This was a cozy little read with an autistic pie lover as your main character. It follows them through an alien invasion, new love, and drama.

I loved that this book had so many of my favorite things, I’m always here for pie & aliens/space horror is my weakness! I feel it started off strong with these, but felt myself craving more towards the end. There is random political pushes that felt completely out of place. If you’re reading the book, I feel there were things you were already set on or an ally of. I craved more aliens. I plan on buying this for my collection cause the cover art is 10/10!

Thank you again NetGalley for the read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this scifi romp. There's aliens, a UFO crash, a smalltown mystery that seems to be warping reality, there's some truly wonderful queer and neurodiverse rep, there's a meet-weird/cute romance, very sharp and funny dialogue AND there are lots and lots of PIES. This book is funny, but also heartfelt and full of suspense and mystery. The characters have depth, and their relationships drive the plot and hooked me just as much as the alien invasion story. A terrific read from start to finish.

While Key Lime Sky by Al Hess was a cute enjoyable read, this really wasn’t for me. If you are looking for a sci-fi alien tale, this wouldn’t be where to start. The aliens are there, but they take a backseat to the main story where Denver discovers who they are and finds love along the way.

I think it deserves a try, and it will definitely find an audience in today’s reader. Don’t count it out until you’ve read it.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Angry Robot for the advanced reader copy!

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*

I really enjoyed this somewhat weird alien invasion book with a queer, autistic main protagonist. While the world building felt a bit off at times and the romance felt rushed, I really loved out protagonist and their obsession with pies. Having never been to the United States, I have absolutely no idea about pies (I just know UK pies and pasties and pastries), but I liked how happy pies made our protagonist.

A weird but fun read!

4 stars

As I was reading the book, I kept asking myself how Al (the author) must really have a mind of telling stories that can put a bandage over wounds. What I mean is that this a new story for me as someone who might not be exactly the same/go through the same things like Denver (MC). Al’s story gave a good patch work on my reality as a trans-man. I admit it took me longer than I had wanted to read this book but it wasn’t due to anything lacking. It was due that maybe my mind needed to understand what was going on. I’ve read reviews where it was easy to pick up but for me, I felt like I had to go back to what I read before to understand where I was in the story. I guess if you’re a person who reads and picks up on things easily this will be a nice read. Even with my struggles I did love the story and enjoy Al as a great storyteller.

Key Lime Sky by Al Hess is a delightful blend of cozy sci-fi and heartwarming character drama. The story follows Denver, a nonbinary, autistic pie blogger, who witnesses a UFO explosion in the small town of Muddy Gap. As the townspeople begin acting strangely and even disappearing, Denver teams up with Ezra, a new arrival, to unravel the mystery. While the sci-fi premise is intriguing, the heart of the novel lies in Denver’s journey of finding acceptance and connection in a town that often feels isolating. The authentic portrayal of autism and the evolving relationships with Ezra and other townsfolk make for a deeply emotional and relatable read.

Hess keeps the focus on the characters rather than delving too deeply into the sci-fi mechanics, creating a story that feels intimate and emotionally resonant. The themes of found family, queer identity, and self-acceptance shine through, making Key Lime Sky more than just a sci-fi adventure. Denver’s experiences of alienation and eventual belonging are beautifully captured, and the book offers a hopeful message about the power of community and love. It’s a charming, unique read that balances humor, heart, and a dash of extraterrestrial intrigue.

4/5

I had such a fun time reading this book! Our main character Denver—a nonbinary, autistic pie blogger—witnesses a UFO explode over xyr small town, Muddy Gap. No one will acknowledge what Denver has witnessed, everyone ignores xem when xe speaks of aliens, but the people of Muddy Gap start acting stranger and stranger and then start disappearing altogether! Alongside Ezra, a new arrival to their town, Denver sets out to discover the truth. And the ad revenue from xyr blog isn't half bad when xe starts to post about xyr extra-terrestrial findings.

This was such a comforting, heartwarming story about autistic alienation, found family and community. It simultaneously critiqued the rumour mill of small town gossips and the judgement that comes from knowing every little thing about everybody, yet also showed the undercurrent of love and community that persists in these small towns that only grows stronger when put through hardships.
It was a bleeding heart of a journey for Denver as we got to witness all xyr struggles to connect with the people of Muddy Gap. We saw how painfully xe was often treated, yet we also saw people rally around xem. We were eventually able to perceive just how much love Denver had in xyr small town after all.

I, above everything else, loved the autistic representation. I thought it was done with great care and was instantly recognisable as authentic, Own Voices storytelling. I love finding more and more SFF books with autistic main characters and I particularly loved finding it in this cosy sci-fi.

I loved unravelling the sci-fi mystery of Muddy Gap, although I will say if you are a hard sci-fi lover who wants answers to all your sci-fi questions, this is not that kind of book. This is a very cosy take on an alien invasion that is much more focused on the characters than on the intricacies of the how and the why. And it is the characters that make this story so brilliant.
Denver was a great protagonist, I loved so much about xem and felt such compassion for all the risks xe took and care xe held for others. There was quite a bit of ableism hurled at xem in many different ways, but it was never there for shock value, but instead to critique and criticise the ignorance and sometimes cruelty of other characters. I thought it was done very well and I loved how kind most of the supporting characters proved themselves to be in these situations.
Ezra was a great character too, he was unfailingly kind to Denver and I really loved how their relationship blossomed. He was a breath of fresh air in a stifling small town and I loved all that we were able to learn about him. Trevor and Taisha only became true supporting characters later on, but I really enjoyed what they added to the story as well.

Ultimately, the town of Muddy Gap had a lot more heart to it than we first got to experience and I loved this sense of growth, both for the citizens of Muddy Gap and for Denver xyrself. I loved that Denver found more support, love, kindness and community than xe ever expected to find as the perpetual outcast. It was forever hopeful, even when it seemed like there was nothing left. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Muddy Gap, learning that there is more love in the world than hate. Hoping so, at least.

Thank you Netgalley and Angry Robot for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Angry Robot always has some of my favorite quirky stories, and I’ve been excited to read Al Hess for a while.

When a UFO explosion happens over a tiny town called Muddy Gap and only one person is around to see it, does it make a sound? This fun alien invasion book feels like a modern day Twilight Zone starring your favorite pretty boy from a streaming service whose name is not as memorable as their charm.

I really enjoyed the representation in this book both subtly and unsubtly. It’s fun, tender, and cozy while dealing with the very real people that exist in this world we often shy away from talking about. And enjoyable read, with an equally fabulous cover!

So yeah, this was weird.

I really enjoyed the whole figuring out the alien invasion part, and appreciated that it was through the lens of someone being brilliant and facing an extremely stressful situation while being autistic in a very ableist environment.

I had a few issues with the pacing, and some repetition, but otherwise it was a fun weird time.

Thank you to Angry Robot and Netgalley for an e-copy.

It is always impressive to read a book by an author where an audaciously out-there premise is not only brilliantly and fulsomely executed, but infused too with a kind of reality-affecting humanity that makes the novel come vividly alive.

Holding those two elements in tenson is never easy with a tip one way or the other, especially towards the more outlandish aspects of the story, almost nullifying the effectiveness of its narrative companion, but Al Hess, who previously dazzled with World Running Down, manages it with moving aplomb in Key Lime Sky where a pie-eating blogger who’s both non-binary and autistic, is the only person standing between a psychically invasive alien and the end of life as we know it.

Denver Bryant will be the first person to tell you that he – Denver is relaxed about the use of pronouns which are handled with sensitivity and thoughtfulness throughout – is the most unlikeliest of heroes.

While he’s lived in the town of Muddy Gap, Wyoming for a decade, he’s never really been accepted by the vast majority of the townspeople who refer to him, he feels, disparagingly as Professor Pie – his blog and his excursions to taste pies across the country are well known thanks to one (declining) income-generating viral post – and who treat him as some sort of oddity and freak.

In some ways, that doesn’t bother Denver who is happiest at home with his weighted blanket, his fish and his passion for pies, but in other ways, how could it not as he wonders why no one takes the time to understand that because of his autism, he’s not as able to read social situations as neurotypical people routinely do and thus, makes what are perceived as rude and confrontationally honest statements.

Denver’s heart is in the right place, and while he often doesn’t know how to express that, the fact is that he wants to connect and know people and for people to understand that what he says, rather badly, is said out of a genuine desire to help people.

The only person who seems to actually get him is handsome bi bartender Ezra who, after a somewhat messy and wires-crossed meet-cute outside of the town’s post office, connects with Denver in some fairly profound and increasingly romantic ways, just in time to investigate a burst of destructively bright light in the night sky that only they, and some people out of Muddy Gap at the time, recall seeing happen.

That unmissable light show presages an alien incursion which begins to make people act very strangely in a strangely altered landscape of vividly-coloured sand and shell-shaped crab eggs before they begin disappearing in ways that unnerve everyone and defy any sort of ready explanation.

So, there you have the fantastically out-there premise laid out in all its oddly enthralling glory.

The key to the appeal and success of Key Lime Sky is that Hess not only delivers expansively and with some impressively detailed world-building on the idea of an alien slipping onto earth and altering the very nature and form of reality itself, but that he invests it with the sort of relational intimacy and found-family connectivity that turns a race to save the world into something that also immensely and wonderfully moving.

That’s quite a feat to pull off when so much is happening from the town disappearing into itself as the landscape reorients itself in something not that far from an Escher print-meets-Alice in Wonderland to people falling into folds in reality, but Hess does it masterfully and consistently well in an apocalyptic tale in which, if Denver, Ezra and their other new friends, Trevor and transgender woman Taisha can stop Muddy Gap from being consumed, then the world disappeared altogether.

In a novel that is gloriously and welcomingly queer with people who see and accept and, crucially, love others just as they are – one of the loveliest aspects of the story, beside Denver and Ezra’s love story is the connection that unexpectedly and beautifully forms between Trevor and Taisha – we are not only treated to the bigness of an alien invasion but to the affecting smallness (though it’s not really small at all for the people involved) of people meeting, getting to know and bonding to one another in very unusual circumstances.

It’s a wonderful ride and at no point does Key Lime Sky falter and lose that tension between the epic and intimate with the connection particularly between Denver and Ezra bringing so much affecting humanity to a story that might otherwise have just been all kinds of alien invasive weirdness.

The centre of the narrative always in Key Lime Sky is Denver, who may not get social cues and who may often prefer to read books than engage with humanity because it’s just too damn difficult, but who is smart and intuitive enough to know what needs to be done to end the threat of all threats to not only his pie-loving life but that of people close, and not so close to him, none of whom deserve to be wiped from the face of existence.

While the townspeople may not love Denver, you will because he is honest and thoughtful and kind and determined, making him exactly the kind of protagonist you want in a story like this, someone who softens the edges of the skillfully-executed action and brings it all together in a way that really impacts you.

One thing Key Lime Sky will do is make you very hungry for dessert so make sure you have some on hand, but what it also non-calorically does is take you into a world which is being awfully transformed by an alien invasion but which fights to save itself in the form of Denver Bryant, powered by the tenacious belief that life and connection and queerness and humanity all matter and are worth fighting for with everything you have in your arsenal.

Because who doesn’t want to live, and love to eat pie another day?

Okay, where do I start? This book wasn´t bad... but wasn´t good either. It was quite a struggle to finish and I believe the main problem for that was the characters.
Denver felt like an autistic Karen right from the beginning (I´m not going to enter the discussion about the autistic aspect here; if it´s well portrayed or not. For me it felt a bit flat, having read about other autistic characters in other books that felt more natural. But who knows. Might be my perception). The Karen trait, though, that is unmistakable not only in Denver, but in most characters of this plot.
They are all witty to find flaws in everyone else and think they got the right to act as they do. There´s not much personality in anyone besides that. The only character I liked a bit was Ezra, but I don´t thing it was worth the reading just for that.
The book drags quite a bit in the beginning and the resolution of the alien invasion felt like someone´s fever dream (more fantasy than sci-fi). Plus I didn´t understand how come Denver decided the solution for the alien invasion was X and it turned out it was randomly right.
The good thing about this novel? The romance. That was sweet and I liked it (although it features one of my most hated troupes: the feared making out then regret it 5 minutes later). But well, if you forget that, it´s not a bad read.
Just, can anybody explain to me why EVERYONE is horrible to Denver until the end, when xe saves the day and then all the villagers randomly decide they liked xem all along?

I had a really hard time getting into this book and finally ended up DNFing it. It just wasn't for me, but I'm sure others might find somethign to love about it. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I absolutely love this book -- I liked the first book I read by Hess, World Running Down, but this one feels like Hess has taken a big leap forward in writing, in character development, in pacing, and in worldbuilding. Stellar work here!

Key Lime Sky is a sci-fi adult mystery with lots of queer characters! I read this as an ARC, but it was already released on August 13! My rating is a 3,5 but NetGalley unfortunately doesn't allow half points🛸🥧

Denver Bryant (any pronouns, but prefers xe/xem) is a not so successful pie critic who seems to be the only witness of a UFO explosion above Muddy Gap, Wyoming. Ever since this explosion, stuff went downhill. Residents are acting strange and disappearing, while orange sand and hail-like rocks are appearing out of thin air. No one believes Denver, except for the readers of xyr blog, and Ezra. A bartender who just like Denver, is seen as ‘the town eccentric’ in Muddy Gap. They feel something extraterrestrial is going on and decide to find the source and save their town before it’s too late.

This story was so weird, but in a good way. I think. I don’t read many sci-fi stories, so in the beginning I wasn’t sure if I liked it. But the story, and Denver grew on me. I especially enjoyed the mystery aspect of the book! The alien story and the abandoned, almost apocalyptic suburban town creeped me out. The setting was so eerie and unsettling, the author did a really good job on this.

There were many aspects I enjoyed. The connection between Denver and Ezra was so sweet (though I do NOT like miscommunications and I did not understand where these came from. It was frustrating). However Ezra tries to understand and support Denver, for example with meltdowns. Denver is autistic and I think the way xyr meltdowns and sensory issues were written was great, they were handled with care. I also appreciated the focus on loneliness, feeling isolated like you’re not part of society and being misunderstood. Xe struggles with social interaction and at times this did lean a bit too much into being stereotyped. But nevertheless for me personally I think it has good and genuine autism rep.

All in all the story was fun, well written and unique (although I don’t have a lot of sci-fi reference material). While the book is about evil aliens, it’s quite a heartwarming and cozy story. And of course the cover art is fantastic and actually describes the vibes so well!

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it has since come out. Oh my God I loved this book and the MC. Xe was so relatable in many ways. Beautiful autistic and queer rep, and the story itself was very intense and kept me invested.

Sadly I couldn't get into this book. I tried reading on multiple occasions and I couldn't warm to the writing style.

Between the title Key Lime Sky and the event that sets everything in motion, I couldn’t help but think of Orange Colored Sky. Thanks to NetGalley and Angry Robot for my eARC.

Al Hess sets this story in a not too distant future world with better tech and a surprising amount of diversity for a small town in Wyoming. This book is very queer (and a lil spicy) as well as repping neurodivergence. Denver, our awkward hero, has ASD.

Whatever you expect from a story about extraterrestrials, Hess saw your expectations and went sideways. Anytime you think you know what’s going to happen, it does anything else. That made this very entertaining.

A fun, queer romp to save the world and find your (chosen) family.

It is so hard to really classify Key Lime Sky. But the closest I can come is Cozy Queer Alien Invasion. I truly enjoyed this book, almost all of the characters were loveable (or at the very least memorable) in their own ways. I felt such a kinship to Denver, in whom I felt Al Hess perfectly captured both the external and internal world of someone who is autistic and dealing with anxiety. I loved the fluidity of Denver's identity and how well Hess captured how fluid most of us actually are - Hess truly brought these characters to life and gave them so much depth that I felt like I knew them. Denver's experiences with being overwhelmed in crowded places, with people, and loud sounds was in some ways comforting for me, and in particular the related internal dialogue and self-awareness. I need more protagonists like Denver, and more reminders that people often like us more than we actually realize (especially when we're full of anxiety) it's just that sometimes they don't know how to show it (or say it), particularly in a way that works for messily-wired brains.

Key Lime Sky is a truly unique book full of found family, queer love, courage, and self-discovery. I loved how unique the story was, and in particular the nods to science and science fiction and the unique take on alien invasion and what that could look like. I really appreciated the lean into some typical X-Files-esque tropes but them completely turned on their head. This book is for anyone who loves aliens, science fiction, queer stories and representation, found family, and those that wonder, what could happen at the end of this world (or at least at the end of your small town).

Thank you to Angry Robot, Al Hess, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book. I have been looking forward to it since I first spotted the announcement and it totally lived up to my expectations (and hopes).

3.5 Stars

SciFi - Human Romance
All of the Rep
#MiddleLifeRomance

OHEMMGEE I wish this was dual POV. I’m desperate to know more about Ezra and know what he’s thinking.

I’m finding the abruptness of Denver (Xe/Xem) 100% suits but I don’t 100% understand Ezra’s (He/Him). He WILD swings between calm/empathetic and breaking down. Perhaps there is a deeper reason for this, if it was explained I missed it.

These two had TERRIBLE communication, it almost felt like no sentence between them gets to finish. They only hear half of what the other person is saying, the other half of what is actually going on between them, interpersonally, is just made up fluff in their heads.

Over all the this novel is exciting and filled with turns I didn’t really see coming. The varied representation and clear use of pronouns was seamlessly woven into the book and never felt like they were shoehorned in.

Denver Bryant, a pie enthusiast and struggling blogger, witnesses a UFO explosion over xir town, Muddy Gap, and finds xirself alone in investigating the strange, escalating phenomena. As Denver’s online popularity soars, xe teams up with bartender Ezra to uncover the truth, battling extraterrestrial threats and a town that won’t let them leave, all while navigating a budding romance and the quest to save their world.

This is a book that’s difficult to describe. Combine the physics of a dream with an alien invasion and a queer romance, and you kind of have an idea of what this book is like. I really enjoyed this. It’s angsty in all the best ways, with a plot that really kept me guessing and a very sweet romance. The characters are all fantastic. (I adore Taisha and Trevor and Trevor’s “chicken overlords” theory.) And just as a somewhat angsty sci-fi, world-bending plot with a romantic subplot, I thought this was a lot of fun.