Feathers of Blood

Kingdom of Birds and Beasts, Book 2

By: Alice Ivinya

Narrated by: Lillian Rachel

Rejected by her betrothed and banished into the wilderness, Brianna finds herself broken-hearted with nowhere to turn. She wants nothing more than to be left alone.
But greater threats loom across the Border, and there are whispers of war on the breeze. The Spirit-Beasts are coming and Brianna might be the only thing that can stand in their way and stop the massacre of a nation.
But to do this she will have to face her worst enemy, who wants nothing more than to see her dead, and, worse, the man she once loved who let her down.

©2021, 2022 Alice Ivinya (P)2025 Alice Ivinya

Simply Amazing Goose Girl Retelling

I absolutely love this series and adore this audiobook version even more. The story itself is impeccable. The flow, the writing, the world building and the characters are immersive and make it impossible not to lose myself to the nail-biting tension. The narrator, master of her craft, brought it all together even more compellingly. The characters come alive and I was there, fighting nameless and spirit beasts by their side, flying with Brianna on Bualami's back.

This brilliant retelling of The Goose Girl comes with the fantastic twist of the events laid out in the fairytale being the slander the princess spreads against Brianna. This version is absolutely my favorite retelling of this fairytale because it is so cleverly constructed and makes for an utterly fantastic fantasy adventure with the most incredible slow burn romance imaginable.

I look forward to listening again once the whole series is complete in this new format.

even better than the first

It felt like such a long wait between Feathers of Snow and Feathers in Blood, but oh so worth it! I loved Brianna in the first book, and the impossible situation she found herself in. But where book one ended in exile, book two shows her finding her courage and traveling to places and creatures undiscovered by most humans. It also veers far from the polite society of book one. Brianna learns to function outside of all the norms she is used to. She also lets anger get the best of her more than once, but I have to admit, I loved it when she and Jian fought, it made me love both of them so much more because it felt like the relationship mattered so much to both of them. They argued until they were understood and it was good. I also loved that they both rescued each other. It was much more violent than the previous book, but also an incredibly beautiful story.