As a slave in the Kipchak Khanate, Jinghua has lost everything: her home, her family, her freedom … until the kingdom is conquered by enemy forces and she finds herself an unlikely conspirator in the escape of Prince Khalaf and his irascible father across the vast Mongol Empire. On the run, with adversaries on all sides and an endless journey ahead, Jinghua hatches a scheme to use the Kipchaks’ exile to return home, a plan that becomes increasingly fraught as her feelings for Khalaf evolve into a hopeless love.
Jinghua’s already dicey prospects take a downward turn when Khalaf seeks to restore his kingdom by forging a marriage alliance with Turandokht, the daughter of the Great Khan. As beautiful as she is cunning, Turandokht requires all potential suitors to solve three impossible riddles to win her hand—and if they fail, they die.
Jinghua has kept her own counsel well, but with Khalaf’s kingdom—and his very life—on the line, she must reconcile the hard truth of her past with her love for a boy who has no idea what she’s capable of ... even if it means losing him to the girl who’d sooner take his life than his heart.
The Bird and the Blade is a lush, powerful story of life and death, battles and riddles, lies and secrets from debut author Megan Bannen.
The Review
I am so conflicted about The Bird and the Blade. I honestly did not care for more than half of the book. It isnt that the writing is bad, I just didn't like the characters. Jinghua annoyed me, Kharaf irritated me and Timur just struck me as obnoxious. I couldn't relate with any of them and didn't much care about what was happening to them. The first few pages confused me, I had no idea what was going and almost stopped reading. Now I'm glad I did push forward. But even though I enjoyed the last hundred pages or so I don't think this is one I will remember. It seemed modeled after And I Darken, but for a younger audience. I don't particularly like how meek Jinghua is and her attraction to Kharaf just annoyed me. The inner monologue about how perfect the boy is on every page was over the top.
The pursuit was excellent, as were the flashbacks to Jinghua's life before she became a slave. Her identity was obvious but that didn't make it any less enthralling to me. I appreciated seeing how she became what she is and I also loved the class conflict between the two young lovers.
The ending TOTALLY took my breath away. I won't spoil anything but I could not have seen that coming from a mile away and it was beautiful. I'm rating this 3 stars. It is a good story but a bit flawed in my opinion. I wanted more from Jinghua BEFORE the end. Had she been the person she was the last 50 pages for longer in the book I would probably rate this much higher. But I couldn't connect with her and so the story didn't hit me as hard.
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