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! 

I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.