A Palace Near the Wind starts Natural Engines series (duology?) set in a unique secondary world. Liu Lufeng is fighting the windmills of modernity that threaten to destroy the habitat and way of life of her Feng (wind) people. It’s an uphill struggle on the home front too, as many of her people have left the habitat for the palace of the king for easier life and human technology.

To keep the king’s constructions at bay, one member of Lufeng’s family is sent to the palace every year to marry the king. Now it’s her turn, after which only her youngest sister is left. She’s determined to save her, so the only option is to kill the king.

At the palace, Lufeng, a creature of branches and leaves, has to adjust to wearing clothes, sleeping in a bed, travelling by engine powered contraptions, and eating meat. But she endures, so that when the marriage ceremony takes place, she can kill the king.

But the marriage isn’t what she believes, the king turns out to be not who she expected, and he’s not the enemy she thought. There’s a place of even more destructive technology beyond the palace, and those in charge there aren’t above cruel atrocities.

Killing the king would be useless, so Lufeng’s entire family has to flee. Easier said than done, when some of them are perfectly happy where they are, and others need to stay in place for the safety of the rest. But she’s not about to give up. With the help of a couple of friends she’s made, she acts on a hastily concocted plan. The book ends before we learn how that’ll turn out.

This was a short, straightforward story with a couple of twists to keep things interesting. The pace was fast, with no time wasted on secondary plots, character development, or worldbuilding, which was mostly a collection of interesting concepts.

I was especially disappointed in the Feng. As a plant-based life-form, they were such an interesting idea, but then the unique physiology didn’t play any role in the story. Even their element turned out to be wind, which I found really odd. I didn’t particularly like Lufeng either, but it would be interesting to see where she ends up from here.

What an incredibly unique concept! This story captures how destructive/selfish humans can be to both the environment will live in and towards each other. I really sympathised with the main character, seeing them navigate & sometimes enjoy a world different to what they are used to but at that same time wanting to hold on to their own heritage and values. The story is told in a beautiful manner with lovely prose, I do wish it was it a bit longer as the scenes developed very quickly.

This literary sci-fantasy novella was strange and different. There were parts that were truly gripping. The world and class magic system was innovative and exciting, but was under developed. There were terms dropped without much background or explanation. The main character lacked a decent arc and her motivations wavered and were messy in areas. There was also little to no character development, not to mention that most characters were flat and one dimensional. It felt like different stories warped together. The plot lacked cohesion with some plot holes and unanswered questions. The pacing was poor and any plot twists failed to pack a punch. I wanted to love this story. It has so much potential, if only it was longer. The story is far too ambitious for a novella.

I was a huge fan of Linghun, so I jumped at the chance to get hold of the new book from the author, A Palace Near The Wind. Sci-fi/fantasy is somewhat of a departure from my usual reads, but I was quickly absorbed, in no small part due to Ai Jiang's excellent writing, something that is fast becoming a trademark of her work. There are some very interesting concepts here, and some of the descriptions are positively cinematic, conjuring incredible imagery in my head instantly.

I did have some issues with the story, mostly down to it being book 1 of a duology. I found there was a lot of world-building thrown at the reader very quickly—although it is always vivid and often impressive, there's a lot to take in. Similarly, there are a lot of named characters, especially for such a short read (less than 200 e-book pages), and it was occasionally hard to keep them all straight in my head. Needless to say, with a new book on the way, it does end somewhat on a cliffhanger and with more questions raised than answered.

On the positive side of things, however, I did find myself immediately wanting to read the next book as soon as possible. The story is interesting, but I think a lot of it was down to the main character, who I liked immediately and stayed rooting for through the entire story. I'm very much looking forward to completing the duology, and I suspect I may even feel differently towards this book once I've read the next part.

"A Palace Near the Wind" is a fantasy novella which is perfect for fans of both genres. I found the story to be interesting, but the fantasy aspect was a little bit difficult for me to wrap my head around. Admittedly, I am not typically a fantasy reader, so I wouldn't let that put you off from the book.

I feel like i wasn't given the full book because it was over so quickly and I didn't feel like a had a chance to get invested in either the plot or the characters?

It felt very Bridge Kingdom/ Castles In Their Bones but shorter.

UPDATE okay I checked and its a novella 🤦‍♀️ why do I never read blurbs?!?!?

I think its perfect for fans of mythic tales, rebellion, sacrifice and self identity.

“The only thing we could do was continue resisting.”

Liu Lufeng is the eldest daughter of Feng’s royal family, which leads a people known as the Wind Walkers. With bodies made of bark and branches and the ability to harness the wind, the people of Feng inhabit a wildly lush territory, but are under constant threat of colonization by the Land Walkers. Obligated by the need for survival, Feng offers up a new bride to the human king of the Land Walkers every few years to prevent unwanted expansion into their land. Now that her mother and all her available sisters have been sold off to the king, it’s Lufeng who’s being traded for peace despite being the next heir of Feng. However, she intends to put a stop to these “negotiations” by killing the king on their wedding day—until she realizes that the roots of Feng’s problems go much deeper than the monarch himself.

As someone who loves experiencing the magic of a good short story or novella, I was thrilled to read A Palace Near the Wind—but ultimately, I was disappointed by it. It certainly has some things to recommend it; for example, it touches on a lot of important themes that are more relevant than ever, like the ways in which the destruction of native lands leads to the destruction of native cultures. The novella also outlines the intriguing divide between preservation and modernization, and delicately explores the complications of loving your native home and culture while simultaneously resenting it for feeling restricting. That being said, some of this messaging was somewhat obvious. At times, the novella seemed more like a shallow commentary than a story. This felt especially true since most of the characters and their relationships fell flat, making the big ideas appear forced. Much of the worldbuilding felt similarly out of place. In the first half of the book, almost every line of dialogue was followed by a paragraph of information about the world, which was disorienting and oftentimes unnecessary. What were supposed to be the most dramatic moments in the book were also anti-climatic (and in some cases, repetitive), which made me feel even less invested in the story. I might be interested in seeing whether Ai Jiang’s writing develops in the future, but I’m not sure that I’ll be jumping to get my hands on a copy of A Palace Near the Wind’s sequel any time soon.

Adventure time!
Calculating route•••
Requesting permission to land on••• the Titan Books planet•••
Request granted•••

W E L C O M E

Greeted by an intriguing citizen: A PALACE NEAR THE WIND

📘 Her Story
There is a fine thread splitting the world in two: humans and those who are other. Liu Lufeng is a Wind Walker, a tree that walks and talks, but above all else, she is the eldest princess of the Feng clan. As with all royals, she is sold to become a queen—for the peace of all kingdoms. But everything changes once the girl discovers the ancient origins and the twisted fate that ties her to the king.

🚦 Green Light
Humans vs Tech vs Tradition. Artificial vs Natural. Feeling vs Unfeeling. Ruin vs Creation. There were plenty of conflicts in the novella.

Liu Lufeng is on a quest to save her family and the traditions of her land.

The industrial district is slowly taking over the forests and destroying the natural world—I found it rather funny how this reflected today’s world.

There are a lot of plots and twists, although some of them are rather predictable. If you are like me, you might find yourself saying ‘Called it!’ at least ten times.

Some Chinese cultural aspects were stirred into this short story.

⚠️ Warning Signs
There is too much going on into this first installment.

A regular length novel split into smaller pieces.

There are some bits and pieces that the author threw into the mix, just as you would in a smoothie. Except that she added a fistful of salt on top of it. Or threw in too many ingredients which had no proper place to overflow into.

Some of the plot developments called me stupid in at least three different ways. And the funny part is that it is rather difficult to talk about them without spoiling the story too much.

I’d rather had had the story told in a third person perspective.

The plot and character actions needed more space to develop.

📜 The Envoy
For readers who love twists and adventures with a hint of technology and hostile advancements.

Avoid if the lack of logic makes you wanna give the characters a brain transplant.

3.5 Stars - In the beginning, I was confused out of my mind with the wording, names of things, and the strange sentence structures, but about halfway through, I grasped the plot, and it turned into a very immersive and powerfully imaginative novella about a young woman’s plight to save her family and her coming of age story along the way. It’s about putting an end to inherited traumas and forging a new path for the younger generations after and a very loud call to stop the natural world’s destruction for the sake of an industrial future! There was a WHOLE LOT to digest in a small span, like 192 pages. I wanted to know more about the Lufeng people, but more time was designated to world-building than the actual characters. Because of this, the characters fell flat for me. I often felt there were a lot of connections between the Feng and Native Indigenous peoples. The need and understanding to protect the natural world and the way the patriarchy was enslaving and discriminating them…lots of inherited trauma - STILL they rose. There definitely are some triggers in here, too, family dynamics and environmental devastation, and if you're a vegetarian or have a hard time with animal cruelty, be aware of that before reading.

The story was over before I expected it, it was so good! I want more! This a great blend of fantasy, steampunk and dystopia.

DNF.

Very confused about who that’s supposed to be on the cover, since our MC is a dryad-type creature, but okay.

I could not deal with the very awkward, overwritten prose, and I have receipts. (Some of these may be types that get fixed in the published version, but I’m pretty sure most of them are not.)

>In a scattered line, the leavers walked towards the Palace.

Got to be honest, I’ve never heard ‘the people who are leaving’ described as ‘leavers’ before and I hate it.

>Grandmother raised an arm over my chest, untouching.

Untouching?

>Perhaps it was the ominous air he gave about him,

He gave an air? Not emanated/gave off/carried???

>crafted items sat within transparent, sharp-edged encasings.

Encasings? And what do these ‘encasings’ look like, pray tell?

>To think my sisters had such glorified imaginations of this place and its people.

They have imaginations of these people, not imaginings?

>Similar to the guards,

‘Like the guards.’

>They were finished for the day, but they knew a member would leave them.

‘Member’ here meaning ‘one of their group’.

>I tugged a metal keeper used to store different items over my carvings.

I have no idea what a keeper is or what it looks like. A box? A wardrobe? A chest of drawers?

>Suspicion tingled at the bottoms of my feet.

I’m sorry, your suspicion what?

>The paintings of Land Wanderers lining the corridor followed my quiet steps with their seemingly moving irises,

Their ‘seemingly moving irises’???

Even if the prose had been better, this book is still swamped in issues. I spent most of my time reading it very confused: are the MC’s people and the palace right next to each other? Is it really a single palace that is swallowing up the would, or is it a city? What do the humans get out of their king marrying a dryad every few years? We’re constantly getting proper nouns that aren’t explained or described, even when characters interact with them (see the quote above about the ‘keeper’). I almost never knew what I was supposed to picture.

Bonus: we kept getting statements that were contradicted just a few sentences later, like how the Feng don’t drink tea – except when they do! The moonbugs are the Feng’s companions – except the Feng eat them sometimes!

And I was really hoping for a more nuanced take than ‘progress/industrialisation = evil, nature = good’.

I really loved the concept of this book it was so interesting. I liked the overall plot line and the characters and I think it would be even more interesting if the storyline was longer.

2.5 ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This is an imaginative sci fi fantasy story, but it is in serious need of additional editing. Many of the details around characters and the world building/setting are too ambiguous to make much sense of and considerably distracted from the plot. Rarely for books in adjacent genres, there is too much show, not enough tell.

I had no real concept of the culture and physicality of the main character, Lufeng - is she literally a tree, a human who describes herself in tree-lile terms, or something in between? She also had a very bland personality, and many of her actions and decisions did not align with each other. There were too many characters for such a short book, which resulted in all of them being one-dimensional. Even though it is narrated in first-person by Lufeng, it was difficult to get a sense of how she truly felt about her experiences.

The thing that kept me going was the odd, although linear, plot and the downright wacky reveals (all of which Lufeng inextricably took in her stride). I think there could be some strong messages around colonialism, climate change, human destruction of nature and advancement of technology somewhere, but it was all overshadowed by the strange narrative and mostly clunky prose.

Overall I was engaged in this work, although possibly for all the wrong reasons.

The world I delved into while reading this was unlike anything I’d ever read before. The story is touching— fighting for your home, strong family values, rising to your full potential— all wonderfully written. However, there were times I felt confused and it seemed like the story wasn’t flowing as naturally as it could have. I hope the second half of the duology blends the story together more seamlessly.

A short, but impactful story about family and the issues that can impact the family bond. Add in royalty and you have this unique, high fantasy novella.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review. 2.5 ⭐ rounded up

A bit sci-fi, a bit fantasy, politics, nature vs technology - all the parts were there, and the writing at times was beautiful, but it fell short for me. There wasn't really enough time to full connect with any of the characters, the lore, the world. It was moving so quickly (and it was incredibly short). I think the world seemed beautiful and I would have loved to have read a longer novel where it had more room to breathe.

A Palace Near the Wind is a short but powerful story about a girl fighting for her home. In this novel, we follow Liu Lufeng who is Feng royalty. As the oldest sister she must marry a human and secure an alliance that protects her homeland. Because, interestingly enough, she is not a human but one of the ‘Feng’, a species of humanoid people with bodies made out of tree bark, branches and pine needles. I thought that this was a really unique and interesting detail to include. I’ve read books about nature sprites and fae, but this is an entirely new type of species that we can learn about. And, as in most books that discuss the declining state of the natural world, humans are the villains.

I liked that the book looks at the traditions and compromises that people submit to in order to maintain peace. These kind of ‘sacrificial marriages’ show up time and time again in our real history. However, these kinds of deals do not stop the aggressor from getting what they want. When Lufeng realises that these traditions will not truly save her people, she finds another way to save them and herself.

I liked Lufeng’s strong character, but I think that she was a bit underdeveloped. In fact, most of the characters in A Palace Near the Wind could use more character development. But that’s often what happens when a story this short is plot and world-building driven. That being said, I think that Ai Jiang did a wonderful job of creating this mythical world. She consistently writes in a rich and lyrical way which draws you into the setting.

This is a beautifully written book which uses its fantasy elements to discuss important topics like environmental conservation, human greed and the dangers of blindly following tradition. It manages to make a lot of impactful points in a short amount of time.

This book was a really cool mix of fantasy and sci-fi, with a world that feels both magical and real. The story follows Liu Lufeng, a princess from the Feng people—who have bark-like skin and control the wind—as she’s forced into an arranged marriage to save her homeland. The whole nature vs. technology theme was super interesting, and I loved how the author blended folklore with industrial rebellion.

The writing is gorgeous, full of vivid descriptions that pull you in. Liu Lufeng is a great main character—strong but careful, and her struggle between duty and defiance kept me hooked. The side characters were just as well-written, which isn’t always the case in short books like this.

That said, I did wish it was a little longer. Some parts felt rushed, and I would’ve loved more time to explore the world and the characters’ relationships. The ending leaves some questions open, but in a way that feels hopeful rather than unfinished.

Overall, this was a unique, fast-paced read with a killer premise and beautiful prose. If you’re into atmospheric fantasy with deep themes and a touch of rebellion, definitely give it a shot.

A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang is a strange and dreamlike novella. I really enjoyed some parts of this, and will likely appreciate it even more on a re-read. The pace is quick, and I let myself get caught up in it. As a side note, there is an absolutely grotesque dinner scene that is going to haunt me for a while. I am looking forward to a second reading, and the next novella. Thank you NetGalley, and Ai Jiang for an ARC.

The first thing that drew me to this book was the beautiful cover but I am pleased to say the prose was just as beautiful. We have a lush world that we are seemingly dropped into but not once do you feel lost or confused thanks to Jiang’s writing. The characters were all fantastic and I personally loved the creativity in some of the descriptions and characters. This is a must read for fans of Asian inspired fantasy and beautiful prose. It was a joy from start to finish and I will definitely be getting a hard copy.

As always thank you to Titan Books for the advanced copy to review, my reviews are always honest and freely given.