Vane Weston should have died in the category-five tornado that killed his parents. Instead, he woke up in a pile of rubble with no memories of his past – except one: a beautiful, dark-haired girl standing in the winds. She swept through his dreams ever since, and he clings to the hope that she’s real.

Audra is real, but she isn’t human. She’s a sylph, an air elemental who can walk on the wind, translate its alluring songs, even twist it into a weapon. She’s also a guardian – Vane’s guardian – and has sworn an oath to protect him at all costs.

When a hasty mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both their families, Audra has just days to help Vane unlock his memories. And as the storm winds gather, Audra and Vane start to realize that the greatest danger might not be the warriors coming to destroy them, but the forbidden romance growing between them. (Photo and synopsis from Goodreads.)

A Different Kind of Paranormal…

I haven’t read a whole lot of paranormal books, but I have to say that this is the first one I’ve read about sylphs, or beings that can command and control the wind.  And for a while, as I was reading the book, I was thinking to myself, “This is kind of a crappy power to have.  Who would want to control the wind?  You couldn’t really even do anything cool with it.”

Now let me just say–I used to live in Oklahoma.  I just moved to Washington state about six months ago, but I lived in Oklahoma for about 24 years of my life.  So I’ve been in tornadoes.  I’ve seen the destruction they cause, I’ve had extreme panic attacks as the sirens went off in my neighborhood, and I’ve also done the thing that most Oklahomans do when there’s a tornado–go outside and watch it.

So while I know the power and capability of a tornado, of wind, I still wasn’t quite convinced that a sylph was a “cool” enough paranormal being.  And to be honest, I’m still not sure if it is.  Then again, that’s just my opinion–we all have our different answers to the question of “What super power would you have?”

Then again, while I was reading Let the Sky Fall, there was a lot of wind going on in my new town in Washington state, and I felt like a wind spike was going to appear at any minute.  And I do see how wind can do a lot of horrible damage, so I’m not really doubting the power of the sylphs in this book–it’s just not my paranormal power of choice.  

And I felt like the villain in this story, Raiden, kind of had typical, unsurprising motivations for trying to take over the world.  And I also felt like Vane’s attraction to Audra often focused too much on physical aspects.  He always talked about what she was wearing, the way her clothes looked on her, the way her hair looked, how hot she was, etc.  I did feel like, as the story went on, we got to see more of his feelings for her and thankfully they weren’t all just physical.

And I felt like this book was kind of small in its scope.  The story mostly focused on Audra and Vane, with the other characters only coming in every once in a while.  And because it mainly focused on the two of them, it focused a lot on their relationship.  I enjoy relationships in books, but I don’t enjoy when it is the main driving point of the book, especially when there are other major things going on in the story (like a guy trying to take over the world).

However, I did enjoy Let the Sky Fall.  I like how both Audra and Vane were sylphs, because it seems like in a lot of paranormal books, one of the main characters is paranormal and the other is human, or they’re both human but with paranormal powers.  In this book, they’re not human at all.  It was also a super quick read, and I grew to like both Audra and Vane by the end.  There was also more action and suspense near the end and that made me happy.

I also really loved one part of the book when Vane basically says that the sylphs are stupid to use swords instead of guns.  It reminds me of that argument that people always use when talking about Harry Potter:  Why didn’t someone just shoot Voldemort?  But I love Audra’s response to Vane: “Please. Even a breeze can redirect a bullet. I’d like to see a gun stop a cyclone with a single slash.”  And it gives me a great response to those people who say that Voldemort should have been killed with a gun:  Do you really think he couldn’t use magic to stop a bullet?

My rating for Let the Sky Fall by Shannon Messenger:

Actually 3.75 stars, almost 4.  I’m still not a huge fan of sylphs, but I did end up enjoying this story, and enjoyed book 2 in the series, Let the Storm Break, even more (review to come soon!).