I loved this novel. Simply put, it enthralled me, from the descriptions of the palace to the diverse and complex characters, it was such a rich and beautiful story. I don't think it's for everyone as it has some quite unusual plot twists and elements but if you connect with it, be prepared for a moving journey.

I loved how the central theme of the story was the strength of the friendship between the two main characters: Fatima and Hassan. It was refreshing to see a relationship between a male and female character, where it was strictly platonic but still deeply loving at the same time. The bond they share was enjoyable to read, and also heartbreaking at times as they have such a beautiful but also very flawed relationship.

The folklore or mythology involving Jinn alongside the story of the Bird King is so engaging and I liked the fact that it had Islamic elements too. I feel like there were so many references in this book which I connected with. I believe even to someone who is unfamiliar with these stories or cultural elements, it will be just as fascinating.

The depth of this complex world, intertwined with real historical events drew me in. The novel starts off in Spain, during the last vestiges of Muslim rule, a section of history in which I am particularly interested. Although I'm not sure how factually accurate the novel is, it did teach me some new information about the period.

It felt sort of like a magical realist novel, as I feel like I need to re read it again to get the full message at times but I always enjoy a book which makes me think deeper and look beyond the surface.

The last few chapters were so intense and hit me hard, I'm a sensitive person by nature but these chapters and the end had me in tears - in the best way possible. It was such a fitting end to the tale of Fatima and Hassan and I felt deeply warmed by it.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a compelling and all encompassing story. This book reinforces everything I love about literature and how powerful it is. It had such an effect on me and I know I'll carry The Bird King and it's characters with me for a long time to come.

This is a special book.

It covers the fall of an empire, the political dominance of the Catholic Church, and the dangers of being gay, or a woman or...different.

It’s also about magic. Something that you don’t understand doesn’t make it evil. We should all remember that.

But mostly it’s about love. Not romance - deeper than that. Love that can be painful, but is worth all the heartache.

As Fa and Hassan fled from the Inquisition, their only plan was to survive. But their journey changed their purpose as well as themselves. And all of it was beautifully told.

I’m not sure I understood the meaning of everything in this book. I probably should go back and reread it. It’s definitely thought provoking.

And then there was the end. It wasn’t bad...it was good actually. Well, you can read it and let me know what you think. And again, for the second time in a month, it reminded me of the show Lost.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC.

Powerful and working with culture and widespread themes, this book is lyrically written. This is my first discovery of G. Willow Wilson, a voice worthy of notice.

I found this book pretty hard to start, and I had to start it three times before I could get into it. That might however be more about my mood than anything, but I would like to point it out. The story was rich, beautiful and it made me cry at the end. I'm however a super emotional person, so you might not cry.

Fatima and Hassan was both very likeable and I found both of them engaging and fun to read. Their relationship was crafted beautifully and I absolutely liked the friendship aspect of the whole novel. I'd like to say that there is a diverse cast as far as I remember, and that people are represented in an organic fashion - rather than just being there as crops. However, Hassan refers to himself as an sodomite which was a bit. I don't know what to say about it, but I found it very gross in regards to the book but that is just my personal opinion. There is also some sexual encounters.

There is mentions of Fatima as a concubine and her feelings regarding the subject, and how she does not want kids.

All in all, beautiful story-telling and a beautiful done plot. I'm not sure however that I would read the book again, so I'm giving it a 4 star review but I'm still unsure and feel like I need to think a bit more on it.

This is a elegant, whimsical, history-rich, and satisfying novel of a young concubine and her best friend, a magical mapmaker, who escape the court of their sultan and the Inquisition with the help of a crafty djinn. The characters are well-drawn and complex, and the world--of courts, travelers, cities, seas, and islands--Wilson creates is a detailed and full of nuance and depth. There are surprises and unforeseen twists, and the ending is also a beginning that will keep readers thinking about the book for a long time.

4.5/5 stars

Overall, excellent. Kept me reading long into the night. The story follows Fatima, a sultan's concubine and Hassan, a mapmaker with some unusual abilities, escaping from fallen Granada and the Inquisition, which wants to kill Hassan for being a sorceror. I loved the prose. It's descriptive, quotable and just really pretty overall. The characters are great and the setting is interesting. Back then the Muslims were the more progressive/tolerant ones - Hassan, for example, is pretty openly gay right from the start and drinks wine while being one of the characters with the most faith.

The only complaint I have is perhaps the ending. The story kind of fizzled out and seemed to leave a lot of loose ends, leaving me slighly unsatisfied, which is a pity because the journey there was absolutely amazing.

I will post a longer review on my blog and elsewhere in February.

‘What if our stories are like my maps? What is a story but the map of an idea?’

Granada is the last remaining emirate on the Iberian Peninsula and is under siege by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Envoys arrive to negotiate the sultan’s surrender. Fatima is a concubine in the royal court of Granada. Hassan the palace mapmaker is her friend, and she cares for a stray dog that hangs around the harem.

‘Every hunter has his camouflage.’

Hassan is an especially skilled mapmaker: he can edit the shape of reality through his maps and he can draw maps of places he’s not seen. Fatima befriends Luz, one of the women who is part of the group of envoys, one sent personally by Queen Isabella. Luz, as a representative of their most Catholic majesties, see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and as a threat to Christian rule.

Fatima and Hassan flee the court. They will be helped at various stages by a friendly jinn (or two) as they search for the island of the Bird King. It’s a story that Hassan and Fatima have been making up, after reading the first few pages of a long poem. It’s a story where the divisions between belief and reality will become blurred and then obliterated.

I loved this novel. It started as historical fiction then moved into fantasy, peopled with diverse characters. Fatima and Hassan (and others) will undertake an epic voyage in search of safety in what may be myth (but could just be reality). After all, if you believe in yourself, anything is possible. This is a novel that I will be recommending to others. I’ll be buying a copy as well, so I can reread it at my leisure.

‘What is a kingdom if no one remembers it?’

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Interesting tale that takes place during the Spanish Inquisition. Fatima, a concubine for the last Moorish king on the Iberian Peninsula and Hassan a magical mapmaker for the king fall in love and embark on an adventure. Wilson weaves a thought provoking tale.

This novel begins as a historical novel but before you know it you are in the middle of a fantasy story. But it is not fantasy fantasy but the mythical elements of the Arab, Jewish and Christian traditions of the era the story is set in. I will come back to that later. Let me start with giving you a glimpse of the novel.

Fatima is the concubine of the sultan of Ibero-Arab Granada. The Muslims conquered what is now Spain in the 8th century but in the 15th century the combined Christian kingdoms are on the verge of even conquering the last Muslim town on the peninsula. This ere is called the Reconquista (re- conquering). It is just before Columbus will go and discover America. It is also the time that the Catholic church was very harsh against everybody who seemed not to believe mainstream Catholicism and its secret police and judges, the Inquisition, persecuted those people.

Fatima is 18 years old and born and raised in the harem of the palace. A very silent harem as it contains only the Sultan's family and her because due to the siege everyone else is evacuated to /fled to Morocco. Her best friend since early childhood is Hassan the cartographer. They are allowed to fraternise because everyone knows he is a homosexual (and pretends not to know). When a Spanish emissary enters the harem lonely Fatima longs to be her friend

At the beginning Fatima is still a very naive girl. She has never left the palace and knows nothing about the world behind the walls. One can notice it because she does not realise that her mistress, the sultan-mother, does love her. The sultan is a very handsome man who is kind to her (she is even allowed to call him by his given name and not his title during orgasm - oh my) but who only sees her as an object to have sex with. When he takes her to his bed when she is 15 she blurts out she loves him and he just laughs. However during the last days of the siege there grows a deeper connection between them. Fatima realises that she could have loved him very much if he only had allowed her the freedom to initiate or refuse her affection instead of deciding when he wanted it. When she then embraces him in reflex, for the first time he allows her to take the lead and they start to make love. Only to be interrupted by a messenger.

When Fatima realises her friend Hassan is in mortal danger she runs off to save him and they have to leave all that is familiar behind.

Like I said there are a lot of mythical elements in this novel what makes it a fantasy story. Some I did recognise with my Christian background like the splinter in the eye and the Leviathan and I know what Arab jinns are supposed to be but that was it. A lot of the other things were a complete mystery to me and I only found out about their origin when I googled myself silly after I finished the book and I wondered if there was more to it then I thought. I did not know that the story Fatima and Hassan tell each other "the conference of the birds" is a Persian poem in which all kind of birds who represent human flaws go to look for the king of the birds. Nor did I know that the legend of the Christian bishops fleeing before the Muslim invaders to the island Antillia was a story told in the 15th century and maybe found its origin in pre-Columbian discoveries of America. I am sure I still missed other references. Like the bones and the boot? That what is regarded Satan in myths?

Exactly that fact that some legends are a bit familiar made me wonder while I was reading the novel what it was really about. Hence the Google session afterwards. Those who have read Umberto Eco "The Island of the Day Before" might recognise that feeling. I also wondered if like the play by Jean-Paul Sartre the people were really in hell or a kind of afterlife.

Like Umberto Eco books some parts of this novel is a bit slow. But the prose is beautiful. This rang a bell with me as an immigration lawyer: "The real struggle on this earth is not between those who want peace and those who want war. It's between those who want peace and those who want justice. If justice is what you want, then you may often be right, but you will rarely be happy."

I would recommend the writer to write a short introduction to the book explaining the historical setting. I can imagine some of the American readers not even knowing where Spain is let alone Granada (saw a reviewer here write Morocco). And explain that the Inquisition is not the Reconquista (another thing I see here mixed by the reviewers) And maybe a kind of Afterword (what is the proper word in English for that?) explaining the origins of the mythical elements in the book. Because I see a lot of the reviewers on NetGalley get lost and also underestimate the complexity of the story.

The novel will be published in March 2019. I received an ARC from Netgalley providing I would write an honest review.

I had a funny experience with this one. I requested a review copy shortly after it appeared on NetGalley and was promptly rejected. I requested it because I had read ALIF THE UNSEEN and found it passable. It was no masterpiece but I read it to the end and enjoyed the premise and plot enough to remember that I liked it (even though I couldn't tell you today what it was about). I enjoy genie stories but they don't always work out and that's OK.

When THE BIRD KING review copy was suddenly approved a month after it was rejected, I was mildly surprised but figured I had a chance to give it a go. I didn't just get the stock NetGalley approval email - I got a long, oblique email from the publisher about reviewer responsibilities and whatnot, which I couldn't make it through it was so obtuse and unnecessary. I mean, we all know why we're here.

So, after all that, the book itself is poorly plotted and poorly written. I didn't like it but maybe someone will. Perhaps younger, inexperienced readers who want to read a ready-made fantasy? I understand Wilson also writes comics so she ought to know how to proceed with a story like this. That leaves me surprised at the result but maybe it's just me.

3 stars for "Average", since 2 stars feels mean.

I enjoyed the idea of this story but the execution was terrible. I spent the majority of the book not understanding what was real and what was not and quite frankly, I rarely understood what was going on period. It seems like a historical fiction but really it’s more of a fairy tale of sorts. I liked Fatima but I never understood why everyone called her selfish so much when she was just doing what she was told and then trying to save people? Her relationship with Hassan was extremely bizarre and I didn’t understand a lot of the tension the author created.

What an absolutely beautiful book, not only is the cover stunning but the story itself is as visually stunning as its exterior. From the exotic setting in Morocco to the fabled shores of the isle of Avalon the story is told in such splendid detail you can’t help being swept along throughout.

The characters are as colourful as their surroundings weaving together humans and mythical creatures alike all culminating in the quest to find the fabled Bird King.

I loved this book to the point I’m struggling to review it without spoilers and to do the story justice. If you enjoyed books such as Robert Dinsdale’s The Toymakers or Katherine Arden’s The Bear and The Nightingale then you won’t want to miss this one.

The Bird King will be published in the UK on March 12 2019 and can be pre-ordered now

A proper review to follow!

Thank you to G. Willow Wilson, the publishers Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

People often seem to call the latest book a “lush fantasy”, but until now it just seemed cliche. The Bird King, however, is another thing altogether.

Fatima is the last sultan’s concubine in a kingdom falling down to the Spanish Inquisition. When she discovers her friend Hassan is in danger for his ability to create paths and places by drawing maps, Fatima runs away with him and a clever jinn.

The world-building in this book is incredible. It is realistic enough that for much of the tale you forget you’re actually reading fantasy — until a jinn comes along, of course.

The characters are relatable and diverse; the book in general is refreshingly open-minded. There is no 'woe is me' attitude from Fatima while she's not free and I found her attitude towards being a concubine quite educational, as well as the entire palace's attitude towards Hassan's map-making and sexuality in this time of history.

The only reason I gave it four instead of five stars is because I would have preferred more action - so much space was taken up with character-building and world-building that it became a bit heavy from a third through the book.

--Shorter form of review also published in October edition of Style Magazine Toowoomba.--

With nuanced prose, multilayered characters, and a colorful world; The Bird King is full of delicious twists. I devoured it in a day. I recommend this for fans of historical fantasy, G. Willow Wilson is a masterful writer. She has created a phenomenon of a book.

This novel is a mix of both historical fiction and magical realism, two great genres that the author manages to seamlessly blend together.

It took me a few chapters to really get into this book but once i did i could not put it down! The pacing of this story is fantastic and the imagery was mesmerizing.
There is a beautifully diverse cast of characters and I really enjoyed reading about the friendship between Fatima and Hassan, it was poignant and explored nicely.

I highly recommend this to anyone looking for an evocative, captivating story. This book left me wanted to read more of G Willow Wilson's works and i can't wait to do so!

Fatima is the last concubine in a kingdom quickly falling to the Spanish Inquisition. Her best friend Hassan has magical powers to create and edit maps, and when inquisitors label him a sorcerer and threaten his life, they run away together, beginning an epic adventure across land and sea in search of the island of The Bird King.

I really enjoyed this novel. It reads like a grown-up YA or even J-level adventure along the lines of The Glass Sentence, one of my very favorite novels (and series). The plot moves quickly and the characters are diverse and entirely believable, so I was hooked from the very beginning. This is a book I'll buy so I can reread every so often. It's really that good.

(The Bird King hasn't been released yet. I got a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for a review, though that had absolutely no bearing on my opinion of the book. Y'all know me better than that.)