Author: Jessica Miller
Genre: fantasy
Similar books: A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat
The Cartographer's Daughter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Rating:
Summary (provided by publisher): In the land of Tsaretsvo, civil war has divided the human kingdom from the Republic of Birds. Magic is outlawed, and young witches are sent to a mysterious boarding school, from which no one has returned. Olga and her family live a life of dull privilege in the capital until her father displeases the tyrannical tsarina. The family is sent off into exile at the Imperial Center for Avian Observation, an isolated shack near the Republic of Birds. Unlike the rest of her family, Olga doesn’t particularly mind their strange new life. She never fit into aristocratic society as well as her perfect younger sister, Mira. What does worry Olga is her blossoming magical abilities. If anyone found out, they’d send her away. But then Mira is kidnapped by the birds, and Olga has no choice but to enter the forbidden Republic, a dangerous world full of iagas, talking birds, and living dreams. To navigate the Republic and save her sister, she’ll need her wits, her cunning—and even her magic.
My opinion: We've got a unique set-up here. Sure, we see books with magical kingdoms at war. It's the quasi-tsarist Russia setting that stands out. Especially since it begins with the central characters being sent into exile. It is that exile that allows Olga to experience life, magic, and her family in new ways. She's learing that her father and her step-mother are not exactly what she's always assumed. On the whole, though, I feel like I wanted a little more. It's already a lot, all the elements at play here. But we don't go into depth on anything. I wanted to understand the interplay between the humans, birds, and yagas, their motivations and resentments. Their history and culture is simply never addressed. There's some hints of the careful tightrope of the politics in this kingdom, but it doesn't get much landscape. It might benefit from a second volume, to allow more exploration of those ideas.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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