I really really enjoyed this book. I read it in one sitting while flying from coast to coast. It was pretty enjoyable. I loved the characters and the way the story flowed. It was super intriguing. Really excited for what this author has next!

Combine "And I Darken" by Kiersten White and "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir and you get Wings Unseen by Rebecca Gomez Farrell.

Wings Unseen got off to a slow start with a first chapter that almost made me put the book down. However, I am glad I kept reading. I loved watching how a character that repulsed me on the first page transformed into someone I was rooting for, and she was just one of many fascinating characters.

Characters were one of many things I liked about this book.

The juxtaposition of two opposite realms was a fascinating way to explore gender roles, the relationship between the people and the government, and what people can come to accept as normal.

The world was exquisitely developed and describe with language that was beautiful and readable.

Once I got past the first quarter of the book, the pace picked up and suspense made me want to keep reading. The romance subplot was not what I expected, and near the middle of the book, when combined with the pacing the way the writer alternated between pov’s, made me want to cry, yell, or throw the book across the room.

Even though I wanted the characters to take different paths, but the end, the author convinced me they had made the right choice, and the emotions I experienced mid book were probably just a smidgen of what the characters would feel were this real.

Overall, it was worth read, and I would reccomend it to anyone who likes epic fantasy and has patience for a book that burns slowly.

I was given an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

In the end, I loved this book and give it high marks. It is very creative and the story was fresh and new. The characters were believable and likeable. It is an epic 'good versus evil' story and would be interesting for both young and adult readers. I would buy this book again. It is in the genre of "The Hunger Games" or "The Maze Runner" or the "Legend" series. But new and different. Anyone who enjoyed those series will really enjoy this book!

My one criticism of the book was that the story did not flow as well in the beginning of the book. I found that the author's idiom of naming every animal and plant a new and exotic name detracted from the book. Once the body of the story started, I no longer had problems with this.

It was a great read and I look forward to reading new books by the author!

How to summarize this?.........

Welcome to Lansera and Medua. These two places used to be one before they were separated, putting the bad people in Medua and the nice ones in Lansera.
Veseri lives in Medua. She’s the daughter of Lord Sewyll. As a woman in Medua, she has no rights. She basically belongs to her father and should be spending her days in the kitchen with all the other women.
But Vesperi doesn’t like to keep her mouth shut and do what’s expected of her, and her father, to keep her out of his hair gives her “some freedom”. It actually helps that Veseri can reduce someone to ashes with just a wave of her fingers; though no one but her knows it.
In Lansera, the prince, Janto, is about to get married to Serra but first, he has to go do his Murat (some kind of weird ritual thing that make boys grow into men I guess?).
As she waits for her betrothed to come back from his Murat, Serra is asked to go to a convent of sorts, where she finds out she has a weird ass destiny.
Our three characters turn out to be linked in more ways than one and have to find a way to get along to save the world and shit.

I mostly enjoyed this. I had A LOT of trouble getting into it but once I was, I had a great time and flew through the chapters.
The characters were well painted and even if it took me some time to get attached to both Serra and Janto, they grew on me.
At first, I was living for the Vesperi chapters who I immediately fell for. But I found them to be too rare and short.
There were a couple clichés but they didn’t really bother me.
What did bother me was that the romance was central to the story but seemed rushed; like it was just an afterthought. I didn’t really feel what the characters were supposed to feel…

All in all, a classic-ish story set in an interesting but enraging world with loveable characters.

2.5 stars

Why was Janto part of the threeheads? I never fully understood what his purpose was. To me it came across that he was supposed to be the brain behind the quest, and Serra and Vesperi were the tools. I actually could have done without Janto, and have the two girls be even more at the forefront, showing how badass they are.

The switch from marriage between Janto and Serra, to falling out of love, wasn't fully convincing to me. The love between them felt to real to fall apart like that. And their interest to shift to others.

While well written, I just wasn't fully convinced by the story and characters.

It is so difficult to find intelligent writing today - especially in the young adult genre. The majority of what I read in YA could easily be classified as Intermediate Reading with the lower vocabulary choices. Imagine my surprise and delight to find a YA title that leans more toward adult.

I have been an avid fan of fantasy books for as long as I can remember and I rather enjoyed this story. The characters are engaging and the author's attention to detail in building her world shows. A definite recommend.

The beginning of the book failed to pull me in. I just couldn't get into the book, even though I tried. It just...didn't work with me.

Reading that blurb, I was very interested in this book. A multi-POV fantasy novel set in a different world with a unique belief system and an ancient prophecy that involves the protagonists – that is a concept I am fond of. But you know why I gave this book 2 stars? Because it disappointed me in all the points that I judge fantasy books on. It took me 10 days(!) to finish this 320 page book, which I felt was a lie because this felt like reading 600+ pages to me. I kid you not, I checked TWICE to confirm that it is indeed 320 pages (since I have an e-copy to read). Even 600 page novels haven’t dragged on as much as this one has, and I hate it.

Firstly, remember that unique fantasy world I was excited about? Well, I would have appreciated it a lot more if I knew what meant what. Within the first quarter of the novel itself, concepts, peoples and characters are dropped en masse, expecting the reader to know what they mean or who they are. And yes, I went to check whether it really was the first book of the series and I am not missing some important exposition somewhere. There is no glossary for the terms at the end, either! If you are going to introduce your own made-up words, at least give readers the courtesy of telling what they are through a glossary if not through the story. Basically, I was lost 50% of the time while reading this novel (the other 50% I was skimming through the text, but I’m getting to that soon)

The characters are, in a word, boring. Farrell tries to make them more than one-dimensional, but that effort fizzles out pretty soon. Vesperi felt like she might have some interesting POV to read through, but in second half it is mostly berating herself for becoming soft and blaming the Lanserims. Janto and Serra are yawn-inducing – honestly, if I was Vesperi, I would have smoked them into ashes a few days in. And then the plot tries a love triangle with these three, never mind that there was never any development on either side. I mean, I see how it would make sense (as a reader ruminating on the possibilities of the direction of the plot) but there is no actual plot to support it. Time jumps everywhere, so one scene Serra is nearly attacking Vesperi and a few pages later, she is comforting her. Character development, RIP, because your ghost did all that stuff in lost off-page time.

And as much as I crib about things missing from the book, I still don’t understand how this managed to be so long. It is a conundrum. I can’t distinctly remember what exactly made it so long, besides a vague recollection of some rite of passage, a bizarre initiation, some half-hearted backstory, and a ridiculous plan to take down a kingdom. The writing was also – uh, weird, is all I can say; when I try to visualize the scenes (as I often do), it became difficult to do so. The scenes were choppy, with no flow and the ending left me confused – WHAT ABOUT THE CLAREN? (I almost swore at this point) By the time the epilogue rolled around, I was like – what the heck, just end this book! Not picking up the sequel, because one confusing book was enough for me.

Wings Unseen is a debut novel by Rebecca Gomez Farrell about a kingdom that is prophecied to be saved by three heroes: a slayer, a seer, and a weapon. And, as the unlikely characters come together and submit to the pressure of destiny, a rather standard but well-executed plot unfolds.
The setting is Lansera, once huge, now split into Medua, which is dying under the tyranny of religious fanatics and oppression the likes of which you only see on the evening news. There are no doubts about morality here, Meduans are portrayed as horrible people that treat women like furniture, flay friends for fun (a good alliterative pastime is always key!), and are just evil in general.
Lanserim, though, are kind, welcoming, and would never run around and hurt you, unless it's for the prophecy.
As strange occurences fill the land three POV characters have to come together: Janto, a gentle prince; Serra, his betrothed; and Vesperi, a mean young woman, whose whole life was miserable, because everybody in Medua is miserable because Medua is evil.

This is some pretty typical genre fare with a few Chosen Ones, magical creatures (a silver stag!), and some reaaaally basic look at gender roles (Lanserim treat women the way like people, Meduans treat them like North Korean government treats North Koreans, no deep musings there). But it's written competently, it's not overly long, and the action, while surprisingly sparse, is always fun. It is quite impressive, though, just how easily Farrell does three different, distinct characters.

The problems are present as well, though.
A) The characters are varied, the POVs are barely so. Once the trio converges it gets increasingly tough to tell who is leading the chapter as everybody gets pretty equal "screen time", so it doesn't really feel vital to give each character separate chapters.
B) The fourth POV, which was so brief, inconsequential, and aimless that one would be forgiven to see it slip their mind at the end of the book. See, about halfway through we get 2-3 chapters from the perspective of some villain mook. These do nothing to humanize him, they don't progress the plot in some unique way, and they definitely didn't justify their existence. Trimming those would do wonders for the book, especially considering that his plotline could barely even be classified as such.
C) The ending is super rushed. Farrell spends about 20% of the book setting up the world with dozens of new phrases and names, as well as namechecking events that are never expanded on (not that they needed to be). Because of all this worldbuilding the start of the book feels more like a chore. This is remedied rather fast as Janto's Murat begins, but up to that point it's all quite dreary. This leads to the problematic pace at the climax, as the "big battle" takes up less space than Serra's mind-numbing adventures with the Brothers. There is barely any true lead-up as the characters just suddenly go "BTW, let's go visit this place and save the world, yeah?". This robs the climax of some gravitas and makes it seem as if the book was mean to be longer/split into two novels. Either way, unfortunate, as the climax itself is fun, if formulaic.
D) The lovestories were a tad unnecessary, honestly. Especially that of Serra, she seemed just fine without it and tacking it on as an epilogue just seems kind of disrespectful to the character.

Overall, this is nothing extraordinary, but if you're a fantasy fan itching for a well-executed stand-alone novel that won't take up too much of your time - give this a try!

I DNF'd this book at about a third of the way through, unfortunately. I just didn't find it that interesting.

I started reading Wings Unseen after coming from a high that was the previous book I've read, and I picked it up cause it's an ARC and I had to read it and submit my review before the book comes out. So it did take me a while to get into it. But once I did, man was it good.....

Once upon a time some evil men did not like the kingdom they lived in (Lansera). It was a nice kingdom and the evil men couldn't be properly evil in it so they started a war and tried to claim as much of the kingdom for themselves as possible. After a long war and many, many casulties the ruler of the nice kingdom (again, Lansera) couldn't stand to see all those people murdered so he signed a treaty with the evil men that granted them a kigdom of their own (Medua).

Now, two generations later, the evil men in Medua are planing a new way to take over Lansera for good. And it will take three unlikely heroes (Janto, Serra & Vesperi) to stop them.

So get ready for a dashing fantasy adventure full of love, regret, weird acting people of Medua, glowing ghosts, some even weirder customs, unseen wings, and quite possibly, maybe a happily ever after, but who could tell??? Guess you'll have to see for yourself

I really enjoyed this book. The story line kept me entertained. I will suggest this book to patrons of my library.

Well for a book with a really strong start, this sure did fall flat. First I was lured in by that gorgeous cover, then I read the enticing synopsis and finally I read the delectable sample chapters- I was ready to go! Unfortunately, my excitement for this was short-lived. I feel like a lot of work went into that intro… and after that… nothing much happened. And then cos nothing really happened, I got bored. And because I was bored I started to nitpick. Still the book didn’t technically do anything wrong, it just didn’t do anything right. And since I don’t want to be all hypercritical about this I’m gonna try to not let that take over this review… so for that reason this’ll probably be very short.

Like I said, in terms of plot, this was very underwhelming. Unless you’re really into hunting trips, this was very much a s-l-o-w burner. There really wasn’t sufficient drama until 70% of the way in- when the *big reveal* happened- and even that was very predictable. It took too long for things to happen, after a really strong start. By the time the plot picked up, I’d lost interest.

The world building was colourful and refreshingly different. I also thought the “three heads” was a half decent idea- yet it wasn’t clever enough to stand on its own two feet and really depended on the three main characters being compelling. However… this is what we got instead: Vesperi, the most intriguing character, but not exactly likeable; Serra, mildly sympathetic, but too bland to hold my interest; and Janto… well as far as I could tell, his sole characteristic was that he was a prince.

Then there was the romance … I didn’t buy it. Not for any of them. To be honest, this comes down to the fact that if I’m not invested in the characters, I won’t give a monkeys about the romance. So making it a love triangle didn’t really matter to me, because I didn’t care which direction it took. And (spoiler warning) really, I know I said I wouldn’t nitpick, can we please all agree that in a non-romance novel closing on a kiss is naff?

Rating: 2½/5 bananas

Welp, that was the most confusing book I have read all year.

I don't know if I can call it "bad" outright, as there were some things that I did like about the book, yet the plot as a whole felt a little underwhelming. The opening felt like the middle of the book rather than an opening. None of the characters in the first few chapters really grabbed me they were all fairly flat. Vesperi was interesting in the opening, but her sections of the book were not what I was expecting in a YA book, I don't mind reading content like that but I just don't expect it from YA.

The writing was just okay in my opinion. It took far too long for the "big bad" to show up, and I had already started to not care how things turned out at that point. The politics were a little confusing, and the world building was a little weak beyond not covering the politics the way they should have been.

It took me a long time to get through this book, and I must say that I don't really remember details of what happened, things started to blur together at some point.

This was an entertaining book. I had a little bit of trouble getting in to it at first, but once it picked up it was a really good read.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

This novel is most certainly an adventure, trial/combat, novel that feels very much like a Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones type of story. Right away, you get swept into this world with many characters that are sometimes hard to keep track of. Some have similar names, making it even more difficult to remember who is related to who and who is the enemy, but after awhile it does begin to focus solely on a few main characters. There are a few chapters with what I like to call "Random" characters or stories that could have been left out as I felt there wasn't a good enough reason to introduce a character and tell a chapter from their perspective and then kill them off or never hear from them again. I will say, even though Rebecca switches characters with each chapter, I did like how she added their crest or icon to help remind us who they were or what family they were from.

The world building is not bad in this novel. I had a hard time keeping up with time jumps or lapses as they traveled or how far away places were. I will say, that the author commented on one of my posts about her book and said there would be a map in the final edition, which YAY, that is exactly what it needs to help the reader follow along. Bonus points for that addition to the finalized copy!!

Overall, the story wasn't bad, although I did find myself getting bored at parts and forcing myself to continue waiting for the climax. The ending moved very quickly, too quickly for my liking, and it felt a little unrealistic at how the three were thrown into this prophecy and excelled at it without ever knowing they had those type of skills or abilities? It took one of the main characters the entire novel to understand his role in the whole thing when a majority of the book had been focused on him and his namesake. Just seemed odd he didn't question his role until the very last moment and he had like an "Oh, I see" moment.

I think the whole concept of this story is fantastic. I love the ideas and relationships that were put into the book and intertwined within the cities/towns/kingdoms. I would have liked the epilogue to bring closure to the other two main characters as well instead of only a tidbit of one that I really didn't feel needed to be rounded out in the end. Seeing as one is the prince, it would have been nice to know what happened to him and the other female character. Just a thought.

But, I would still recommend this to someone who enjoys a good adventure novel, especially those who enjoy LOTR and GOT type reads. It was fun story.

(I hope they caught some of the grammatical errors or repetition of phrases on their last round of edits...! I wish I had kept track of exactly where they were because there were many times words would get repeated "I should have should gone with.." kind of things scattered throughout where removing one extra word would have made it flow more smoothly.)

This book had tremendous potential, but lost its way, repeatedly. The main characters were incomplete, with motivations that I could not understand, and stories that were mere sketches. At times I disliked all of them, and could find no redeeming characteristics - only their flaws. They lived in a world that was equally vague and undefined, or with details that felt artificially added to the plot when they became essential. Overall, a disappointing read.

This author's exceptional first full length novel boasts epic world building, strong character development, brilliantly complicated plot twists, and rich political commentary about environmental factors influencing people at their human core.