In this world, humans have the ability to runebond, or basically have a mental connection with a single type of animals. People can also have an affinity for plants, and in that case they are able to grow plants at will. Farren is an avis just like her father; which is someone who can runebond with birds. After her brother, Desmond, is attacked and almost killed by a gryphon, their father is summoned to the palace to help train the Queen's gryphons in Alidonia. Farren ends up going in his place, even though she is deathly afraid of them after what one did to her brother. Farren has six weeks to figure out what to do with these gryphons before they are paraded around in public, putting the people of Alidonia at risk. Can she figure out how to stop the gryphon program before more people are hurt?

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this! If you are a fan of magical animals and telepathic bonds with said animals (very reminiscent of Violet and Tairn/Andarna in Fourth Wing) then this will be right up your alley. I also liked how different animals had varying levels of intelligence through the bond - ie small birds like sparrows could talk in simple phrases and images, more intelligent birds like hawks could talk in more complex sentences with more nuanced emotions, and the Gryphons hav human level intelligence and emotions and can have full on conversations. We only got the POV of the birds through Farren as this story is told solely through her, but I wish we saw this theme explored with other people and their runebonds with different species. I hope we either get a multi POV in the next book(s), or at least Farren's friends explaining more how their runebonds work with the varying levels of intelligence with their species of animal, and more on the runebonds people have with plants. I think Burnett did a good job introducing the runebond idea with Farren, but it could be explored so much more with more POV's or just hearing about the experiences of other people and their unique runebonds. We got a little bit of that with Isander, and I hope this is explored more in the sequels.

I also think the characters are really well written - they're all multi-faceted and complex, and we are able to get attached to all of them and care about their character arcs. I liked all of the characters, however I did sense the twist with Isander coming. That is one of my only qualms about the characters - I feel like it was easy to sense that he isn't all that he appears to be as Cato is wary of him and tells Camilla to avoid him. Besides that, Scipio was so annoying and I get that he is supposed to be a bully but his one insult, "bumpkin", doesn't really fit the vibes of a fantasy IMO, and also felt like a lazy insult. Besides them, I really liked everyone else and their progressions.

I really liked the world building and the magic system, and the character development was really well done - especially for Farren. This is a solid start to what I hope to be a great fantasy series!

Thank you to E. A. Burnett, Talon & Ink Press, and BookSirens for the eARC!