - I felt like this was a satisfying ending as is.

Thanks Netgalley for the free copy!

This was my first time reading anything by this author and I have to say I did struggle sometimes as the writing felt like reading poetry.

Our main character is a smart competent woman and I was definitely on her side throughout. But i felt the middle of this book let it down as it started to drag a bit and while the ending was good that middle just made me lose my enthusiasm a bit.

The premise of this book really intrigued me and was the main reason I requested a copy on here. This is an epic sci-fi that rewards the reader if they persevere. The prose is lyrical and engaging and was my favourite aspect of the reading experience.

It is clear that this author has real skill in world building. The world building was so good and I really enjoyed that aspect. The pacing was a bit slow in places but overall a good read.

Sorry unfortunately this is a DNF from me. I did try on many occasions to come back to this but the writing and story ended up being not for me.

Did not rate or mark on Goodreads.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for a review.

I’m not usually a fan of sci fi, some might say I’m a wimp when it comes to space, the universe and everything, but this was so good!

this book started really well and had a good ending but the middle seemed to lull for me which really affected my enjoyment of the story.

The writing was good though and I would definitely pick up something from this author in the future.

This was an original idea that didn't go quite where I thought it would, but also sort of did.

A strange mix of sci-fi and I wanna say survivalist mountaineering?

Anyway, it was in some parts quite lyrical, in some parts quite action-packed and in others quite thought provoking.

Elyth's journey is an interesting one. I do think that perhaps it sets itself up as a different kind of book with its high-octane opening and that it's much more meditative than I'd thought at first.

I can see they some may find it a tad stagnating but I ultimately enjoyed it and will seek out book two when it's released.

My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

This is me being a terrible reviewer but I read this book a while back and I didn't have anything to say so I never reviewed it and eventually forgot about it. As I was going through my titles and catching up on reviews I realised that I hadn't sent any feedback on this one.

I remember enjoying the beginning and the end a lot. I didn;t have anything bad to say about it, the story was interesting and kept me going. However, somewhere in the middle is where I started experiencing problems with the novel. I found some parts very draggy and I struggled with reading it but bc the story was so interesting I kept reading, curious to see where the story was going.

As a whole, I don't regret reading it, I did enjoy it and I will read the sequels.

Every Sky a Grave was my first time reading anything by Jay Posey. The fact that language is power in this world won me over. The cover is beautiful, and the publicist said it's perfect for fans of Mark Lawrence. (Although I must admit that I don't really see the similarities, apart from maybe the prose.)

Posey is a skilled writer. In fact, the prose is what I liked most about this book. At times, it was like reading poetry.

The world building is intricate and creative and reminded me of the epic scope of Alastair Reynold's House of Sun.

The protagonist is a smart, knowledgeable and curious woman. She's intelligent and I quickly found myself rooting for her. She's fiercely independent, loyal at first but grows into her own as the plot progresses.

Unfortunately, I thought the middle dragged somewhat, and I struggled coming back to this book.

The ending, however, is strong and I'm definitely interested in reading the sequel.

This is an intriguing science fiction novel for fans of Alastair Reynolds who don't mind a slow middle.

Every Sky A Grave follows Elyth who works for the First House of the Ascendance, an order that maintains peace in the galaxy by monitoring other worlds and if necessary, destroying any planet that threatens this harmony. Elyth is one of the agents tasked with these planet assassinations, a ‘grey witch’ who uses Deep Language to destroy planets at it’s lines/veins. She is sent on a mission to the planet Quel to find out intel on whether this planet is a threat and through her own discoveries and the people she meets, she learns all is not what it seems.

This book isn’t bad, it’s slow and at times unnecessary but the last 25% picks up a good momentum and is enjoyable and exciting. The problem is that it felt like the rest really could’ve been cut down and it still would have ended at the same place. The magical system of language while an interesting concept, isn’t explained to a basic level of how or why it came about, i just didn’t understand it and then it was talked about with great detail, this concept I couldn’t grasp. Elyth also comes across quite 2-dimensional and unlikeable, which I appreciate not all characters have to be liked but I felt like I was meant to, in truth I didn’t care what happened to her and much preferred the other characters I can’t really talk about. This is a woman who kills planets for a living, forcing billions of people to leave their dying planets and all that they know, and yet in one scene she lectures another character about taking resources away from a farmer, for example. Her moral high ground is hard to tolerate when she treats people so badly herself as if they are something she can just use to complete her mission. I appreciate she is a trained agent with beliefs but it’s hard to be in the head of a rather cold character and care when that character simply doesn’t. There were other characters I would like know more of. That said I imagine if you persevere, she will defrost as the series continues as you began to experience in this book and I really did enjoy the last 1/4 which I hope is an indication of the series.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy to review in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/5

Has a heavy Star Wars vibe and to tell you the truth after about 20% of it, I almost wanted to put it down to go ahead and play Knights of the Old Republic, but, that's a compliment. I don't get enough Scifi books that can give me that sort of atmosphere without feeling like a pale copy.

It was soothing and yet pressed on at an intense pace once Elyth lands on Qel.

Elyth's Deep Language is The Force and the First House has a bit of a Jedi likeness but with its own twists and with its own major differences, though it does stand within a triangle of power between Hezra and the Council as the Jedi did. This just shows the more political side to the First House than the Jedi have ever claimed to be.

I was sad about the burden placed on Elyth but she is one BAMF and takes every single hit like a pro and in the end shows a good deal of character development. She makes new connections, finds out different ways that The Deep Language can work. She also learns the possible value in the rehabilitation of a planet versus its destruction.

I really look forward to book two and how Elyth's path evolves.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

There are two notable things about Every Sky A Grave. The first is that it is fantasy dressed up as science fiction, and it is dressed particularly well. We travel with Elyth, who acts a a planetary assassin for shady universal governance The Ascendance (the type is unclear but lets say probably not a democracy). As an operative she is skilled in using the secret language of the Universe, which allows her to sway minds, send people to sleep and kill entire planets. The rules are never given and basically by speaking to create calamitous effect, the Language is basically magic. Take Arthur C.Clarke the other way in this one, there is no fantasy which suitable camoflagued cannot be waved away as science fiction.

The second notable thing I buried in that paragraph. Elyth is a planetary assassin. Her job, that she is well into the career of, is to go to planets were there is dissent and destroy them by speaking the Language at the right spot. The ramifications of this are left ambiguous for a bit, we know the planets don't instantly explode - Elyth is on them. And much later in the book when tasked to do it again in a more serious fashion she baulks as people will not have time to evacuate. But it is also clear that such evacuation is never complete.

So we have a magical fantasy where we have duelling magicians and we are on the side of the one that destroys planets. Posey does a great job at making Elyth and her situation interesting enough that we want to follow it, whilst being detached enough for us to occasionally question the morality of the piece. As a fantasy its throughline is relatively traditional, she is sent to capture a heretic non sanctioned magic user, and discovers both that he might not be as bad as she thinks, and that her boss is terrible too. In the meantime there are a surprising amount of breathless escapes, undercover ops and galactic politicking to keep you engaged and you know it will end with a slightly open place for a sequel (though it is rewarding in itself). A fun read, but much of the special sauce here was in realising slowly how I was being played.

I feel like this book really shouldn't have been so much of a struggle for me. We've got a complex system of political rivals, a language that can be used to commune with and, ultimately, destroy planets, lots of fighting for survival and a human race terraforming the universe.

We meet Elyth just as she completes a mission by basically back-flipping and fighting her way through a series of compounds to meditate with the planet she's on and persuade it to die (in the next year or so). But then she's immediately recalled to The Vaunt, the place where all of the First House "grey witches" train and is met by the Paragon, no less than the leader of the First House herself. She's immediately sent back into the field, with less than the usual preparation, to investigate the planet Quel, which seems to have something wrong with it, but no one is quite sure. There are rumours of the Strain, a corruption of the Depp Language, and Elyth is sent to uncover the truth.

When it's summed up, it sounds pretty exciting but, for a relatively short book, I just found that it dragged. And some of that might have been my own headspace. It wouldn't normally take me weeks to read a book like this. But it wasn't just me ...

Elyth spends the majority of the rest of the book running blindly around a small area of Quel trying to find answers to questions she doesn't understand. And reading it felt the same way for me. There wasn't any huge pressing motivation to understand what was going on until the last 10% of the book, and then lots happened, but didn't really answer any of my questions.

In addition, there are two 'balancing' sides to the Ascendance (ie human universal civilisation); the First House and the Hezra. The Hezra seem to be more involved in planetary armies and taskforces, and dabble a little in interstellar planetary control, whilst the First House guard the secrets of the Deep Language and use them to infiltrate on a small scale.

But I have a lot of questions about both of those factions that I don't feel were really answered. It felt like there was a lot of opportunity for both sides to unbalance the other - the Deep Language is powerful - and only seems to be restricted by the way that it's taught, whilst there are just way more Hezra and they're all quite military and fighty.

Likewise, the shadowy figure of eth ammuin was so ... shadowy. He felt like the kind of faceless character where you just don't know who or what he's actually like, or what his motivation is, but he's there with you regardless. And it's unclear how all of that will pan out in the future.

I think sometimes I find books where the main character is basically on the run for the whole things really challenging. It means there's never any let-up in the anxiety, which means that it becomes kind of normal, rather than peaks and troughs of excitement. And it often means that the characters are kind of shoe-horned into the action; they're forced along and stumble into things because they are literally running from one thing to the next. And when that happens in space on a very Earth-like planet, I get a little disappointed.

In all, not a bad story, but dragged too much for my taste, or my own headspace dragged it for me. However, definitely love that cover.

I loved this one! Elyth is an insanely powerful character with cataclysmic power, which it should have been a real problem. I shouldn’t have been so worried on her behalf as she is pitchforked, still reeling and unprepared from a previously traumatic assignment, into this most challenging task. But her weapon isn’t some technical planet-busting gismo – Posey is far more inventive than that. Elyth’s power comes from a mastery of language as a subset of the fabric of the universe that can have the power to unravel it, and its secrets are kept within an all-women sect that help The Ascendancy keep order throughout all human space. Elyth is their agent, who has been sent secretly to Qel to discover what is causing a disturbance within the Deep Language – and eliminate it at whatever cost.

This isn’t a foot-to-the-floor, all-guns-blazing adventure. This is one of those tense stories where the main protagonist is scrabbling to cope when all her plans are up-ended before she has a chance to get going. So initially the pacing is quite slow. I’ve no problem with that – it gave me plenty of time to get immersed in the world and acquainted with how this unusual world works, as well as more time to get to know Elyth. She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve, or emote all that much – she’s been trained not to. It also meant that when the action did kick off, it had far more impact.

The descriptions of the countryside, as Elyth is trying to stay hidden from the security forces, gave me a vivid picture of the world. Not only did this enrich my reading experience – it was also important as part of the story. Because it matters that Elyth becomes increasingly fond of the planet and feels an affinity for the flora and fauna that lives there. I’m not going to say more, as I don’t want to lurch into Spoiler territory. Suffice to say, the plot goes off into a direction both familiar and yet with a different twist, so that I’m very keen to read the next book in the series. And I’m hoping that Posey is going to write it quickly. This excellent read is highly recommended for science fiction fans who like their colony adventures with a different twist. While I obtained an arc of Every Sky is a Grave from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
9/10

Thanks to Rebecca at Harper Collins for the review copy via NetGalley, without who I'd probably have missed reviewing the book.

Reading the book blurb recollected imaginary perspectives of Dune and the Bene Gesserit, alongside the Wheel of Time's Aes Sedai.
In a geeky turn, I'm going to explain the book via star wars, it's easier to avoid spoilers this way. The heroine, Elyth, is a Jedi like being, capable of inhuman abilities, filled with a sense of self-righteous purpose. Early on a mission for Elyths "Jedi council" goes wrong, her ship crashes, nothing goes right. Elyth is a dedicated servant to her cause; however, she continues to try to complete her mission and in progress realises something is wrong. Throughout the book, we find her questioning her purpose, she starts to believe that far from being a Jedi, she might actually be a Sith. I suspect by the time this tale is told Elyth might well be a Darth Vader character in reverse.

It soon becomes apparent that the worldbuilding is prodigious. Jay has grown his storytelling craft since I read his book Three (Legends of the Dustwalker) long ago. Though there is a missing element, just as his book Three reinvented tried and proven paradigms, i.e. apocalypse, lone hero etc. So too does "Every sky a Grave" build its world based on tried and tested world views and concepts. That aside, there's a plethora of books these days. So much so it's hard for anyone to come up with genuinely original plots. Jays storycraft reminds me of Brandon Sanderson's worldbuilding ability, both reuse storytelling troupes to significant effect and come up with something more than the sum of the parts. This is a book whose vivid portrayal of its depths can lead you down a path of imagination where you'll lose track of the hours in joy. To me, the most exciting part is the growth in the Authors storycraft since his early books, it leaves subtle hints and promises of great things to come.

Now to the negative, I had a hard time at parts of the start of the book. I had to force myself to read on, the story is if anything a bit too slow at the beginning. In perspective, and in the series defence, I'll relate issues with one of my all-time favourite series, Tad Williams The Dragon bone chair. Tad's series was so slow at the start I kept giving up and only continued since I was too poor to buy lots of books in my youth. Once I finally pushed through, I was rewarded with one of the genuinely gratifying series in my life.

Another note of caution, "Every sky a Grave" will confuse you until you grasp its reality. I missed understanding initial subtleties of the plot. I ended up re-reading the early part, as expected, it was far more enjoyable once I had a firm grasp of the universe.

The book works well as a stand-alone book. Assuming it continues to excel as the plot develops over the subsequent books in the series, this could turn into something truly memorable. I heartily recommend you all indulge in this seductive fantasy, delight in the machiavellian machinations of the First House of the Ascendance, whilst you grow to love its agent, and the heroine of the book, Elyth.
Recommended.

Language is power. Literally. Discovering the fundamental language of the universe has allowed humankind to spread out across the galaxy, to bend reality to suit their needs. Carefully controlled, this power is held by the First House of the Ascendance. An agent of the First House, Elyth, is sent out on planet-killing missions when the worlds – and the Words – become too corrupted to save.

But when she’s sent to the planet Qel, nothing goes to plan. Struggling to understand what she senses deep within the planet, the Deep Language itself doesn’t work as she expects. Who or what is going on with Qel? What was the real mission the Paragon intended for her, hidden not just from the opposing Hezra, but perhaps from Elyth herself?

I was utterly intrigued by the concept of this book: language as literal power is a great premise. However, if I’m being honest then the way it’s used – to kill planets – was a bit of a turn off. Part of the eventual plot does hang on this but still, when you’re introduced to such a grand concept being used so… illogically? … it kind of spoils the enjoyment. So, apologies for the minor spoiler but I think it’s worth it to encourage you to stick with things.

We follow Elyth as she tries to discover what’s going on with Qel and some of its inhabitants. She’s a great character: powerful, kick-ass, independent. Her character development flows very well. When she meets a mysterious messiah-like figure, the scale of the puzzle only ramps up a hundredfold!

Most of the book takes place in various wilderness settings, and environmentalism seems to be a strong theme. But we also have the cold logic of the First House, and the dark military presence of the Hezra as well as Elyth’s own combat skills. There’s a lot of advanced tech to have fun with, too. The world building is a big strength here, although I would have liked to see more of the cool things.

The story is perhaps a little simple given the scale of possibilities – more action than sci-fi. It feels a lot like an opening chapter, with an awful lot more to be revealed. I think the subsequent stories might be exceptional and I’m looking forward to finding out!

Overall: intriguing, well enough executed, but was a little too opening-chapter for higher marks.

An epic new scifi book indeed and I can't wait to get more of this series as it was well written, you connect with the character instantly and deeply