3.5 stars

Crown of Feathers is a YA fantasy set in a world where, years ago, fierce warriors patrolled the sky on the backs of phoenixes.

The book has been compared to Eragon, which is one of my favourite books of all time, so I just had to read it – and I was fortunate enough to be approved for an e-arc on Netgalley, so I’m super grateful to the publisher for granting my request. I was fascinated by the premise; I'm a sucker for a good dragon book, dragon riders being one of my favourite tropes, and so the idea of people riding phoenixes instead of dragons really intrigued me.

For the sake of clarity, I’m dividing this review to highlight different areas of the book. Some areas I felt were awesome; others I wasn't so keen on, as you'll see below.

Worldbuilding:

I liked the worldbuilding, I thought it was rich and complex, without being too convoluted to follow. However, I found myself struggling somewhat with the distribution. A lot of the information we needed was given to us throughout the story, which was great – but also, at the end of every chapter we’d be given a chunk of worldbuilding in the form of letters, historical records etc. Being perfectly honest, I skimmed a lot of this. I didn’t have the patience to pay attention to these long-dead characters that I didn’t feel much of a connection to, even though I knew the information would probably be relevant later – especially when I wanted to continue reading about characters in the here and now.

Characters:

The characters in this story were great. The story is multi-pov, and there wasn’t a single character whose perspective I disliked, which is always a plus side – often I find myself rushing through one character’s narration to get to a character I like better, but I didn’t have that problem here. I felt like I understood each character – and I really liked seeing how they perceived each other. Even the characters we don’t like (and damn are there some unpleasant side-characters in this book) are well-constructed. I felt there was some inconsistency with Tristan’s father, where it felt like his alleged character development was told to us rather than shown, but it was a relatively small complaint. I also liked how the animal characters had very distinct personalities as well – really, everyone gets a time to shine. There are some side characters who I would have gladly read an entire book about! The relationships between characters also felt strong and well-developed.

Pacing:

The pacing was my primary issue with this book. I enjoyed the beginning and felt it got off to a great start, although there was a certain amount of info-dumping – but the author lost me somewhere around the middle. For a while, we were mostly just developing relationships between certain characters and there wasn’t a lot of action; I put the book down for almost a week and didn’t feel any real urge to pick it back up. Once we’d got past the muddy middle, though, things picked up quickly and I became a lot more invested in the story.

Plot:

I felt that the plot had its ups and downs. This isn’t a high-action novel for the most part; there’s a lot of training and introspection and discussion of history, but we don’t really get any dramatic battle scenes until the end. I’m a sucker for a fantasy fight, so I found the last part of the book the most satisfying. The final third especially was an emotional rollercoaster; I was reading it during a commute to university and found myself struggling not to cry – it was a real lump-in-the-throat moment. I felt we’d had a very long build-up to get to the action, but ultimately it paid off and I was glad I stuck with the book. The focus on sisterly relationships, which is stated as a huge part of the story, wasn’t quite as integral as I expected but I found it interesting when we did delve into that territory.

The ending was the best part; it felt strong and emotive and had a very satisfying twist. I did kind of see it coming, but that just made it all the more pleasing when I was right. Overall, I found the book to be a little slow at times but the basic idea of it was fine, it could have just used a little fine-tuning to keep things interesting.

Other comments:
- A queer romance is heavily hinted at on the page but kind of gets cut off before it goes anywhere – which was disappointing, because it had been a pleasant surprise for me and I would have liked to see it developed further. Ambiguity isn’t something I’m a fan of when it comes to queer characters.

- This book features a cis character who ‘dresses up as a boy,’ and alongside this there is an incident of a trope which is often applied in a harmful way to actual trans characters ***SPOILER* her identity as a woman is revealed by another character tearing open the girl’s shirt to reveal her breasts. This trope is often used to out trans characters. Although Veronyka is not trans and the incident is not passed off as acceptable, this is still a pretty awful thing to show on the page - and honestly I feel like the whole ‘dressing up as a boy’ thing is a trope that we should probably… not be using in 2019?

I enjoyed Crown of Feathers; I’m interested to see where the story goes and will definitely consider picking up the sequel. I’m curious as to how the author will wrap everything up with only one more book to go, but hopefully this will result in a more streamlined plot for the next book – we’re now familiar with all the characters and don’t need the setup. I’d also like to see certain relationships deepen a little – the phoenixes seem a little bit surface-level considering their alleged importance to the story, and overall I thought they were the least developed, so it’d be cool to see the author expand on that.

Overall, this was a solid 3.5 star read.

DNF at 25%. The premise is wonderful, and the cover is to die for, but I just can't deal with this much info-dumping. Seriously, I was drawn in by the story and the phoenixes, but the sheer amount of info-dumping really took me out of the story, y'know? I wish I could've stuck this out, but I was just bored.

I got an email this week saying that this book was on NetGalley, and I was instantly hooked. Look at that cover art! It’s spectacular! Imagine the story of the Riders from Empire of Storms, but fleshed out into their own fully realised world! And also, warring sisters! I was SO on board with this story, so I requested it immediately.

Once approved (and delighted), I sat down to read it last night, and boy, did I regret that in the morning. Not because it was a bad book! But rather, because I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and getting up this morning was difficult, because I finished the entire thing. At 496 pages, this was no mean feat, so you can imagine how heavy my eyelids were by the time I finished.

The beginning of this book is… well, it’s slow. There’s a lot of information dumped on the reader almost straight away. Veronyka and Val are sister, on the run from the Empire, where magic is outlawed, and in search of phoenix eggs. But the first chapter of the book is laden down with information about the world, the magic system, the history, how magic was outlawed, what phoenixes are. There was just too much of it, and I felt bogged down before we’d even gotten started.

But I persevered through the info-dumping, and once the plot actually got started, it was really interesting. There was a tendency throughout to throw down large chunks of information rather than interspersing it through the story, but that can probably be put down to the fact that this is a debut novel.

The infodumping also badly affected the pacing of the novel, where the opening chapters felt glacial, and the last few chapters fairly raced by. The revelations in the final pages felt almost thrown out, as it the book had to be capped at 500 pages and all the information had to be put across.

This wasn’t enough to make me dislike the book. On the contrary, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Veronyka and Val’s relationship is complex and multi-layered, the magic system, although somewhat simplistic, is well-structured, and the phoenixes (phoenices? phoenix? Like sheep?) were magnificent.

There are three POV characters in this book – Veronyka, who is the clear main character, Tristan, a training phoenix rider, and Sev, a soldier in the Empire’s army who’s hiding the fact that he’s a forbidden animage – he has magical affiliations with animals. Veronyka’s chapters far outweigh the other two, but they add a certain amount of depth to the story as they flesh out beyond just Nyka’s perspective. Looming large in the story but not getting her own POV is Val, Nyka’s sister – for reasons which are clear by the end of the book.

There’s definitely scope here for a sweeping story of sisterly affection, phoenix riding, war, rebellion, and the inevitability of fate, and there was loads here that I really liked – enough that I’ll look out for the next book when it’s released – but it’s marred by heavy-handed info-dumping and romances that just… don’t hit the spot for me. But I might be terribly cynical.

Even still, it’s a good read, and certainly engaging, judging by the fact that I finished it in one night.

18 years ago two half sisters went to war over their father’s throne, shadow sisters, born at nearly the same time to two different mothers. One sister, magicless, held the armies and the politicians. The other sister, bonded to a powerful, brilliant Phoenix held hearts, magic, and the might of the great Phoenix Riders.

Both sister died in one night, leaving behind death, destruction, and enemies determined to hunt down the last of the Phoenix riders, and anybody with the magic making them capable of becoming one.

Now, two sisters, orphaned by the wars, survive on the fringes of society, desperately seeking Phoenix eggs, and the possibilities they hold.
But what if one sister manages to bond with a newly hatched Phoenix and the other doesn’t?

What if the last remnants of the Phoenix riders are hidden away in hidden mountains, refusing to allow women to join their numbers?

What is these sisters are not the only war orphans holding the power of animagus which enables them to bond with the nearly extinct magical birds?

What if fate is a mirror, waiting to bring the war between sisters back again?
After all, a Phoenix is the symbol of rebirth, isn’t it.....

For a debut novel, Pau Preto has created a brilliantly layered, world, rich in history. Her characters are well written. While I may have had a moment over the Mulan-ing of a particular character who has to pretend to be a boy in order to join the riders, it never felt forced. Plus the relationships that s/he created were well written and dealt with the “grand reveal” in ways that felt organic and natural.
Pau Preto also created an LGBT relationship that I am almost more invested in than the main one. Please, please, please bring back my boys!

Plus the few great twists which I will NOT in any way spoiler, just made the narrative stronger. Wowee! Nicki, you are now on my auto buy list. 9/10

I do like a good fantasy read and although it is a while since I was a YA I've often enjoyed this sort of book. The book initially introduces us to two sisters, Veronyka and Val, who are animages. Animages are capable of communicating with animals magically. A major war some 16 years earlier has left them orphaned. The war was also responsible for wiping out the Phoenix Riders. These legendary heroes, animages all, rode phoenixes in battle. They were defeated by the Council. The sisters wish to become phoenix riders. All they need to do is hatch two phoenix eggs.

This is a fantasy read so obviously there are journeys to be made, people to meet and challenges to overcome. Val is a controlling person which causes rather more than tension. The Council are still at war with Phoenix Riders and seek to destroy any their troops find. Animages are at best second class citizens and usually enslaved. Family histories are gradually revealed as are more general myths and legends. There is plenty in this to keep the reader entertained.

The writing is fairly straightforward and should be easily understood by the YA target audience. I guess I found some aspects of this fairly obvious however some things did take me by surprise. Veronyka is a well worked character and there are others too than played a very good part for me. While I guess I, as an adult, would rate this as 4 star I imagine that the target audience might rate this more highly. This is the first book in a two part series and I enjoyed reading it. Whatever else I would certainly read book two very happily.

Crown of feathers

Characters - as ever there was more characters that I haven't mentioned and I did like a few of them.
Veronyka - kind and a little naive.
Val - older sister and she was a little cruel.
Sev - Scared for the most part.

Likes
- map, timeline and glossary - I love when books have these in them.
- concept of Phoenix riders - it just sounds great and I liked how it was shown. I could tell it was well thought out and a lot of time went into the world building. Also the phoenixes I thought were done well.
- diversity - it felt natural and I really enjoyed it.
- the ending - Phoenix action was amazing.

Disliked
- info dumping - it is a fantasy and the world building has to be done but it felt a little long in some places and it didn't help with the pacing of the plot. Also some things felt repeated.
- I wasn't overall fond of the romance but I'm not a fan of romance in general. But I didn't think it was really needed, there is nothing wrong with just friendship.
- wasn't much Phoenix action and my interest wasn't held in some places.
- I found some info a little confusing but it may be because I had to keep putting it down.

It felt like a long read to me and I didn't really connect with the characters all that much but I still mostly enjoyed the story. If you like world building and phoenixes then this is for you.