Golden Feathers Falling (Moonlit Cities Book 2) - Marcin Wrona

Title: Golden Feathers Falling (Moonlit Cities Book 2)
Author: Marcin Wrona
Genre: Fantasy
Published: 2011
Formats: Ebook

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“Golden Feathers Falling” is the 2nd novel in Marcin Wrona’s Moonlit Cities series; a collection of standalone stories set in a Mesopotamian influenced fantasy world. As the novel is standalone then you don’t need to worry if you haven’t read “Pale Queen’s Courtyard” which I have previously reviewed here. However, there are a few appearances by characters and references to events from the first novel which helped to increase my appreciation of this novel.

Anyway, the plot follows a young woman named Alit, who lives and works with her disabled brother delivering letters that he has scribed for others. However, when a job she embarks upon results in a confrontation with a group of people asking questions about her father who died years before, Alit soon finds her own life at risk and only survives through a lucky encounter with a group of mercenaries. Her brother unfortunately is not so lucky and with revenge in her heart, Alit uses her dowry to pay the mercenaries to help track down those that were responsible. She therefore embarks upon an adventure that reveals more than she could ever have imagined about the nature of her country and the people who inhabit it.

As with the previous novel in the series I found that the real selling point of this book was the way in which Wrona has used setting different from the fantasy norm. Yes, there is magic, fights, religious powers and other regular elements of a good fantasy story, but the Mesopotamian influence just gives it all a unique and different feel. In addition though, the plot itself is an exciting tale of politics, religion, friendship and revenge that had me engrossed from start to finish. In simple terms, I loved both the plot and the world in which it was set.

The characters were also wonderful to behold and they came alive on the pages with personalities that were both vivid and real. In addition, I found the way in which their stories and histories were revealed to the reader as the story progresses just ensured that you could fully appreciate who they were and how they acted. I basically found myself fully engaged with them to the point that I felt both their sadness and worry as various events unfolded.

To be honest, my only disappointment with the story was the finale but only because I really wanted to know more about what had happened to several of the characters. Yes the reader gets a good glimpse at what happened to Alit herself but I wanted more than this. This is probably just a personal issue it did spoil my overall enjoyment of the novel a little. I just hope that in Wrona has included the odd reference to the characters from this story in the next novel so that I can gain a little bit more understanding of what happened to them all.

Overall, this was an enjoyable return to the world that Wrona has created and I found myself thoroughly entertained from start to finish. If you are looking for a fantasy book with a different setting then I can’t recommend both this book and “Pale Queen’s Courtyard” highly enough. Personally, I am now looking forward to getting my hands on the next book in the Moonlit Cities series and to me that is on the best advertisements I can give.