Wings of Ash and Dust by Brittany Wang

13+

This was a solid read that I enjoyed!

We have different clans of fae, trials for a throne, a little no-spice romance and a heroine who refuses to acknowledge the existence of her magic and I was hooked!

We are first introduced to Quinn – the daughter of the general of her clan the Gywillion and she has just been overlooked for a place on the guard. Her anger at the injustice burns throughout the book and her bitterness leads her to making the decision to leave her clan and become a pirate. In the second book I am really interested to see if she reflects on that decision and any regret surrounding it!

 It is always so interesting to have a heroine who is unaware of the parallels between her and someone she hates but is clear to the reader! It adds that bit of depth that just having some similarities with the villain doesn’t, it makes it so you can have the heroine shine a lantern on some of her more dislikable qualities as a character and I just loved it! Quinn hates her father for overlooking her and ignoring her promise to focus on her twin brother Gaius – but she does the same in the beginning which leads to the betrayal a few chapters in! Quinn is in no way a Mary Sue – she has human emotions and her character makes the decisions the best she can in a world where she threw away the limited privilege she was given four years ago and now is competing against royals who have their clans completely behind them.

And one of my favourite points is when she mentions that she uses the same training techniques she thought were overly harsh when her father used them but says that they ‘work’. We have a main character who is running from her clan and especially her father but also who’s views and way of life are extremely close to how she has been raised. We get this gorgeous juxtaposition and then she is launched into the world of the other clans!

From warrior princess to pirate to prisoner princess and the trials for the throne Quinn takes us through this gorgeously intricate world and I just loved it!

Characters – 5/5 stars! I have talked about this a lot in the main body of my review but I did really enjoy the characters so let me reiterate – from the Queen whom we get a tiny glimpse into the life of a royal who’s only claim to the throne was because of the men she married to Delphine and Arista to the other competitors – the side characters in this were a true work of art and I love them so much!

World – 4/5 stars – I don’t think I have ever read a world that contained fae that weren’t heavily connected to folklore fae – changelings and deals and trickery – but we can still see glimmers of here and there like in the Nymph silver tongue.

Plot – 4/5 – the plot pace did slow in the middle but I felt like that did work! However the ending’s pace I wasn’t quite sure of – the characters got a lot of new information and then the plot picked up and exploded into the final fight! It is still a solid plot but for me I prefer it when the plot stays relatively the same pace throughout!

Romance – 3/5 – Soft Romance – the romance is a subplot in this book, not the focus. It is budding throughout but the real focus is on the gorgeous surroundings and the deadly trials. We get the most gorgeous scene in the boat with the quote that made me read it but then the romance seems to fade out of the plot. I still enjoyed the romance – especially as I knew from the marketing there was no risk of it turning explicit! – and I am interested to see where it goes and will definitely read the second.

Content Warnings: drug reliance/abuse – this is a fantasy drug but it does have medium presence on the page while the main character never takes it!