Overview:

This book is a fantasy who-dunnit. Although the plot centers on a murder mystery, the book's real strength is the fascinating world it's set in. The author does an incredible job of crafting a world in fine detail, from the currency to the turn of phrase used by characters. The reader is removed entirely from our own world and placed into a unique world to explore. Perfect for fantasy readers who are looking for a really different world, less perfect for big fans of the murder mystery genre.

This is the first book I've read this year that I ordered the next book in the series!

Deep Dive:

The biggest weakness for this book is the mystery. I suspect regular readers of who-dunnit style books will be disappointed in this novel. Unfortunately, I believe this is exacerbated by the unique qualities of the world that I loved. In a regular murder mystery book, the reader can pick up on tropes of the genre and fill in the blanks of the world building. Because this world is so unique, it's hard to follow the mystery as the reader is too busy trying to figure out what's going on between the magic systems and the unique stratified culture of the world.

That being said, I still highly recommend this book to fantasy readers who are looking for something completely different. This book doesn't have a single normal human in it! It is entirely populated by bird/human creatures and that is only the beginning of the uniqueness of the world! The framing of the story as a murder mystery allows the main character to poke around in a few different corners of the world over the short book, giving the reader a good look at the social structure of the world. Also, there's two magic systems!

This book is short. At two hundred pages, it's not quite a novella, but a very short novel for the fantasy genre. I personally appreciate the tightness of the plot and the quick pace, but I do wish a little more time had been spent on world building. The world is so different from anything I've encountered in fantasy, that I got a little lost when new aspects of the world were introduced in passing. The magic system is also relatively soft, which would be fine, except that this is a who-dunnit and the soft magic left me a bit confused where it mingled with the plot. A little more time spent explaining the magic would have been appreciated. I plan on reading the next book in the series. I'm hoping these complaints are resolved in the next book where I will already be familiar with the world of the book.

Overall a very good read. Not perfect. There were typos and a few places where it got a little confusing, but worth it for the uniqueness of the story!