by Clemency
Crow
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GENRE: Middle Grade
Adventure
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BLURB:
Twelve-year-old Freya enjoys karate and is the only one in her class
who’s trusted with a part-time job. But everything changes when she meets a boy
with yellow eyes. She learns about the guardians, and how an age-old fight has
prevented them from fulfilling their purpose.
Freya
finds new friends in the Crow tribe, but not everything in the castle is
blissful. A destructive shadow lies within her and all she needs to do to
release it is close her eyes.
But as
the guardians’ war rages on, Freya realises that, although the shadow’s power
can be useful, it can’t create peace. To do that, Freya and her friends must
solve the mysterious crime that began the war. Can they bring the guardians
together before they destroy each other?
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EXCERPT
“Tell me more about the Owls,” Freya requested. She
couldn’t deny that the statue fascinated her. It was such a magnificent gift,
it seemed tragic that the people who gifted it were now at war. Elialdor,
standing behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Their king is a man called Raedwald. He commands
perhaps more than even the Crows. Perhaps the most powerful of our kind.”
Elialdor spoke almost in a whisper. “It was him who killed my grandfather.”
“The king?” Freya turned around to face him. The
prince’s face looked so sad, but proud all the same.
“Yes. But he was my grandfather too.” He bowed his
head. “Raedwald was angry with our tribe and sought revenge. So he killed him.”
“Revenge for what?” Freya could not help but ask.
“He believed we committed a crime that we did not.
The only way to prove our innocence was to find the truly guilty party:
something we failed to do. So we remain at war.”
Although Freya wanted to find out more on the
matter, the look of pain on Elialdor’s face stopped her from asking any more
questions. She was struggling to piece together the fragments of information
she had received, and each conversation made it more intriguing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and
Links:
I
can't remember when I wrote my first story. We had a word processor when I was
very little. It was an archaic piece of technology with no mouse, which meant
you had to know the codes for it to work. My sister, Judith, and I wrote
several stories using this. I think one of my stories was about a mammoth,
probably during my I-want-to-be-a-mammoth-when-I-grow-up stage.
When
I was a bit older, during Year 3 at Primary School, another sister brought home
several A5 grey jotters and gave one to Ginny and Judith to plan and write
their stories in. Naturally, I wanted a notebook too, so I said I was writing a
story called "The Rule of the Unicorns". I never finished that rather
peculiar tale, but it meant I got one of those A5 grey jotters!
A
good few years down the line and I'm a Primary Teacher in the tip-top north of
Scotland. To encourage a love of reading in my pupils, I write a story with
them in for their Christmas present. The first thing they do is flick through
and try and find their name - but I hope they enjoy the story too!
When
I'm not teaching, I love writing, working on my allotment and I'm crazy enough
to be doing a Science degree at the same time.
GIVEAWAY
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The tour dates can be found here
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My review:
3.5 out of 5 stars
Taking Wing by Clemency Crow centers around Freya, a young
girl who is mysteriously transported to a land that is peopled by tribes of
birds, two of which factions are engaged in a deadly war. As she gradually
learns the rules that govern the interactions between humans and the tribes
that were originally created to protect them, Freya is reluctant to fulfill the
role expected of her but gradually is drawn into the conflict. Her biggest
challenges are figuring out who to believe and how to harness the power
everyone believes she can wield.
This middle grade fantasy explores the challenges of
discovering the truth in a world that is entirely foreign, where everyone
around you has expectations about your very existence. The story is imaginative
and touches on the differences between several bird species but doesn’t go into
much detail about anything other than their relative sizes. I think the tale
provides fodder for encouraging research into such things as the different
types of crows or owls but I found some things confusing and I was a bit
surprised by the ending, which evidently implies that the story will continue.
Somehow, there don’t seem to be a lot of adult female roles, and those aren’t
very sympathetic, and the conflicts between the rulers and their sons seem
universal but are not clearly explained. The rules of magic are a bit murky and
I still don’t understand how the tribes are protecting humans, but hopefully
details will be filled in with subsequent stories.
A copy of this story was provided for review
