Full review up on the blog: http://gloriousbooks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/review-black-feathers-by-joseph-d.html

This is probably going to be a really short review since I found it really hard to like this book.



This is usually my kind of book. The creepy kind of read that is full of suspense and weird happenings. I was actually really excited to read it without having any sort of high hopes or big expectations.



I just couldn't get into it. I found it incredibly difficult to connect to any of the characters for some reason. I thought they were lacking personality and substance that would make me care about what happened to them and the journey they were beginning to undertake.



However, I thought the story itself was pretty good. The idea behind it and what actually happens was great. It just didn't work for me when I didn't like the characters.



I have to say though, I know a lot of people will love this book. It has the right settings and happenings for a really creepy story. I would recommend you at least try it and hopefully you'll enjoy it even if I didn't.

This review first appeared on my blog Bart's Bookshelf.

“When the final days came, it was said that Satan walked the Earth in the guise of a crow. Those who feared him called him Scarecrow or sometimes Black Jack. I know him as the Crowman”

So opens the story within Black Feathers. Listening to this one on an audiobook, was definitely the right decision, the style of writing and Simon Vance’s telling of Gordan and Meghan’s stories, made it feel a little like listen to a bard of old, spin a yarn.

We follow our two main characters, Gordan and Meghan though two very different time periods, Gordon’s where the world is on the brink of apocalypse, the environment is failing, and a dictator style leadership in the process of taking over. When his parents are ‘collected’ Gordan is left on his own, his only chance is to find the Crowman, for good or bad.

Megan’s story is many years later, in the time of the Bright Day. It is many years later, but her journey in learning Gordan’s story, is just as caught up in the Crowman’s.

Despite having teen protagonists this is definitely a story for older readers, often quite dark and disturbing, I’ve seen the odd comparison to Stephen King about the writing, and while I’m not experienced enough of King’s writing to agree, I think that those that are old enough to read the horror master, are likely the right age to try this one.

Megan and Gordon are both compelling leads, and you’ll feel for Gordan in particular, as all he knows is stripped away from him, that’s not to say Megan’s journey is any less meaningful, but her’s is by choice, where as Gordan’s is not.

The supporting cast is also peppered with some strong and interesting characters, especially the elderly Keeper, who is Megan’s guide for her journey.

It’s funny, it could be argued that not a lot happens in terms of plot development at least, but this, the first book in the duology, is all about the asking of questions, and the story we do get is compelling enough for it not to be an issue.

It won’t be long before I make a start on The Book of the Crowman so I can follow Megan and Gordon’s journey to the end, and to discover whether The Crowman is for good or ill.

This book started slow, and then descended into chaos and WTF-ery around the halfway point, with such delights as

Spoiler

rape and crucifixion against a tree, attempted rape and fucking a hole in the ground.

I know this is classed as a horror, but it wasn't scary, it was just gross.


Basically:

better late than never i guess....

4.5 Stars

Beautiful dark fantasy!

The story is told from two POV and set in two different times. While at times it was rather slow, I enjoyed the way the entire novel was paced, it has a slow steady flow to it. I loved how the two MC, living in different times, experiencing completely different things, still were connected by the same thread and how things slowly unfolded.

The two MCs, Megan and Gordon, are both adolescents who are embarking on a journey of change and discovery. They are connected by their destiny despite a century of difference. I personally found myself more drawn to Megan, but I think partly because Gordon went through a much bigger and stranger change. They are both extremely well written characters and I felt I got to know much about them, but more so I took part in the growth and changes the went through. By the way this is written in 3rd person, so in my opinion it's even harder to bring these things across to the reader. D'Lacey did an incredible job at it.
In fact all characters are written with much insight and are extremely well developed!

The world-building is really well done. I think it's one of my favorite things about the book Megan's time and Gordon's time have such a vast difference that in a way D'Lacey did create two worlds and cleverly connected them. While Gordon's time has a dystopian feel to it, Megan's is more medieval. I really like how they are interlinked and make slowly sense and how in a way either could be real.
The bits about the Crowman are beautiful mystic and enticing. They are so well written they feel like part of real mythology.

The prose was beautiful, dark and a testament to D'Lacey skills as an author.

A wonderful new series, for me it's a must read for dystopia and classic fantasy lovers. I already put the second book on my wishlist for next year

Meagan's journey seemed to lack an antagonist and Gordon's climactic revelations seemed to simply blatantly state information the reader already knew from subtext. However, Black Feathers was still deeply engaging, the world building was well done, and the two stories wove themselves together nicely.

This is quite a unique story in the way it’s told and who the characters are. I enjoyed it a lot. It was my first book by him, and I need the sequel to this now.

Won in the Goodreads Giveaways

If you've ever wondered what the result would be like if Neil Gaiman wrote a post-apocalyptic fable that attempted to rehabilitate the character of Damien Thorn, look no further than Black Feathers.

Gordon Black, one of the two protagonists of Black Feathers, is not precisely Damien, but the circumstances of and mysteries surrounding his birth are just as ominous and prophecy-burdened as that famous son-of-the-devil, and one would spend a lot of the story wondering if he couldn't really be just as evil* -- were it not for the other narrative, concerning the other protagonist, one Megan Maurice, a child living generations later than Damien, who grew up in the pastoral/agricultural paradise of the "Bright Day" following the "Black Dawn" that ended Damien's (and our) mechanized, industrialized, computerized world. From Megan's perspective, Gordon is a more of a messiah than an antichrist, a psychopomp set to guide her to revelations about an archetypal figure known as the Crowman, in whose power lies the salvation of the Bright Day world.

The novel alternates between Gordon's story of escape and pursuit as his world comes to an end, and Megan's pursuit of Gordon's story through a series of shamanistic escapades, because keeping Gordon's story alive in the minds of her people is vital to the continued well-being of Megan's community and the land it stewards, land only recently recovered from the Sheep Look Up devastations of pollution, overfarming, etc. visited on it by Gordon's people (i.e. us). The mystery of why this is so is kept artfully from us, so we wind up very much empathizing with both children, neither of whom has a clear idea of what is expected of them, both of whom are motivated by a sincere earnestness, a desire to do right by the people who love them. As clueless as they, we trip along with them, carried by some very graceful prose and imagery, and the wonderful ambiguity of the Crowman they both seek. Is the Crowman, cast by tradition as an evil, Satanic figure in black, good or evil? Or is he simply the amoral avatar of the earth itself, memorably depicted early on as "shaking off" humanity like a bad case of fleas as Gordon's world comes to its miserable end? There is an edge of brutality to him/it, as well there should be -- nature red in tooth and claw and all that. He is as compelling a figure as the archetypal Green Man which inspired him, and I want more of him, and of his prophet/harbinger/servant/avatar Gordon.

Alas, while Gordon is a vivid and sympathetic character, whose plight (trying to keep one step ahead of the totalitarian Ward -- government, police and military rolled into one New World Order nightmare -- who have "collected" his family and are using them as bait to lure him into their clutches) and coming of age are gripping and deeply felt, Megan is much, much less so. Megan is basically a Lemmiwinks, pushed through her plot line by the urging and instruction of others, proceeding from peril to peril in pursuit of her destiny as someone who has to tell someone else's story. I couldn't even hate her, like I so often hate weak/helpless females in fantasy stories, because there is nothing of her to hate. Her adventures are wonderfully (and sometimes shockingly) described, but then, so were those of a certain gerbil. One hopes she'll develop more in the sequel.

For sequel there shall be. By novel's end, it becomes obvious that these nearly 400 pages have all basically been prologue. And preaching. Lots of preaching in this novel. But it's all in the service of good solid stuff that apparently can't be repeated enough -- give back as much as you take, respect the land and its gifts that make your life possible, treat people as you would be treated -- and the preaching is never really overdone at any one point, and, as I hope I've conveyed by now, really beautifully, even lyrically done. Black Feathers has the feel of myth; it feels old and familiar and well-known even as it also feels fresh and inventive and original. Neat trick, that.

*Megan's story is hardly our only hint that Gordon's specialness is a good thing, of course. The fact that he is being hunted down by the totalitarian Ward people tells us so, as well, but I've chased enough literary red herrings in my day that I no longer feel comfortable accepting obvious villains at face value anymore, generally speaking. Of course, the fact that the two Ward Sheriff's who first come after Gordon are dead spits for Croup and Vandemar lend weight to the idea that the reader is supposed to perceive them as totes evil, which really just tells me that I way overthought my reading, here.

The author executed pretty adroitly the telling of two parallel stories where Megan and Gordon look for the mythical messiah-like Crowman in two different times. The book stands alone quite well but I'm looking forward to reading the next instalment.
I'll post a review on Speculative Book Review blog soon.