The Faithless Hawk (The Merciful Crow, #2)
by Margaret OwenAlso by this author: The Merciful Crow (The Merciful Crow, #1)
Published by: Henry Holt & Company on August 18, 2020
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Rating:
Dangerous magic, a tormented romance, and lethal betrayals come to a head in the thrilling sequel to Margaret Owen's The Merciful Crow.
As the new chieftain of the Crows, Fie knows better than to expect a royal to keep his word. Still she?s hopeful that Prince Jasimir will fulfill his oath to protect her fellow Crows. But then black smoke fills the sky, signaling the death of King Surimir and the beginning of Queen Rhusana's ruthless bid for the throne.
Queen Rhusana wins popular support by waging a brutal campaign against the Crows, blaming them for the poisonous plague that wracks the nation.
A desperate Fie clings onto a prophecy that a long-forgotten god will return and provide a cure to the plague. Fie must team up with old friends? and an old flame? to track down a dead god and save her people.
Content Tags:
Perfect for readers who want:
- Enemies-to-lovers or ill-fated lovers romance tropes
- Caste-structured world that’s easy to fall into and live in
- A rebirth system of gods and past lives
- A cast of characters that are easy to love and root for
- Tigers doing their tiger thing
- Dark, gruesome magic that’ll thrill and scare you
- Also maybe make you want to throw up just a little
- Betrayal and backstabbing and some plain old-fashioned stabbing
- Underdogs rising up to fight the power
Many thanks to Henry Holt & Company and TBR & Beyond Tours for a copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. Quotes are taken from an unfinished version and may differ from the final product.
I have since discovered that a group of hawks is called a kettle, which is especially fitting, because this book spills aaaall the tea. Things are about to boil over, if I do say so myself. This clearly nicely compliments the fact that it’s called a murder of crows. I’m pretty sure, at this point, the caste systems are just foreshadowing themselves. My work here is done.
The Faithless Hawk is full of uprising, betrayal, surprise twists, new faces to love, and pretty much everything you might want to wrap up a dark duology.
I have to admit, as long as it took me to read the first one, I’m sad the duology is over. I feel like I just got here, and y’all are packing up and leaving already?! Well, shucks. This world was easy enough for me to get into and understand, and I wanted to explore it more, but I thought this book did a good job of wrapping it, just the same.
This review will contain spoilers for The Merciful Crow.
This book, dear reader, is one big money dance. And I loved it.
In case you haven’t read the first book yet (at which point, I’d like to take a second and ask you whyyyy you haven’t read the first book yet), a money dance is what the crows do when they’re being cheated for their services. It’s used to put pressure on the person paying viatik and basically shame them into being an honest person, which these days is sometimes the only way to convince people. Basically, it’s a hustle.
What I’m saying is go in expecting your feelings to be extorted, to be put under pressure, and to be forced to change your mind on things. In the best possible ways.
I guessed some of the big reveals early on, but that didn’t make them any less fulfilling when I got to them. There’s twist after turn in this book, enough where I just didn’t want to put it down because I wanted to know how my precious, stabby babes were going to get out of this mess (and trust me, there’s always a mess).
She’d always known their kind only picked fights they’d win. She just hadn’t known how it felt when they turned tail and ran.
“Do you think they’re lost?” Khoda jested, leaning on his spear. “Should I offer them directions?”
“Off a cliff, maybe,” Fie muttered, and went back to sleep.
I’m not sure there’s a proper trope name for the romance in this, so I’m going to go ahead and just say it’s complicated.
The first book was enemies to lovers, which is one of my favorite tropes! This book was … well, complicated. That’s about all I can say without spoiling things. I blame Rhusana, the queen (and I can safely say that I’m not alone in that, thank you very much).
Because it’s all spoilery, all I can say about Fie and Tavin is that there’s a new, complex twist to their relationship that had me debating whether they were going to make it or if they should make it or if I needed to stab someone.
The answer to that last one is yes. I didn’t have to wonder very hard on that one, at least. But the other two … phew. The way The Merciful Crow ends, it feels a lot like a happily ever after between the two of them (albeit complicated by war), but I enjoyed the fact that nothing is set for any of the characters at the beginning of this book, and there’s still things they have to work through. They still have to fight for their relationship, and that’s something I love to see in books.
But instead of something sly or honey-tongued, Fie found herself just looking to Tavin’s still-burning hands and croaking, “I forgot you could do that.”
The Faithless Hawk brings back some beloved characters from the first book (*cough*Barf*cough*) while introducing new characters to fret over.
I didn’t feel like there were a whole ton of new characters, which is kind of nice. It was a good feeling to basically know the characters going in, which meant that the new characters stuck out all the more in my mind. Like the Peacock girl, Niemi, who actually dies in the opening pages of the book … yet still plays an interesting role which I refuse to spoil. I admit that I was a little disappointed that her story wasn’t revisited or wrapped up, but I enjoyed how insufferable she is.
My favorite new character by far is Khoda, who I took to immediately.
I also was not the only one, but you know what? You’re going to have to find that out yourself when you read the dang book. Until then, I’ll say that I felt Khoda right in my soul, as he suffers through working with Fie and Jasimir. He’s the voice of reason in this book. You know, the one everyone ignores and yet he has just enough optimism to keep trying.
Khoda flashed a grin. “The real question is why I stuck around to begin with. The nice thing about Hawks is they assume all you have to do is tie someone up and put them under watch, and that’s enough to keep them in place.
“That’s usually how it works, aye,” Viimon said.
Sabor gains a new level of depth here, with more about the gods and its history and the past.
I absolutely loved the fleshing out of the world here. It’s slow, throughout the book, but when it culminated at the end, it was just *chef’s kiss*. The thing that grabbed me about this world right from the start was how dark it was, and it was very interesting learning how it reached that point. Also, it gets darker. Which I also enjoyed. Sorry, not sorry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The only thing I really wanted more of was about the gods and delving into the history of that and rebirths and such. Given that it’s such an important part of the plot, I would’ve liked a little more firm grasp on what was going on with them, since I still feel like that part’s a little vague.
“First of all, ‘we can’t, it’s the law’ is not the wildly unreasonable statement you’re pretending it is,” Jasimir said peevishly. “Second, you know what happened, you were there for most of it. Do you want to do it or not?”
About Margaret Owen
Born and raised at the end of the Oregon Trail, Margaret Owen first encountered an author in the wild in fourth grade. Roughly twenty seconds later, she decided she too would be an author, the first of many well-thought-out life decisions.
The career plan shifted frequently as Margaret spent her childhood haunting the halls of Powell’s Books. After earning her degree in Japanese, her love of espresso called her north to Seattle, where she worked in everything from thrift stores to presidential campaigns. The common thread between every job can be summed up as: lessons were learned.
Fortunately, it turned out that fourth-grade Margaret was onto something. She now spends her days wrestling disgruntled characters onto the page, and negotiating a long-term hostage situation with her two monstrous cats. (There is surprisingly little difference between the two.) In her free time, she enjoys exploring ill-advised travel destinations, and raising money for social justice nonprofits through her illustrations.
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I knew you’d have to love it! It is MC with just so much… more!!! I dmd you a question…
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You were right, yet again. I totally did. xD You should read A Ruin of Kings now if you get a chance (because it’s, like, 10,000 pages long and the series not even done yet). The tone very much reminds me of this duology, and Kihrin is a lot like Fie.
Great review and I love the quotes you picked out.
Thank you for being part of the tour.
Heather
TBR and Beyond Tour Team
Thank you so much for having me!
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