A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang

I would like to thank Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan

Published – Out now

Price – £12.99 hardback £6.99 ebook

Liu Lufeng is the eldest princess of the Feng royalty and, bound by duty and tradition, the next bride to the human king. With their bark faces, arms of braided branches and hair of needle threads, the Feng people live within nature, nurtured by the land. But they exist under the constant threat of human expansion, and the negotiation of bridewealth is the only way to stop— or at least delay—the destruction of their home. Come her wedding day, Lufeng plans to kill the king and finally put an end to the marriages.

Trapped in the great human palace in the run-up to the union, Lufeng begins to uncover the truth about her people’s origins and realizes they will never be safe from the humans. So she must learn to let go of duty and tradition, choose her allies carefully, and risk the unknown in order to free her family and shape her own fate.

There is a lot of debate as to whether a review needs to spoil the reader. In many ways reviews are designed to spoil you. We tell you the plot points, what we like and do not so that you go in with some preconceptions – some of which you then agree with and others you do not. There is one school of thought that the review should be prepared to discuss everything in the story to really grapple with how it works or not and tell you it all as a book should work even if you know the big spoilers. I think I take the view that as I’m often in the privileged position of early access to a story it seems a shame I can’t leave some things for readers to experience the reveal being just as much in the dark as I was when I first turned the pages. This is long way of saying that when it comes to reviewing Ai Jiang’s fascinating fantasy novella A palace Near The Wind this is going to be difficult because this is a story where we like the main character starts to find the entire world is not quite what they thought it was. What seems a simple folk tale retelling becomes a much more complex tale in so so many ways.

Liu Lufeng is Feng loyalty amongst the Wind Walkers of the forests, a race of tree-like beings who live as one with nature and natural beauty but are increasingly threatened by an ever-expanding human settlement concreting and changing the world with technology. The solution to prevent more of the land being destroyed has been to marry one of the royal family to the human King. Lufeng’s mother and two sisters have already been married and have vanished into the mysterious palace and now it is Lufeng’s time to be married to stop a further encroachment. She says goodbye to her youngest sister and beloved grandmother, but nothing will prepare her for the strange sights of the Palace, their love of nature and how much of the world is not quite what it seems

Based on the summary above you may be thinking ah this is a folk story retelling a noble sacrifice and a bridge between two worlds? The first act certainly supports it we get Lufeng’s perspective, her emotional investment in saving her family and the beautifully described world of the Win Walkers whose non-human nature focused world is drawn beautifully in contrast to the human city dwellers who use machines, wreck land in their strange crawling devices and live in walls of bone and it feels lifeless as does the enigmatic king we meet who just sees the marriage as a political alignment. If this was a simpler tale no doubt LuFeng’s heart would melt the human word and all would be well? Jiang though much prefers to instead surprise us constantly with revelations that start to make Lufeng and the reader realise this world is not at all what we have seen in other such types of stories. The revelation of the King and their agenda is fantastically delivered and that is a reveal you deserve as readers to experience as a shock yourself its really well done and instantly darkens the whole tale.

Talking more obliquely this is a story about how two worlds collide and is a metaphor about how people can be both tempted, managed and controlled into living a very different type of life to the ones they knew. Lufeng gets shocked into a world where people eat meat, wear clothes and use technology. Some of which is horrific for her - the description of her eating a formerly living creature that likely dwelled in her first is shown to us as a moment of horror, but you can also see what for some this is a world of new experiences and delights that allows people to change and expand. But there may also be a cost too. This is a world of surveillance and one that has a lot of secret controls in place. What is the human interest in the Wind Walkers and as we find out there are more element based races around and how do they all interact together? We are moving from a folk tale of two very different worlds to a much more complex story of how a big empire can entice and subdue those of the countries it seeks to control and the price it demands if you want to experience these advantages. There are questions of cultural identity, power and control plus the ways we can try to resist and unite to oppose this. The latter half of the book is Lufeng trying to do the best for her family and people and finding exactly how big and powerful her enemies now are. It also raises questions on how her own world has been managing these situations and the pain that has itself caused her own family. This is very much a story of a young woman discovering the cruel truths of her wider world and deciding if she is prepared to follow what is expected of her or not. It very much is a book setting up its second volume but the set pieces and the tensions that erupt mean by the end we are all invested and aware more revelations and sacrifices are very likely to come.

It works very much with Jiang’s use of language in the early parts of the story that really make the Wind Walker world appear so ideal and with LuFeng’s voice we feel her anxiousness about her situation and the fates of her missing family. But the hidden depths of this world slowly emerge surprising Lufeng and watching her react to these events has more shades of horror and even dystopian drama than the first act appears to suggest. We are so used to having a princess trapped in a gilded cage in some stories this story though asks what if the whole world was the one actually entrapped. There are real world analogies with how power corrupts but also tempts its inhabitants to obey the rulers of it, that I find very well handled and am very intrigued what is in store for the final instalment.

A Palace near the Wind is not what you may think it looks like from the early chapters. Its delightfully complex and surprising the journey it takes its characters and readers on. A seemingly straightforward folk tale that hides some razor blades within it and takes us on a much darker and interesting look at the power of control and how it works subtly and with force. Hugely engaging and a further reminder Ai Jiang is an author to watch out for. Strongly recommended!