GIVE ME MORE OF THIS. This was SO GOOD. WHY did I sit on this book for so long?? I have a Bookish Box edition that I got through my adult subscription box. I looked at it for what must be over a year now. Kept putting it off. I should admit, I'm a sucker for a good cover and maybe that cover just wasn't it (spoiler alert, it wasn't). I much prefer this cover!

To the actual bones of the book. I was so scared of a love triangle but while it was a slight one, clear boundaries were drawn. Usually early on, I know *exactly* who I'm rooting for. House of Beating Wings? Nope, not a clue. I kept wavering back and forth between Dante and Antoni and oooooh then Luce pops up? Well, we all know who I went for by the end of the book.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the world building, I love the slow build up a series allows us. Some things I'm able to predict and others are coming out of left field and I LOVE that! Crow Shifters? Who knew.

I can't wait to continue reading this series. I absolutely devoured it.

There were a few things that pulled me out, like we're clearly in a made up world and languages are made up, but then they'd traveled a kilometer. Initially I thought this was out of character, but I guess my American is showing because upon a Google search, I see European countries adopted the metric system as early as 1795, so I guess kilometer threw me off because it's modern to me. There were also a few other phrases that threw me out, not enough to put it down. Also, it took me a hot minute AKA (A few hours) to convince myself to read this because the introduction with the pronunciations, translations, and war histories made me absolutely dread diving head first into what appeared to be high fantasy. Joke was on me because it read so beautifully and I really didn't even need those first few pages because it was written well enough to understand everything. So once I got past that, I ate this book up!

**𝑨𝑹𝑪 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘** 𝑯𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒃𝒚 𝑶𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒂 𝑾𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒊𝒏

Release Date: August 6, 2024

4⭐️3🌶

An interesting Cinderella sort of retelling. Fallon is a half-human/half-faerie who lives with her faerie grandmother and mother. When she's a young teenager, Prince Dante gives her her first kiss, and she's taken with him from then on. An oracle tells her that she will be Queen one day, so long as she collects these certain relics to overthrow Prince Dante's brother, the King.

While Fallon claims to love Dante, she seems to more love the idea of their eventual betrothal. He seems interested in her, but no more interested than he is with other exceptionally beautiful women. He is still his brother's man.

This world is full of twisted political faeries, monstrous creatures, and humans kept as one step above slaves.

Rated 4.5 Stars

House of Beating Wings blew me away after such a slow start that had me contemplating dnfing. I'm so glad I didn't because I absolutely loved this book. There was lots of adventure, intense and edge of your seat, heart in your throat moments with some twists and turns among other things. This book was such a delight to read. I loved the world building with its Italian influences and the magic system. They were both interesting, intriguing and unique as were the characters. I can't wait to dive headfirst into the rest of this series. I very highly recommend it.

This is a unique and interesting fantasy book. There is some romance but it’s not the main point of the story. I’ll immediately jumping into the next book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for providing the ARC.

I really wanted to like this book, but I found the main character, Fallon, incredibly immature to the point of annoyance. Her obsessive infatuation with the prince was grating most of the time and I really couldn't wait to move past it all. The Crow Kingdom was interesting and those who want a shadow daddy will love Lorcan. But I really just felt like this book really fell flat.

Not my favorite, but I can see why some people will enjoy it.

4.75/5 ⭐️

You know, i didn't expect myself to jump into this series and be hooked the way i was but good god here i am.
Fallon is such a naive girl that half of me wants to rip my hair out but also shake her into realizing things & to stop trusting a certain someone (cough cough screw you Dante). The world building for the book was super easy to get down with but also kept me wanting more & to not stop no matter what time of day or what i should've been doing. I'm really excited to see how things will morph with Lore and Fallen but also to see if asshat keeps his word.

This book was a wild ride! I love fantasy books with Romantasy being my favorite. The last thirty percent of this one was PERFECT!

This one made my little romantasy-loving heart so very happy! I mean, I’d heard so much love for this series for so long, it was only a matter of time before I snatched it up to read myself. We’ve got multiple stages of love interests a la TOG with a birdman of an endgame. Well, what looks to be endgame. Whatever the case is, I’m loving the layers being woven into this fantasy. It’s giving enemies to lovers fated mates, but at the same time lovers to enemies origin for her Prince. And I am here for it 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I will say the beginning attitude and obsession Fallon seemed to have toward her Prince got a bit grating at times. But I also understand she’s young, and this is the first book in the series which means there’s bound to be growth. I mean, we did already start to see a bit of it in the latter half of the book as Fallon goes on her journey collecting iron crows. Fallon may have been wearing rose colored glasses when it came to her prince for a majority of the book, but the trials she goes through on her journey and a certain crow are starting to create cracks in those lenses.

And that gosh darn crow! I won’t say his name because that may be a spoiler for those new to the series, but dang did he steal my heart for the portion of the story he was a part of. I cannot WAIT to see what comes from his and Fallon’s interactions in the sequel(s). I want to know more. I want to experience more of this world and learn more of its lore and watch how these main characters develop within it.

I enjoyed this book! It was a pretty solid book, and I liked the main character. It took me a while to really get into the story (I probably wasn't super gripped until around 40% in), but once things picked up, I had a really good time with it! I'm not 100% sure if I'll be continuing the series, but I'm leaning towards starting the second book :)

This is one of my absolute favorite series, so I'm so excited for its traditionally published debut!
This is a slooooooooow burn, but its so worth the payoff. I loved the politics of the world, and the growth that Fallon has throughout the series is exceptional. I loved the blend of Venetian elements and Gaelic language to build the world and highlight the differences between kingdoms.
Highly highly recommend this book and series!!!

The concept of this book was really interesting, and the plot behind finding the crows was done really well. The world built in this book is really good, although I found the very similar names of places confusing at times. You do have to wait quite a while for the adventures to start, but when they did I found myself more interested in picking up the book.

Unfortunately I just didn’t like the FMC. She’s incredibly naive and is solely focussed on her interpretations of the prophecy meanings and I found her drive annoying. I particularly didn’t enjoy the love scene with Dante and how her obsession with him continues after. although I suppose it was supposed to infuriate me! Despite Fallon growing in the book in the sense of she becomes stronger and braver, she remains naive and vain throughout and I just found it grated on me as I thought we would have a turning point within book 1. I do tend to prefer a FMC which is more mature so Fallon, though an adult, still felt quite childish at times. However, her life has been very restricted and monitored so I can sympathise as to why she is this way!
I also found some of the writing not to my taste, feeling a little immature in places though I will admit I did have a few laugh out loud moments from it.

I really enjoyed the ending, the pace picks up in the last 15% of the book and I found myself gripped. Though the ending feels anticlimactic in one way with how quickly Marco was defeated, it’s actually left me looking forward to reading the next book which I hope will give Fallon the character growth I so desperately wanted in this book.

I reviewed this on goodreads but I cannot get links for some reason!

I had extremely high hopes for this book, and unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. I was intrigued by the premise and the interesting take on Fae. It was a really neat setting and political system.

Things took a turn with the unnecessary length of the story. We were taken down so many rabbit holes and side plots that didn’t further the story or even provide relevant background to the characters. Fallon was also very hard to connect with. So many characters were funny with great emotional depth! I wish Fallon had been the same.

I think this book could tick boxes for a lot of people. It’s a very neat world with a diverse cast of characters. I think if you’re willing to look past the MC, this book could have something!

Thank you to Net Galley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the ARC!

This book was an amazing read, that took you places you didn't know you were going to go. I was fully absorbed in this book right off the bat and flew through it in one day. The author did an amazing job with the plot and making the characters unique but relatable. I will be recommending this book to all of my patrons, family, and friends. Great read!

This is a different type of fantasy in the sense that it's not like most of the fantasy books out right now. If you like Fae's, crows, and outcasts and do not know which love interest the fmc will choose then you should check this out. Unfortunately, the fmc annoyed me a bit, I know she's young but phew her choices were different. The plot drives this book and there is a bit of steam and romance but I'm sure the next book will dive deeper into it. Thanks to the publisher for the arc.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca and Netgalley for providing me with an arc to honestly review.

I grabbed this book remembering it mentioned with mainly positive reviews, I didn't think to double check anything else about it including trigger warnings as well as the author's stance on something. There wasn't trigger warnings in the book but they were on storygraph and I can't do animal cruelty it's one of the few things I avoid. I also don't want to support this author and her stance against on something that I have been very vocal about. I learned about that the day after I accepted the arc and I will be checking other authors going forward before grabbing arcs.

This may work for some people I won't know personally though.

Thank you Olivia Wildenstein, SOURCEBOOKS, and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

House of Beating Wings is one of the most fun romantasy series out there. If you pick this up, you will not be disappointed. This series will make you laugh out loud, shake your fists towards the sky over the unjust treatment of women and other races and cultures, and swoon with hearts in your eyes over this slow burn romance.

The characters are fantastic. The banter is top-tier. The plot and world-building are immaculate and unique.

10/10 highly recommend. Absolutely no notes.

This book ended up surprising me in a very good way!
The book started out a tad bit slow and took a while to get to the main plot, but once it got there I could not put it down and immediately downloaded book 2!
The main character, Fallon, starts out incredibly immature…almost hard to read. However I felt over the course of the book, and definitely the last 30%, she had a lot of development which was nice to see!
And also, who knew I was apparently into crows?! Morrgot is delightfully grumpy, morally gray and protective. The back and forth sass between him and Fallon was fun to read and clearly helped contribute to her growth throughout the book.
Overall very enjoyable read and great writing style. Definitely would recommend!

I won’t lie- I was so so sure this would be okay at best. It’s much better than okay. This is written so well, I was thoroughly entertained throughout. The story is engaging, characters are interesting, and the world is surprisingly unique.

Lately fantasy romance has felt like the same story over and over in new packaging. This stands out. I’ll be finishing this series and happily recommending!