Title: Black Wings Beating

Author: Alex London

Genre: YA Fantasy

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux

Publication Date: September 25, 2018

Links: Goodreads | Amazon* | Book Depository*

Rating: 5 Stars

Source: Physical ARC from the publisher

 

Alex London has created such a rich and beautiful world in Black Wings Beating. The Uztari people worship birds of prey. The most prominent in their world are falconers, those who can speak the language of these birds. Twins Brysen and Kylee have lived in a village in the Six Villages along the Necklace of Uztar their entire lives. Their family has had to struggle, especially since their father, Yzzat died trying to catch the elusive Ghost Eagle.

The story is told in alternating perspective between the twins. Brysen wants nothing more than to be an accomplished falconer and has been spending some of the family’s precious money on training lessons. Kylee has a gift she never asked for and has no intension of using. These differences have driven the twins apart over the years. But when Brysen makes a deal he can’t get out of, Kylee has to help him and they set out to capture the Ghost Eagle that killed their father. They must overcome years of resentment and rely on friends new and old in order to survive the climb up the mountains.

I loved this story so much. And I would like to be a falconer now. I seriously could not put this book down and read it over the course of a day off work. I couldn’t have picked a better book to settle down with and immerse myself into. Even more than the setting and the magic, I loved the relationship between brother and sister and how it developed and changed over the course of the book.

I absolutely adored this book and I cannot wait for book 2!

Thank you to much to Fierce Reads for sending me a copy of this gorgeous book and asking me to participate in the blog tour!

“At least, she hoped she would see him in the morning. A hawk you’d had for a dozen seasons could fly away from you at any moment. When you released the tether and let fly, you trusted the hawk to the world and hoped that the world would return it unharmed. People weren’t so different. Sometimes they left and never came back.”

-Alex London, Black Wings Beating

*Please note, this quote is from an ARC copy, so it may change in the final copy.

Author Alex London

Synopsis: The people of Uztar have long looked to the sky with hope and wonder. Nothing in their world is more revered than the birds of prey and no one more honored than the falconers who call them to their fists.

Brysen strives to be a great falconer–while his twin sister, Kylee, rejects her ancient gifts for the sport and wishes to be free of falconry. She’s nearly made it out, too, but a war is rolling toward their home in the Six Villages, and no bird or falconer will be safe.

Together the twins must journey into the treacherous mountains to trap the Ghost Eagle, the greatest of the Uztari birds and a solitary killer. Brysen goes for the boy he loves and the glory he’s long craved, and Kylee to atone for her past and to protect her brother’s future. But both are hunted by those who seek one thing: power.

 

-Elizabeth

Bookish Connoisseur

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