Crown of Feathers is beautiful tale of three protagonists on a quest to right the wrongs of history one small step at a time. The first in its series, Crown of Feathers is the debut novel of Nicki Pau Preto.

We follow Veronyka, the younger sister of two (her and Val), as they search far and wide for something most valuable: phoenix eggs. But they mustn’t be discovered, otherwise it’s a life in prison or a death, meaning that they will never see – or even becoming one of -- the phoenix riders.

We follow Tristan, a young apprentice and a phoenix rider. His father is the current commander of the riders, and his rigid, contemporary ways of ruling doesn’t sit well with the riders – especially Tristan. Only men are allowed to become phoenix riders, female riders are forbidden.

We also follow Sev, who is serving as a soldier under the empire that ridded the land of animages. He is lost: he cannot see what is next for him – his parents’ simultaneous deaths, and what they meant, had more than just scared him. They had terrified him. Sev is carrying his own secret, which could cost him his life or give him so much more.


Despite there being some things that I didn’t quite sit with me as well as I would have liked, I still think that Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto is a five star book.


The intertwining narratives of the characters make for a compelling, thrilling and an amazing read! This book is by far one of my favourite reads this year!

Completed with a low burn, enemies to lovers (and then obviously friends before lovers) relationship as well as the complex bond of sisterly love, this book gave me the something that I have been looking for. I don’t (currently) deliberately pick up particular books because they include certain tropes; so the enemies-to-lovers relationship (which is something that I haven’t read in a while) was a nice change to the typical romance aspects in the books I read.

I also really like how despite being told in a third person perspective; it still alternated the point of view in the chapter heading. This is something that is normally only found in first person narrated prose, so this was quite refreshing to see. Also, this helped me with a dilemma I was having with one of my works in progress; it helped to clarify the structure I wanted—so thank you!

One thing I will say, however, is that when Sev was introduced for the first time, I felt like it disrupted the flow of the alternating Veronyka and Tristan plots that I had just gotten to know. Although, now that I have completed it, I do see how his contribution to the plot was significant to the overall narrative – I just feel like he could have been introduced slightly better. Another thing that slightly annoyed me was that when I got a part where Sev was narrating, it again disrupted the flow because both Veronyka’s and Tristan’s plot revolved around the phoenix riders. Though Sev’s narrative did eventually as well (and because he didn’t initially, I guessed that he would eventually meet the other protagonists) it felt like a long time coming.

I originally began reading this in the ebook format but stopped because I wanted to have a physical copy of this so bad! So: I waited, and waited, until my order came from World of Books arrived. Later than I would have preferred, I returned to the CROWN OF FEATHERS journey, the characters welcoming me once again with their usual antics and problematic dilemmas.


DEFINITELY! I absolutely love it!

The only down side is that I have to wait until February to read HEART OF FLAMES.

Don’t worry, I’m crying too.


What's your new favourite read? Let me know in the comments!

Thank you for reading!

Stay awesome,