Feathers and Fae

Feathers and Fae is a young adult fantasy novel by Crystal L. Kirkham. It was published in October of 2019 by Kyanite Publishing LLC. I was provided with an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The story follows two teens, Kami and Emmett, who have been best friends for as long as either could remember. Emmett, however, has a secret and his past catches up with him when a dark fae known as the Erlkrönig chases them into another realm, Mythos. When Kami awakes, she can detect when people are lying and that means she knows everything Emmett has ever told her is a lie. Emmett wants to get Kami home, to safety, as quickly as possible while avoiding the Erlkrönig, who is hunting them. On the journey, Emmett’s web of lies starts to unravel and Kami learns the truth, which shakes the foundations of everything she knows to be true.

Feathers and Fae is a book that doesn’t hold many surprises. At the beginning of the story, Emmett is somewhat of an enigma. He clearly has this innate need to protect Kami, although the reason isn’t initially clear. After the pair wind up in Mythos, as a result of Emmett using a previously unknown, to the reader, power, there’s a mystery surrounding what exactly he is. It becomes clear that he also has some sort of connect to the Erlkrönig, which adds some intrigue. All of that intrigue goes out of the window the second time Emmett uses his powers. It becomes very clear exactly what species he is, yet the book continues to try and make it seem like a mystery. Some might say that the title somewhat spoils that particular plot twist, but the title is vague enough to prevent me from saying its entirely predictable in that sense. My biggest complaint centers around the narrative acting like Emmett’s secret is harder to guess than it actually is. Rather than being foreshadowed, it’s pretty much spelled out a hundred pages before someone in the story actually says what he is.

I may be getting ahead of myself. Let’s discuss the characters for a moment. There are about five characters we care about: Emmett, Kami, the seer Jewel, a yeti named Bob and, of course, the bad guy the Erlkrönig. There’s not a lot I can really say about Emmett or Kami. I found them both to be rather bland and one-dimensional. Emmett wants to keep is secrets and get Kami to safety. Kami wants real answers about what the hell is happening and flip-flops between being angry or not angry, at Emmett for being reluctant to give those answers. It felt like a few scenes were repetitive with Kami asking for answers, not getting them and then being grumpy about it, and those scenes started to annoy me after a while. Jewel is a seer they meet to ask how to get home, and she invites herself along on their journey. I liked Jewel for the most part. She was the person who prevented Kami from being completely in the dark, because, as a seer, she knew what information she needed to know at each stage of the adventure. Something that I didn’t like was the fact that Jewel, who’s a seer, keeps ending up in situations where she can’t use her abilities. Her powers aren’t written consistently, and she ends up saying “sorry I didn’t see this” too many times. Bob is a yeti. He’s my favorite character because there isn’t a convoluted backstory or explanation to explain why he’s there. They need a guide through some mountains and he offers to be theirs. Lastly, we have our villain, the Erlkrönig, who’s what most would recognize as a pure evil villain. He wants power. He already has power, but he wants more. He won’t stop until he has all of the power. Emmett beat him once, but didn’t vanquish him, and he’s come back to finish what he started. Fantasy novels are where I see pure evil villains and that’s where they kind of fit the best. They don’t have nuance because they don’t need nuance, they just want to take over the world or whatever. He’s evil and that’s all there is to him.

The plot of Feathers and Fae is a little all over the place. Emmett and Kami wind up in Mythos and they need to get home, to their own realm, before the Erlkrönig finds them and exacts his revenge. The premise is simple, but in a story that’s ultimately about defeating the Erlkrönig, a lot of the story is padded with showing the journey they need to take to get to a portal that’s supposed to take them home. Reaching the portal ends up mattering only in a “if they don’t do x, y can’t happen and thus z is harder to explain” sense. I feel like some of this was done as a way of world-building, but it didn’t feel organic here. If a story is chronicling a journey, then the stops made during that journey need to have an impact on the story as a whole. That doesn’t happen here. The pair, and Jewel, go to the elves territory to use a portal there, only to be turned away. The group then needs to head to the dwarves’ land to use a portal deep in the mountains. The run-in with the elves has no impact later, so the story could’ve worked with the original destination being the dwarves’ land. Once they reach the portal, the story shifts again from being about Emmett and Kami getting home to needing to defeat the Erlkrönig, with very few sightings or threats by him between them coming to Mythos and needing to stop him. If there’d been either less focus on the journey, or if the Erlkrönig was written as a more dire threat during the group’s travels, the flow would’ve worked a little better. There’s a clear reason why the pacing is the way that it is. The long journey gives time for more information about Emmett, and his connection to Kami, to come to light without doing an info dump. The problem is that the most important information is still delivered by Emmett, as a clear info dump, right before the climax. If the same information had been revealed slowly, on the journey, I would’ve liked it better.

Now, let’s discuss the conclusion of the story. Emmett, Kami, Bob and Jewel need to defeat the Erlkrönig to avoid him taking over Mythos, and then the other realms. The book is roughly 380 pages. The final battle, the climax of the story, is 17 pages long. It’s not even 5% of the book. Now, there had been tension building for a while, especially after Emmett encounters the Erlkrönig face-to-face and is captured by him, but that’s an incredibly rushed final confrontation. It’s not like prior to this fight, the characters kept having run-ins with the villain either. For most of the story, they’re traveling, with the vague threat of the bad guy chasing after them. The final confrontation is very rushed. It reads as very rushed. The good guys start losing, Emmett as one last idea to try, and then they win. It’s not dramatic, or drawn out and the way that the heroes win falls just shy of a deus ex machina moment.

Thus far, this review has been very negative. I’m aware of that, but there were some things I enjoyed. I liked the actual realm that the story took place in. it had a rich plethora of creatures, species and locations. As part of the journey, the reader didn’t just get to see one section of the map, but several. Through Emmett and Kami, I learned about the different cultures with this world. The magic system wasn’t completely explained, but the parts that were explored, aside from Jewel’s foresight, were easily demonstrated and well-explained. The best way I can really explain it is that I liked the world, but I wasn’t a big fan of the story that was being told in it.

Feathers and Fae isn’t a bad book, just one that I found disappointing. It could be the first book in a series, but it could also be a stand-alone. If it is the first in a series, that would explain why the plot seems to revolve around building the world rather than the main conflict. I feel like the story is actually two stories that are weakly linked together. There’s the story of Emmett and Kami trying to get back to their own realm. And there’s the story of Kami, Emmett and their companions trying to defeat the Erlkrönig. If the author had chosen the first, it could’ve been good. If she’s chosen the second, it would’ve had potential. Instead, she chose both and I can’t say that I understand why. The story had potential, but that potential wasn't fully realized.

Rating: 2.1 stars

My English Teacher Made Me Read It!

Hello and happy Monday. This week, I decided not to post a review, because the book I’m currently reading in order to write a review is taking a little bit longer to finish than I planned. Instead, I’ve decided to do something new. I made a list of all of the books I was forced to read in middle/high school, and I’m going to quickly give just my general opinion of said books. I may do another version of this for college, but I haven’t decided yet.

• The Outsiders- When I read it in 7^th grade, I loved this book. I recently reread this one and I found it to be fairly average. It’s not bad, per se, but boring. There’s action, then a lot of nothing, then a little more action, and then the book ends.
• To Kill A Mockingbird- A fantastic book that covers a difficult topic. Everyone should read it at one point in their lives. The attempts to ban this book are ridiculous.
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Like To Kill A Mockingbird, there have been attempts to ban this book for its use of the N-word, or to in the very least censor it to remove the word. Which is a big mistake. It’s a book that should be read, regardless of how uncomfortable the story may make some readers.  
• The Catcher in the Rye- Over-hyped in my opinion. I don’t know anyone older than 17 that seriously connects with this book. It does a great job hitting the pressure points of teen angst, but that’s about it.
• The Scarlet Letter- Hester Prynne deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for not snapping one day and killing everyone in that village for being an asshole.
• King Lear- My favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies, although that’s not saying much.
• A Thousand Acres- A modernized retelling of King Lear where instead of being an actual king, the father is a farmer who owns a large tract of land. For the most part, it does a good job of translating the premise of King Lear but its even more boring than the play. There’s also an added plot element, to explain some of the rifts in the family, that isn’t handled very well and seems contrived.
• The Great Gatsby- I hate this book so much. It’s boring, I don’t understand why it’s considered one of the “great American novels”, and all of the characters are terrible people. Also, anything you have to say about symbolism usually begins and ends with talking about the stupid billboard with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg.
• The Odyssey- For a book of this length, and as old as the story is, it’s not half bad. It drags in places and gets formulaic, but it at least kept me mostly entertained.
• Beowulf- I really don’t know how I feel about this one. The story itself is pretty simple, and who doesn’t enjoy a story about killing random monsters.
• The Canterbury Tales- I only read parts of this book, but I’m including it. Shakespeare’s hard enough to understand as a high schooler. Chaucer is pretty much impossible. Also, most of the stories are pretty boring.
• Oedipus Rex- Given how Oedipus in known today mostly because of Freud’s nonsense about the Oedipus complex (and I could write an entire novel explaining how screwed up his reasoning there is), I was surprised that I actually felt bad for Oedipus. His story is tragic and for once, the ending of a tragedy makes sense to me. Also, this just goes to show that no one should ever trust an oracle.
• The Poisonwood Bible- This is the most boring book I’ve ever read. Every time I read it, I started to fall asleep. It takes forever for the story to get started, and once it does, I quickly became apathetic. I don’t care about missionaries being sad that they can’t convert people to their religion. Maybe showing up and telling people their belief system is wrong isn’t a smart move.
• Romeo and Juliet- I feel like I don’t have anything to say here that hasn’t already been said. It’s a tragedy because they’re young and dumb and their families both suck. I wish people would stop seeing their relationship as romantic, because that’s just…yikes.

So, there you have it. All of the book I remember being forced to read in English class. I’m sure there are some I’ve just forgotten (or repressed). I can see why these books are required reading in some cases. They’re useful for teaching certain literary concepts and studying things such as themes and figurative language. Just because they’re easy to teach, that doesn’t mean they’re good books, or interesting. As you could plainly see, I thought most of them were boring. Of all of the books I’ve mentioned, I don’t think there are any I would’ve chosen to read on my own.

What were some books you were forced to read and hated? Do you have any opinions on the books mentioned above?

Blogtober Day 31: Wrap-Up

Today is October 31st, as you most likely know. Unless you're reading this in the future. Anyway, since its the last day of the month, and the last day of Blogtober, it's Wrap-Up Time! I've never written one of these before, so I'm sorry if this is lame.

First, I did Blogtober!

I won't lie, I half-expected I wouldn't make it through the month, but somehow I have. Writing content and posting every day isn't easy, but I did. I'm not sure if I'll do something like this ever again, but at least I tried it and I had fun with it.

Now, onto the books I read

I read four books in their entirety this month. I planned on reading five, but the last book, A Secret History of Witches, which was on my TBR, I struggled to get into. I still plan on reading it, but every time I sat down to read it, I didn't have enough time to really get into the story. I'm still going to read it, so be on the look-out for a review of that.

The four books I read are:


The Scarred God - Review can be found here

I gave it a ranking of 3.9 stars because I enjoyed the story and the world, but felt like a little more detail was needed. I'm definitely going to read the next book if/when it's released.


Nightmare Escapade - Review can be found here

I enjoyed this anthology but I'm not sure if it truly counts as horror, since I didn't find myself being scared by any of the stories within. The author clearly has talent, though, and I look forward to seeing more works from him.


Anomaly - Review can be found here

I thought this story was fine. There were some pacing issues, its length also worked against it. The climax didn't entirely make sense and I would've preferred an ending that wasn't obvious sequel-bait.


The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror - Review can be found here

I enjoyed the collection. I named my favorite short stories in my review, but they were great, creative horror stories overall. There were a few that didn't fit the genre in my opinion, but overall the collection is good.

Even though I wasn't able to read as many books as I had planned this month, it was a pretty good month. I liked all four books I read. There were some disappointments, but overall, I'm gonna put this month in the "Win" column and start planning for November.

I hope your October and Halloween have been amazing and you've enjoyed the month as much as I have.

Blogtober Day 30: Halloween Plans

So, tomorrow is Halloween. Yay! And, of course, with such a big holiday coming up, the only topics of conversation I've had for the last week are "What are your Halloween plans?" and "What are you being for Halloween?". I'm going to answer both questions right now.

What Are You Being For Halloween?

Unfortunately, and annoyingly, a dumb work meeting I was supposed to have last week got rescheduled for Halloween. My initial costume was going to be a boxer, but since that's "not appropriate workplace attire" I'm going to put a bunch of name tags on my work clothes and be "Identity Theft"

What Are Your Halloween Plans?

My neighborhood doesn't get a lot of trick-or-treaters, so I don't expect much of the night will be spent actually giving out candy. I plan to watch Scream followed by Trick'R Treat and then go to bed, because Halloween is on a Thursday.

What are your Halloween plans? What costume are you going to wear?

Blogtober Day 29: Top 5 Halloween Candies

We're two days away from Halloween! With the holiday so close, all I can think about it is all of the discounted candy I'm going to buy on November 1st. With that said, today I'm going to talk about my favorite Halloween candies. Before I do that, let me give you my opinion on candy corn, because I know that's a point of contention. I don't like it. I don't think its the Worst Thing Ever, but I refuse to consume it.

Now, to candy I do like:


5) Blow-Pops
I like lollipops. I also like gum. This one combines the two.


4) MilkyWay
I don't know how they make these taste so good, but somehow they do. Other chocolate and caramel candy bars have tried and failed to recreate the magic of Milky Ways.


3) Hershey's Bars
Yes, these are pretty standard and boring, They're also classics. And you can't really go wrong with something as simple as plain chocolate. It's a pretty safe bet in case any trick-or-treaters have allergies.


2) Skittles
Skittles are just amazing. I think I read an article saying they're the most purchased Halloween candy last year. Either way, they're good and I enjoyed them.


1) Reese's Cups
I love peanut butter, I love chocolate. I love the two of them together. And that's why Reese's cups take the #1 spot.

What's your favorite Halloween candy?