With nuanced prose, multilayered characters, and a colorful world; The Bird King is full of delicious twists. I devoured it in a day. I recommend this for fans of historical fantasy, G. Willow Wilson is a masterful writer. She has created a phenomenon of a book.

This novel is a mix of both historical fiction and magical realism, two great genres that the author manages to seamlessly blend together.

It took me a few chapters to really get into this book but once i did i could not put it down! The pacing of this story is fantastic and the imagery was mesmerizing.
There is a beautifully diverse cast of characters and I really enjoyed reading about the friendship between Fatima and Hassan, it was poignant and explored nicely.

I highly recommend this to anyone looking for an evocative, captivating story. This book left me wanted to read more of G Willow Wilson's works and i can't wait to do so!

Fatima is the last concubine in a kingdom quickly falling to the Spanish Inquisition. Her best friend Hassan has magical powers to create and edit maps, and when inquisitors label him a sorcerer and threaten his life, they run away together, beginning an epic adventure across land and sea in search of the island of The Bird King.

I really enjoyed this novel. It reads like a grown-up YA or even J-level adventure along the lines of The Glass Sentence, one of my very favorite novels (and series). The plot moves quickly and the characters are diverse and entirely believable, so I was hooked from the very beginning. This is a book I'll buy so I can reread every so often. It's really that good.

(The Bird King hasn't been released yet. I got a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for a review, though that had absolutely no bearing on my opinion of the book. Y'all know me better than that.)