Sky Blog Tour

Sky

Author: Ondine Sherman

Publisher: Pantera Press

Release date: 15th April 2019

Pages: 

R.R.P: $17.99

Friendship can be found in the unlikeliest of places.
After her mother’s death, Sky leaves her city life to move in with her aunt and uncle in a small Australian town. Life in a new place isn’t easy, and Sky finds comfort in the friendship of a stray dog she meets along the way.

But her new friends at school are another story, and as Sky struggles to fit in, she finds herself doing things that go against everything she believes in.

When Sky stumbles on a case of animal cruelty, she is forced to question what’s really important to her and who she wants to be.

My Review

Thoughts on the book: Sky is the heartwarming new first book in Ondine Sherman’s new series. Sky has just lost her mother and has had to leave her amazing life in the city to move to the country with her aunt and uncle who she barely knows. Being the new girl is hard enough, put being a vegan in a small farming town on top of that and it makes it tens times harder. Sky’s instagram account is the only shining light in her life at the moment as well as her online friendship with one of her followers WildRider. While driving with her aunt they come across a wild dog who Sky instantly wants to adopt when they find out she has no owner. With Bella by her side Sky believes she can do anything and starts to make some new friends, but with these new friends she starts to lose sight of herself and her values even eating some chicken. But while researching a school project about chickens, Sky visits the local chicken farm and discovers just how bad these farms are. Rescuing a chick from the farm she discovers a new direction that her project can take. No matter who it hurts or who gets in her way, Sky is determined to show everyone what these chickens really go through and to try and put a stop to it.

A massive thank you to Pantera Press and AusYaBloggers for allowing me to be apart of this amazing blog tour for the release of Ondine Sherman’s first book in her new series, Sky. I was captivated from the opening lines and that captivation was held until the very end. I absolutely adored Sky and read through it at lightning speed and need the next book right now. 

I loved that you could tell that Ondine Sherman put a lot of herself and her views in this book. I’ve grown up going to my grandparents farm where they have chickens and although are kept in an enclosure, they are also let out and can run free for awhile. I couldn’t imagine how in the book that many chickens being cooped up all together in a shed and barely having a life worth living. The facts that I learned about chickens throughout the book have definitely made me see chickens in a new light and I’m going to definitely change a few things.

I adored our main character Sky and the massive change that she undergoes throughout the book. At the start of the novel Sky is a heartbroken girl who is trying to find her way in a new town where no one knows who she is or what she has been through so she can be whoever she wants to be. But while trying to fit in she discovers changing her ways isn’t something she wants to jeopardise if it means going against everything she believes in. At the end of the novel Sky is stronger than ever and is doing something she fully believes in. But what a bombshell that is dropped at the end and now we have to wait for book 2 to come out to find out what happens. It’s torture!!

Rating: 4/5

Interview With Author Ondine Sherman

Congratulations on the release of your fabulous new book Sky. How would you describe the book for those people who may not have heard of it yet?

Thank you so much, Jessica! 

Being a teenager is a challenging time - we search for our own unique identity, our voice, and at the same time we struggle with the heavy weight of peer pressure. Sky moves from a big city to a small country town while dealing with the painful loss of her mum. She is passionate about protecting animals and yet, uprooted from everything she knows, she finds it hard to reconcile her values with her new life. The book is about how Sky loses herself in the turmoil but ultimately finds her voice again. 

Sky is a unique story about kindness, friendship and animal rights. What inspired you to write this amazing tale?

I was inspired by young people and their passion for the causes they believe in. I wanted to write a series that would touch on many different domestic animal and wildlife issues and, hopefully, spark a conversation about ethics and our society’s complex and often harmful relationship with animals. Animals are used and exploited in countless ways but cruelty is often hidden from our view. We have a responsibility to ensure that they do not suffer at our hands.

Sky is a character that we will all fall in love with. What was the inspiration behind developing the character?

I’m so glad you love Sky! I love her too. I wrote the character of Sky, in a way, for my younger self and for all the young people who need a friend someone they can relate to. Ever since I was a little kid, I loved animals and at age seven I became vegetarian. But, I often felt alone and a little weird in my beliefs. By creating Sky – a character who I hope is both strong and vulnerable, I hope to show that being different can be hard, yes, but it can also be wonderful and empowering. 

I loved your writing in Sky. Do you have any more books in the works that you can tell us about?

Snow is the second book in the Animal Allies series, coming out this July, and is set in the vast, stunning landscape of Alaska in the depths of winter. Sky discovers a wild world of forest animals and gets to know her nature-loving father for the first time. But he has one secret that threatens to ruin everything she holds dear. 

I have just finished the first draft of the third book, Star, which is set back in Australia. I am very excited to share them with you soon. 

Finally, who are your go to authors and go to books when you want to read a good book?

I am a big reader and I always have a book or three on my nightstand. I love books that delve deep into a character and transport us into their inner world. I read widely and across genres which I think is important. I just read a book by the wonderful author Barbara Kingsolver, she often interweavesnature themes into the narratives. I highly recommend the non-fiction book, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, a remarkable book about the history of humanity and our relationship with the natural world. 

See the rest of the tour on these following accounts