First, I need to know if there is going to be a sequel of this book!! The ending has me so invested. I was intrigued by A Palace Near the Wind when I read reviews likening it to Princess Mononoke, though some were positive and some were negative in the comparison. While I can definitely connect the two, I think it’s important to note the two stories are very different from each other, and this book should not be rated by similarity to another story.
I happened to really love the story of Liu and the people of Feng. Liu’s dedication to her family and her people led her on a perilous journey to the Palace, where she learns secrets about the world around her that make her question everything she was raised to believe. I enjoyed the characters, and felt like there was enough world building that I could picture what I was reading, but not so much that pages and pages were just descriptions of places. The length of the story read like a novella, it was a quick read but with enough depth that you really feel connected to Liu and some of the other characters. I also found myself surprised as secrets were revealed throughout the story, Jiang did a wonderful job not giving things away too soon or making it obvious. I found myself guessing at who characters were and trying to unravel riddles as I read.
This is a great, moderately fast-paced read that was filled with mythological beings, adventure, family secrets, and difficult decisions!

This novella has such a promising concept and cover, but it didn’t land for me.

The first half of the novella was slow and didn’t keep attention. However, too much happened in the second half, and there wasn’t enough time to fully explore all that was included. Upon finishing the novella, I was left with many unanswered questions as character decisions and histories were not explored or explained. I appreciate that some of those questions may be answered in the second novella planned for in this duology, but I’m not sure I’m invested enough in the story to return to this world.

The writing style also differed remarkably from the first to the second half. That may be deliberate to align with the story’s locations and progression. But again, with such a short story, the change in the writing was very jarring and uneven.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

***eProof gifted by UK Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/reaction. Read as part of NetGalley November 2024***

I had such hopes for this novella. I mean, look at that cover!

And yet, I came away from this feeling disappointed and a tad underwhelmed. The first chapter was a real slog and very overwhelming with infodumping that I very nearly DNF. It was the second chapter that kept me going as this world felt quite unique: a strange mix of fantasy, sci-if, dystopian and there were elements that felt really interesting and quite unique.

But the execution was this book’s biggest weakest. This story would have been better served if it was a novel or if elements were removed from the story. But because of the novella’s length, it felt overstuffed with ideas but nothing stuck the landing and this affected the pacing, the emotion to care for these characters, understanding why the characters behaved and reacted the way that they did.

If this is the start of the series, maybe the elements that this touched on and be explored further, but this felt a little (in the words of the Great British Bake Off): “underproved, over baked.”

a palace near the wind is a beautiful fable about a young princess of her people navigating arraigned marriage and the destruction of her homeland. it is magical in places and tragic in others, but always full of wonder, and frankly it leaves the reader with hope and unanswered questions.

it is worth your time. i rarely say that, and i stand by it.

Overall very inventive story and profoundly moving. Would like to see a little more character development and multiple well-rounded characters but did enjoy this one.

This is a fascinating first installment in what's clearly meant to be a series, but it's one I want more of. We have a princess of a people trying to save them by marrying into the royal family, but they attempt cultural subsumation on her, and more sinister implications of what they've been doing to others in her family besides. The thwarted plots and ending are incredibly intriguing, and I'm in for the next installment, which we hopefully get soon!

the character arcs went nowhere. the descriptions were good and created an inventive world, but many were hard to try to understand and might have been better animated. and the plot was a little flat. still, fairly good. 3.25, rounded down. tysm for the arc.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This is the first of Jiang's works that I have read, and unfortunately I came away from this feeling dissatisfied. While I understand that this is a novella and there's less time to develop characters, I felt like the main character in this just got no development at all. There was a dearth of characterisation and growth, and the naivete of the main character and her family was just excessive in the end. It was clear from the start that certain parties did not have her best interests at heart, and I was disappointed that there was no strength in her.

I found the world-building and the story interesting, with some really beautifully described segments, like the market. I did think that the twist at the end could be seen a mile away, which was disappointing. I thought there could have been so much more put into this novella. I also found that the book jumped so much sometimes that there was no clarity on what we should be focused on, and there were a lot of questions left unanswered.

I can see how there would have been so much more potential for a beautiful, sweeping story, however, this didn't reach the finish line for me. I can see so much potential in this book, but it just fell a bit flat with the structure and vibe.

I read this book in its entirety to write a proper review, but I have to mention that I seriously considered DNFing it at the halfway mark.

Genre : This book’s genre was very confusing. It was marketed as sci-fi/fantasy, but I struggled to find any sci-fi elements. At best, it leaned towards steampunk fantasy, but even that felt inconsistent.

Characters : The characters left a lot to be desired. They felt devoid of personality and didn’t undergo any noticeable development throughout the story—there were no clear character arcs to follow. Additionally, I found it hard to picture them. Even the main character’s description was vague. While I appreciated the attempt to use her own perspective to describe herself, the lack of "human" comparisons made it difficult to visualize her. The only detail I could grasp was that she had bark-like skin, but even by the end, I was still wondering what her hair was supposed to look like.

Plot : This story needed at least three times the number of pages to fully develop - the plot barely moved forward. The world-building was both confusing and insufficient to support the story's events. The overarching message of the book was also quite heavy-handed, and the ending was particularly frustrating. I went in expecting a standalone novella but finished what felt like the first third of a potentially interesting fantasy series.

Pacing : The pacing was poor. I struggled to follow the sequence of events and understand the passage of time between the main character’s actions.

Prose : One of the few redeeming qualities of this book was its prose. The writing style was elegant and easy to read, even when other aspects of the story fell short.

Overall Feeling : While I can appreciate the author’s intentions and the beauty of their writing, this book ultimately left me disappointed. It had potential but failed to deliver on multiple fronts, from character development to plot and pacing.

Great ideas, but terrible execution. Sadly, what could've been a really unusual and interesting book was hampered by confusing worldbuilding and extremely poor characterization and pacing. Considering what the author was going for, this book needed at least double the amount of pages. I'm still not quite sure where half the races came from, what the baddies' motivation was, what the secret baddies' motivation was, why any of the technology is the way it is, who's genetically manipulating who, where most of the nations are in relation to each other, or even what a "Palace" really is.

Not only was a lot of the fairly dense and complicated worldbuilding never explored, but characters' emotions and relationships also felt very underdone. Lufeng spends all her time dramatically mentally whining about how evil and gross the humans are, but then only spends 10 seconds thinking about jaw-dropping revelations about the creation of her entire race. She also has weirdly muted reactions to those around her, but that could be because the other characters are so poorly drawn. For example, her youngest sibling only says one word and as far as I can tell never even has a notable facial expression, despite about a quarter of the book supposedly focusing on them.

A Palace Near the Wind had a fascinating premise, which is what drew me to read it. Unfortunately, it didn't quite deliver. Firstly, the 'message' of the book was too overpowering and it felt like it was being forced upon me on every page. Not that the message itself was bad; it's simply that it was too overt and something more subtle would have worked better. The world building was extensive, but in the space of a small novella it felt unbalanced with character development, which was, in turn, severely lacking. The main cast never felt like more than cardboard cut-outs to me, and even the plot got lost in the long sections of description and message pushing, especially when more and more plot content suddenly came in a big rush towards the end. I struggled to decide on a rating for this, but in the end I am giving it three stars. It had a lot of flaws, but the main story idea was interesting, and with a greater number of pages and further development of the characters and the plot, it could have been good, and I wanted to acknowledge that in my rating.

(As per your preference to hold review until release month, the above review will go live on my blog and Goodreads at the links below on 7 April 2025. I will then also share on social media.)

Lufeng is part of a race of tree people called Wind Walkers whose way of life is threatened by modern life. Alone in her family, manipulated by her grandmother, Lufeng enters into a marriage, a business relationship, with the King to save her people, or so she believes. She comes up with a wild idea to kill the King, but is soon trapped in a world far darker than she ever imagined.

I liked the concept of the worldbuilding but I felt this book was so in love with the dense worldbuilding that the story and the characters took a backseat. I didn't emotionally connect with the characters and the pacing was extremely slow; the first five chapters were Lufeng's journey to the palace and she still felt inscrutable to me. I had a hard time caring about the story after that, didn't understand anyone's motivations and I had trouble visualizing what these beings looked like based on the awkward descriptions. It was meant to be immersive but I found myself frequently confused.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Very engaging book. Pace perfect. Storyline captivating

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me a chance at reading this.

One of those: I understand the story you're trying to tell but what on earth are these visuals.

I also can't get a beat / hold / understanding of the visuals. What time period does this take place in? Why does it feel like one moment a fantasy world and then the next minute were on some construction lot in the middle of Vancouver?

I do not doubt there is a story here, but if I'm a visual person - I create movies in my head while reading - and I can't create this in my head? There will be issues.

This is for those wanting abstract ferngully meets princess mononoke.

This was an interesting novella, the blurb immediately caught my attention. The worldbuilding was really cool and unique and I liked the concept of technology mixed with nature, however, I found that since this was quite short, there wasn't always enough explanation for things. I wish the author had dived deeper into the worldbuilding because I didn't really find the plot that captivating. The characters were also all a bit two dimensional, the main character was fine but really passive and the story overall didn't hold my attention. I enjoyed the writing style though and it was just the right length that it didn't feel like a chore to get through.

This novella follows Liu Lufeng, the eldest princess of the Feng royalty and the next one who will have to marry the human King, as tradition requires. All of her sisters, except the youngest Chuiliu, have already been married to the King, and the negotiation of bridewealth is the only way to stop the expansion of the humans and for the Feng to keep their lands intact. But Lufeng has a plan and wants to stop the King for good and protect her younger sister from an imminent marriage.

I really enjoyed reading this novella and the themes it explored. The pace was good and it was nice to discover things with Liu Lufeng, our main protagonist, as she has to navigates a whole new world and is face with different challenges. I liked how the world building was done and it was very impressive considering that this book is a novella. I also loved reading about the family dynamics and how sisters with the same upbringing can have very different takes on things, issues and visions of what the future should look like.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an e-arc of this book.

I enjoyed reading this. I loved the character building and consequently the world building for this book. It is so rare to find books where the characters aren't human and haven't been made to basically be human but with cat ears or human, but with blue skin The species that the character are have noticable impact on their biology, culture and the way that they view and interact with the world and I loved it.

Thank you to Ai Jiang for sending me this eARC in exchange for an honest review!!

This novella gripped me from the very first pages, the prose is magnificent and the pacing is perfect!

I highly recommend reading this gorgeous book when it is released: 8/4/2025!!

I will be posting a more in depth review closer to the release date!

A familiar story of daughters being married off to bring prosperity to their people, but with a twist. The people of this land are more like trees. The family’s father is long gone, and per their grandmother, best forgotten. Their mother was taken away by the leaders of the nearby kingdom as have several of the daughters. Lufeng is the daughter who is to be sent to the neighboring kingdom now and unlike a couple of her sisters, she definitely does not want to go but per her Grandmother, one of the Elders, she doesn’t have a choice. Will she conform to her new role or rebell?
A very interesting story and I look forward to reading the next book!

This didn't really click for me. I thought the prose was good and I quite liked the ideas it had about clashes of cultures and identities, but there were too many issues with the plot and world-building for it to really work.

Even though I liked the nature vs technology theme, the world-building was really weak and the book's message was a little heavy-handed. The level of technology in particular was confusing, with steampunk-esque travelling contraptions and overall a more industrial aesthetic, but also mentions of online shopping and movies (even though nothing like a phone or computer was ever seen on page). The world-building that was attempted was just confusing, and even though I liked the more original ideas about the different races in different nations, the questions that were created about how these nations coexist and communicate just created more problems and plot holes.

The plot unfortunately felt flat and contrived. The main character had little to no agency and no character arc. The plot was moved forward by her stumbling upon things and making absurd leaps of judgment about them that always turned out to be true. The fact that she could start the book devoted to a very specific goal, and then instantly rethink all her previous beliefs after a few chapters and move forward with completely new goals, made her feel inauthentic, shallow, and unrealistic.

The villain was so one-dimensional and his dialogue was laughably cartoonish and evil. There were also a few completely unnecessary plot points here that were a bit weird. I'm sure they might have more relevancy in the sequel novella but their inclusion still felt like a waste of time and quite odd.

Even though this book didn't work for me, I would still be interested to see what this author does in the future. I think the biggest fault with this book for me is definitely the world-building and as the author improves at this, her writing itself is strong enough to create a great story.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with this eARC in return for an honest review.