H. G. Chambers

Another SPFBO5 book!

I can't really recall when I added this book to my kindle, but given it is participating in the annual indie fantasy book contest, I wanted to read all of the books in my TBR that are at least this year's current participants. It was only a matter of time before I gave this book a chance.

Books surrounding paternalistic primitive societies where a rowdy female ruffles everyone's feathers (pun intended) by changing societal norms to follow her dreams are nothing new, and at times I found Shariq's character to be bordering on being really annoying due to her complete disregard towards being nice to her well-meaning parents and some of the level headed members of her city. Maybe some of their ideas are outdated, but she didn't have to act so nasty!

Long story short, Shariq wants to join a dangerous and unpopular military profession of riding some sort of quadruped birds called kiraeens for no truly apparent reason. Choosing day for her middle brother has arrived, and instead of cheering for Amir as he melds a weapon from raw ore to be accepted in the forging sect, she wears a disguise and climbs the mountain to perform the wind walking challenge without informing anyone beforehand. In her defense, even if she respectfully asked for permission, the council would have probably said no. Long story short, she passes the three tests with flying colors and gets a lot of important people very, very angry.

Hidden in a safe house by her eldest brother Mica who is a member of the secretive assassin sect, she is to await trial in a few days where she is expected to beg for forgiveness for the prank, pray they don't send her to exile and join a female friendly profession instead. But with her heart so headfast on her fleeting dream, can she prove everyone wrong?

For some reason, Madim Basin reminds me a lot of the descriptions of an ancient human settlement of the Fula people in western Africa. I can't remember the name of the aforementioned place, but it is described very vividly similar in this book and it is still inhabited to this very day.

One thing that I really enjoyed about this book is the mental connection a human makes when they bond with their kiraeen. Each bird will have their own personality and female ones tend to be sassier than their male counterparts.

The book has an underdog story that has been tried many times before, so the story will probably zing familiar to the reader. While there are little details that didn't make me feel superbly thrilled about the book, it was a thoroughly fun story to read. If they made a movie from the source material, I would definitely want to watch it!… (more)