SkyTalons: Cornelius' Curse

SkyTalons #1

by Sophie Torro

Life is perfect... at least for a pigeon. Living amongst the hustle and bustle of a busy city, Cornelius' life is pretty much as expected. But, everything suddenly changes when hidden secrets are revealed to the young bird. Cornelius' world is turned upside-down with action, adventure, and too many mysteries to count—everything he tried to avoid in life. Learning he is one of three legendary SkyTalons—birds tasked to ensure peace within the five tribes—Cornelius must unite with the other SkyTalons before it is too late. Faced with vicious ravens, a greedy leader who wants him and the other SkyTalons dead, and lies from those who he trusted most, will Cornelius manage to accept his destiny and save the tribes? Or, will darkness consume them all, forever?

174 pages, Paperback

Published September 3, 2019

About the author

Sophie Torro began writing at the age of eleven and published her first book when she was fifteen. To date, she has published three middle-grade fantasy adventure series spanning 14 books. She has also written and illustrated an educational children’s book series that was included in the grade two curriculum in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 2018, at the age of sixteen, Sophie was invited to write for TraveLife Magazine, which was one of the largest online travel publications in North America. Each of her five multi-page travel articles were featured as Editor’s Choice.

In 2019, Sophie was featured in an article that received national press coverage (print and online) in Sun Media.

In 2024, Sophie was a creative writing instructor at the Red Deer Polytechnic for WordsWorth: Dragonsong.

When she isn’t writing, Sophie enjoys visiting schools across the country to motivate students, tutoring emerging writers, and hoarding houseplants. She currently lives in Alberta, Canada.

Reviews

[Suzanne Rudge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although SkyTalons: Cornelius’ Curse was created for the tween/teen age group, I, as a middle-aged mama, was totally taken with this book. The story of an average pigeon just tying to get along with his siblings and community speaks to the shy and vulnerable in all of us and immediately has you rooting for Cornelius. The sudden discovery that he is indeed a very special pigeon tasked with a great responsibility had me eagerly turning the pages to follow Cornelius’ adventure. Sophie has not missed a beat and provides her readers with multi-faceted characters, an ingenious plot that will leave you wanting more and a new and exciting Canadian talent to watch out for! Congratulations on your debut novel, Sophie! I can’t wait to share book #2 with my family.

[Django · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! Sophie Torro has created and captured colorful characters and animated them to the page. An imaginative adventure story that keeps you reading. Highly recommended-Ive gotten extra copies for holiday gifts. Looking forward to the next book(s) to the series.

[Cheetah Universe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent start for young author Sophie Torro!!!
Absolutely loved the conflicts in between the families and tribes, the characters introduced until now have rich stories. Love Shadow and Khan, hope to read the following books soon!!!

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good start for young author Sophie Torro. Apparently she wrote this when she was 11, and I know I couldn’t write that good at her age. So its impressive at face value, and entertaining. Will be picking up the sequels

[Ellaura Shoop · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has so much potential. It reminded me of Erin Hunter's Warriors. The main conflict revolves around the near destruction of a tribe of peacocks. The god of all birds had chosen three SkyTalons, birds meant to restore peace and maintain the safety of the five tribes and the Life Trees which preserve the god's power, to save this fragmented tribe. While there was a lot of action and some interesting worldbuilding I did feel like the plot and diction was lacking slightly. To me it seemed like there was the potential for a very gripping plot twist that may even be revealed as the series progresses but because of how this first book in the SkyTalons series ended I don't belive that's the direction it is headed. Overall, the book was worth the read and I'd like to see where the second book leads the characters. I was immeadiatly intrigued when I read in the description that the book centered around a pigeon, Cornelius, because I had only read one other book from a pigeon's perspective but was much more intrigued by Dustin, the blue jay, who only gets about two chapters from his POV I believe. Hopefully the next installment will reveal more about him. The descriptions could've been more detailed and the suspense ratcheted up in certain spots. Parts of it were a tad predictable for my taste. I am glad I read the book though.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw a lot of fan clubs for this online, so I decided to read it. I am so glad I did.

It has a bunch of really cool characters. The blue jay was easily my fave. I can see why he has such an army of fan girls XD

All the pigeon characters were fun to read about. Although I feel like Cornelius’s brother is up to no good… I’m interested to see where that goes.

It ended on a cliffhanger so I can’t wait to read the next one. I also recommend this for fans of Warriors and WoF.

[Christie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was written by an 11 year old. Something I didn’t realize until coming to the end of it. This is utterly painful.

Peacocks. Are male. And they’re colourful. PeaHENS are female. And they are not. I know it’s a stupid technicality, but also it bothered me.

We had to eat magic herbs… that served no purpose. So I guess it’s fine that he lied about consuming all of his.

Obviously ALL the ravens would know exactly how to get through the pass. They sniffed them out, right? And I’m sure birds don’t escape avalanches ever. Because… they couldn’t just fly away.
No joke, my 7 year old was like “… why didn’t they fly away from the snow?”

I was under the assumption we needed to save the life tree… and then. The opposing peacock tribe destroy it. And apparently we’re all good with this? I thought the entire purpose of all these tribes was to ensure that the entirety of bird-kind survived? Isn’t this the ENTIRE reason we have SkyTalons?
And then gave us an Epilogue of them being with the third bird.

So what are they going to do in the next… fly around aimlessly with a c**p storyline? Probably. 😂😅
I’m sorry if your kid loved this book, or YOU loved this book. But this was utterly ridiculous and a horrible storyline with a garbage ending. And I can’t believe it’s hyped up with such a high rating, fooling all us parents with small children who love chapter books into thinking it’ll be a new favourite.

[Fern Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sentence “(Character) and (character) quickly became locked in a swirling mass of snapping beaks and slashing talons” was repeated 7 times in this book. I counted. How has no one else noticed this?
Peacocks are actually called peafowls. A male peafowl is called a peacock, a female peafowl is called a peahen. The males are colorful. The females are white or brown. There’s a bunch of colorful peahens in this book though.
Other than those things, this book was fine. I read it in 1 day. I’ll cut the author some slack, though, because she wrote this when she was 12.

[Robo Fizz · Rating 3 out of 5]

She repeated the same sentence like 10 times in the same book. "They became locked in a swirling mass of slashing talons and snapping beaks".
This sentence was even repeated in her other book series, Wolves of Elementa. "They became locked in a swirling mass of slashing claws and snapping fangs"
Who edited this book? Or was it even edited at all?
Female peacocks are called peahens.
The birds should have been able to fly away from the avalanche.
It was written by an 11 year old and it shows.

[Austin Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing mind blowing here, just simple animal fiction, albeit quite unoriginal. It’s a decent start for a young author of 16, but you can tell she’s a bit of an amateur. Also, I don’t know what’s up with all the typos. Did her editor do nothing? Not unreadable just distracting at times. Overall, as I said, a decent start.

[CoolNAME · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book. Jarquanzila is the worst character and he ruined the experience for me.

Also, FYI, a female peacock is called a peahen. The gender-neutral term is peafowl. Cock literally means male bird (usually a fowl bird) and hen means female bird (usually a fowl bird). Peacocks are very colorful to attract female peahens (peahens are brown).