I wanted to like this book but sadly I just got really confused. Not a reflection as much on the book itself, more just I couldn't get my head around some of the terminology and expressions used. I liked the premise and I wanted to really love it but I just didnt. I didnt really like the characters, some of their interactions just really irritated me and I had to force myself to read it to the end. For me, its a low rating. Good writing, and world building but just not for me.

I was charmed by the cover, and decided to give the book a chance, but sadly it turns out that I had problems with lots of expressions, as well as the shifter thingy. It's just not something I enjoy reading apparently.

3 stars

Synopsis: Dhala is a healer. In a world that depends on the shifter castes, he is looked down upon because he has never shifted. Gyam is a flying shifter, and the last of his kind. Because a disease has been wiping out the races, and all the shifter healers have been killed off. Their childhood friend, Askari is a warrior shifter. Gyam hates Dhala because he blames him for the only other flying shifter dying of the mysterious disease.
Dhala's mother is sure that he is meant to be some sort of shifter, but since it hasn't happened and Dhala is long past the age when his tribe moves up in caste, he knows that he will be stuck in the lowest caste forever.
When Dhala and Askari are out collecting ingredients for healing and hunting for food to get their tribe through the winter, the come across a shifter from an enemy tribe. They save him, and then let him go back to his tribe.

What I liked: the world building. I liked the shifters being set in an age before technology. Dhala, in spite of being in love with Gyam since they were children, and thought to be the lowest caste, did the best that he could do. He kept learning about healing and pushing his abilities in order to save his people, and anyone who really needed help.
Askira had loyalty to both his friends, and didn't look down on Dhala for not being able to shift. He also didn't hold with preconceived notions about his mate.

What I didn't like: the story was really slow with a lot of background and repetition for the first several chapters. Dhala's obsession with wanting to be more instead of being happy with what he was. Gyam's insistence that he can't mate with non-shifter castes.

Overall impression: there was a lot going on in the story, with POV from Gyam, Dhala, and Askari. Once Dhala started testing his healing abilities, the story got more interesting, but it really dragged to start with. I would be interested in reading another book by this author.

*I received a copy through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

3.5 Stars...
I received this book from NetGalley. Initially, what drew me in was the incredible cover art and the blurb. Fantasy being one of my favorite genres, I went for it.

The delicacy and attention Keys spent on world building deserves serious praise. Without telling the reader outright, Keys gently shows us the life and culture of the Chinjoka, a triple caste, shapeshifting people on the brink of extinction due to a plague.

Their once allies, now enemies, the Misiq are also shapeshifters, but their culture lacks form in the book. Perhaps Keys will give the same detail to the Misiq as he gave the Chinjoka in the next book, but some knowledge of this other people would have kept me embedded more deeply in this fantasy world.

The Misiq blame the Chinjoka for the plague and their leaders have decreed to wipe the entire race out. The Chinjoka guard their territory with their sole shapeshifter, a dragon, but they are being slowly overwhelmed.

One injured Misiq scout is captured by the Chinjoka and brought back for healing. Here begins the start of cultural exchange and understanding. Of course, can one person or two change the course of a war which will end in genocide?

I enjoyed the read, at times I felt that the pace could have picked up, but I never felt that the pacing was hindered by world-building. I loved the introduction of the Misiq into the aerie and how that one act changed all that came after.

I would definitely read the next novel in this series as I am intrigued by the new Chinjoka green, healing dragon, what that means for the plague, and the romantic connections between two male couples in the story, one of which is from a people considered the enemy.

" You must follow the path set before you even if it is not the one you envisioned for yourself. "

I went through so many different stages while reading Aerie.

Confusion was first. The book is rich in details and describtions. As typical for the Fantasy genre.
There are many creatures I couldn't really picture in my head. Very detailed burial ceremonies and a bit complicated caste system.
But the further I got into the story, the less I needed everything to be specifically explained to me. I just completed the picture myself. Which I find great- the reader is not lead by the hand the entire time, being told what to think and how to perceive things. Jon Keys gives you the foundation, and then it's up to you how you color the sketch.
The Gods for example are not "labeled" as good or bad, because of the disease that kills the tribe.
"We're not here to remove your challenges. Life is growth. Without struggles, there is no growth" .

By the way- there is a dictionary at the end of the book, but I am sure you won't really need it, if only just for reference from time to time.

The three main characters Askari, Dhala, and Gyam belong to the Chinoka tribe, and have known each other since they were kids.
Dhala's been in love with Gyam since he remembers. But of course the caste system of their tribe is one of the many challenges standing in front of them.
Giyam's anger with Dhala is another.


Now, even though their love had to go through a lot of harships and uncertainties, the story of the other couple in the book stole my heart.

I won't spoil what happens, but if I had to describe their love, I'd call it Faithful.
An this is coming from someone who doesn't believe in faith.

Even though the focus is not entirely on the romance, the action has it's moments. The sex scenes are not extremely detailed, but I found them very erotic.

Once again- I loved the book, and I really hope this will become series. The story is so much bigger than it seems at first, there are many things I want to see developed, so I can only hope this is not the end.

Aerie is an extremely well-written and enjoyable fantasy. The world building is spectacular, and the characters come to life on the page. I had a little difficulty in the beginning with some terms and names, but I soon found myself immersed in the story. I truly enjoyed this book and can't wait to read more from the author.

I really wanted to like this book given the description. I was disappointed and found it very hard to keep track of everything. I would suggest the glossary at the beginning instead of the end of the book

Aerie sort of throws you in the world with little exposition. It took me a second to understand what was happening and why it was relevant. The writing is solid enough, however, lacks the descriptions that would have enriched the experience for me as a reader and made the world easier to comprehend.

The fantasy world of Aerie is set in Iron Age, which is not something that is very common for this genre, much less LGBTQIA+ romance. However, one of my favourite indie series has a similar setting and has set the bar pretty high, and, unfortunately, Aerie didn’t live up to my expectations.

I was a bit confused about what kind of creatures the characters shifted into: perhaps, some versions of prehistoric animals and birds and dinosaurs? I would have preferred more explanations concerning the magic system and how the gods fit into it as well. The world seemed a bit undeveloped, and most things were explained as “this is how things are”, and that was it.

My biggest problem was with the feud between Chinjoka and Misiq which was a big part of the plot. The author failed to fully explain why the war had begun, skipping over details and mentioning briefly that Misiq blamed the other tribe for the plague but never clarified why or how. The use of the world “genocide” in the book which is set in Iron Age was ridiculous. I would have understood “blood feud” or “blood war” or whatever else, but inserting a contemporary term into the narrative was a mistake.

The writing was not too bad, and once I familiarized myself with the world, I began to enjoy the story. I did find that the relationships were not as well developed, as I would have preferred. I do, however, appreciate the fact that the sexuality in this world was never an issue and the only conflicts resided either in the war between tribes or within the characters themselves.

The book ends with the issues resolved for the characters but not the tribes. I am rather curious to know whether this is supposed to be a stand-alone or not, as the plot certainly can be developed into a series.

However, I did enjoy Aerie to a certain extent and I would be interested in reading a sequel if there is ever one.

Rating: 3 stars

(My review will be live on my blog on March 13, 9am EST)

Cool premise, interesting characters. Was a bit tough to get into in the beginning (very steep learning curve...) but I'm glad I stuck with it.

The premise of this book is what reeled me in. Shifters, YA, M/M romance. Sadly, it was so slow. There was a moment or two of fast-paced action, then it slowed right down again. There was some M/M action going on, which I was excited about. But the scenes were not written that well. You could tell they were written by a male, and lacked any kind of imagination. My favourite character wasn't even the main protagonist, Dhala. It was his mother, Tayi. Overall, I struggled with this book.

This book is a coming of age story centered around an unique and beautiful mythology. You can tell that the basis for the culture is early Native American but it has enough of its own new aspects to make it truly original. Askari, Dhala and Gyam are best friends that belong to the three different castes in their society. The highest caste, similar to knights, can shift into eagle like forms. The second caste can grow plates to defend themselves and take the role of soldiers. The lowest caste cannot shift and are the general laborers of the society. The three men are just reaching the cusp of adulthood and have to navigate their friendship amid the plague that has been affecting their tribe. They also have to deal with the whims of their gods and the threat of war from a neighboring tribe.

This book was already beautiful and complex without the addition of a love story for each of the characters, which just made it even better. It was adorable seeing the boys discover the meaning of love while also learning what it means to be an adult. There were couples at the end of the book but I foresee many more obstacles for the characters in the books to come. For that reason, I classify this as a HFN. Also, I feel like the boys have more growing to do, so they may not remain together throughout the story.

I look forward to the follow up books because I’d love to read more of the mythology and the budding relationships. This is a 4 star read to me and I recommend this to fantasy lovers who want new and different worlds to sink their teeth into.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I technically would rate 3.5 stars, but I'm rounding up.

In almost every high fantasy book I've read, I get lost in the world building. I'm thrown head first into unknown lands with unknown creatures, just sort of floundering about and trying to get my feet under me. The first few pages of Aerie were no different--until I got smart enough to read the glossary. Once I read the glossary, the characters and their words made a lot more sense, which helped me navigate the world a little easier. That being said, this made-up world is absolutely stunning.

The creativity that went into the world-building and the warring tribes we learn about throughout book leaves me speechless. I won't go into too much detail because I like to leave my reviews without too many spoilers, but both tribes are fiercely primal, relying heavily on the land to survive, and we are granted interesting, in-depth looks at this multiple time in the book. The Chinjoka and Misiq tribes are also heavily religious and make choices based on their chosen deity. The differences in their deities make their tribes markedly different as well, which I found fascinating.

If I had any complaint, it would be that the pace of the romance felt rushed. There was a lot of built-up tension and anger between two characters that was suddenly just released, without a reasonable explanation. The other couple very much fit the love/lust-at-first-sight trope and I struggled to find it believable.

Overall, I sincerely enjoyed the book. The pacing towards the end did feel rushed and it ended rather abruptly, in my opinion, but it will be a book that I recommend to my friends that enjoy high fantasy reads and queer romance outside of the norm.

I got this book via Netgalley and I was pretty pumped, because it looked really interesting. I started it one night and read the first third in one sitting because the premise was so intriguing and the worldbuilding was really neat and inventive. But then when I finished it, I just felt that the second half didn't live up to the promise of the first half in a lot of ways, which left me frustrated, because I really enjoyed the writing style and felt that this book had a lot of potential. I would have given the first half four stars and the second half two stars, so in the end I split the difference and gave it three stars.

I'll start with the things that I liked. I think that the premise of the book was pretty cool. The Chinjoka and the Misiq were both cool ideas, and I felt that despite them being what basically amounted to shape-shifters, which have been done a lot, the addition of a lot of cultural info, history, and religion made the Chinjoka at least feel very unique (although the Misiq, excepting Ena, are a little one-dimensional in being much more barbaric and aggressive-maybe future books will give us more perspective?). The idea of having a race of shifters where people could shift to different extents, which then defined a caste structure, was pretty interesting, and I appreciated that while it was clear that the Chinjoka and Misiq shifted to bird-like and mammal-like creatures, respectively, their shifting was not described as "Oh, here are some eagle shifters and cat shifters." Instead, the shifting was described as it would be from the perspective of the actual characters, which made it feel like a genuine fact of the author's world rather than something to be viewed through the perspective of real-life animals.

Besides the shifting, there was a lot of detail to the world-building that was introduced gradually, and I really enjoyed learning more and more about the deities, the geography, and the culture of the Chinjoka and their land. A detail that I particularly liked was how healing was portrayed. In addition to normal healing with herbs and such, Dhala's family is able to heal people by sending their souls into the body of the sick person and waging war for their health, which is an incredibly cool take on healing, and the way it was described was lovely. I also enjoyed how we learned a little about the cultural customs of the Chinjoka through Jua, a young boy adopted by one of the main characters' mother.

You'll not that in saying what I liked, I didn't mention much about the actual characters. That's because unfortunately, I felt that the characterization and relationship development was the weakest part of the book, to the point that it detracted from my enjoyment of it. There are two main relationships, and both of them are established very quickly, but there's almost no development that makes you care about the relationships or understand why the characters are so madly in love/lust. For Dhala, he talks about his infatuation with Gyam from the get-go, but Gyam is an absolute jerk to him for the first half of the book. Then he suddenly switches from ignoring and/or being deliberately hurtful to Dhala to professing his love for Dhala to both Dhala and everyone else around, when previously he didn't think about being attracted to Dhala but somehow at the same time opposed it because they were different castes? I'm not sure of the details, but it's a sudden change and very baffling. As for the other relationship, their friend Askari tells Dhala he's never been attracted to any Chinjoka (bird-shifter type), and then one page later runs into a dying Misiq (cat-shifter type), who arouses him to the point that he has to avoid getting an erection while trying to keep the Misiq from dying. They fall madly in love over the course of running into each other two times, to the point where they're willing to halfway betray their own people for each other. Both relationships are incredibly predictable and painfully overblown, and I found myself wishing that they had been cut out of the book entirely in favor of the much more interesting friendships and familial relationships.

The other thing that frustrated me was that about halfway through the book, the relationships began to be more of a focus, at which point the plot became much less interesting and more frustrating. As it is, a good 2/3 of the book is basically "Someone does something reckless, almost dies, gets healed just in time for one of his friends to do something equally reckless and almost die." It was fine the first time, but after about the third or fourth near-death experience, I got a little bored. On top of that, the main conflicts of the book (the plague and the invasion of the Misiq) are both brought up and then basically handwaved away at the end in favor of the two couples having lots of sex. Everything either works out much too neatly (in a way that was rather aggressively foreshadowed a few pages before) or turns out to be a non-issue in a way that I couldn't get behind <spoiler>(for example, the Chinjoka, who were in the midst of driving off the Misiq from their lands, suddenly all agree to join a rescue party to save one of the Misiq for no reason other than that Askari's met him a few times and thinks he's hot)</spoiler>. I do feel like the book was setting itself up for a potential sequel, and I would read it to see if it resolves some of the issues in the first book, but as it is I was quite frustrated because I felt like this book could have been incredibly good if it focused less on the relationships (or alternatively, actually developed the relationships so that I cared about them) and more on the plot.

To sum up, I found this book to be full of potential, but got very frustrated because I think it didn't live up to a lot of it. The premise and the worldbuilding are fantastic, and the interactions between the characters and their families, their deities, and their environment are the highlight of the book for me. However, about halfway through the book, the two underdeveloped romantic relationships begin to play a more central role, at the expense of the plot.

I truly wish the glossary of terms was in the front of the book rather than the back. That would have made this book a lot easier to read.

This book while excellent gets bogged down in the world building of it. There is so much it gets overwhelming at times and details get lost. I had a hard time picturing exactly what their shifter forms looked like. Are they giant eagles or something more harpy/dragon/gargoyle and the case of Ena giant cats.

The world is fascinating and the castes system as well as the characters are very interesting. I enjoyed the push and pull between Dhala and Gyam and the electric heat between Ena and Askari.

This is the first of what I assume to be four books so I hope to learn more about these people and how exactly they can eat raw meat and not die.

The character development across all four was fascinating but because of all the initial world building I didnt start to fully enjoy the book until the last 3rd

Overall it is well thought out story that began a bit slow but once it began to move it was a lot faster and more enjoyable