Well, here comes my new favorite romantsy series….

Y’all Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry was so great. I started reading this because all I saw was people talking about this book. I figured if it was talked about THIS much that it had to be good, right? Yep, the masses aren’t wrong. 

You basically get this story of the “backup” princess who doesn’t know how to fight or be royal or be pretty. In a twisted turn of events, she gets picked by the prince instead of her sister (who had been training her entire life to get picked by the prince). So, Odessa, our sweet heroine, is whisked away to Turah to become the new queen (eventually). There, she learns that there are a lot of secrets that no one has told her about and things she still doesn’t know about herself. 

To get into the review for this, the world building for Shield of Sparrows was impeccable. I loved being pulled into this new world with monsters that lurk around and kill people. Not to mention literally ALL of the secrets that Odessa is just completely blindsided by. Her father is super mad that she got chosen instead of her sister because her sister was trained specifically to spy and fight against Turah. And also, Odessa is basically untrained in every way conceivable. 

My favorite characters were honestly Odessa and Evie (who you meet way later in the book and I won’t spoil that until I mention that I’m going into the spoilers 😂). The other characters like Zavier and the Guardian honestly kind of ticked me off at times and I didn’t particularly love the romance in this novel. It was good. It just was… great. 

As far as pacing goes, it gets a little slow at times in the beginning, but once you actually get to Turah with Odessa, things go very quickly from there. It feels like almost every other chapter is a fight with a monster (I’m not complaining; it was genuinely heart pounding). 

Spoilers ahead.

I’m basically going to just list some spoilers so I have something to look back on when I need a refresher for book two 😅:

• Ransom, aka the Guardian, aka the “real” Zavier, is the prince of Turah (saw that one coming). 
• Evie is Zavier’s (the fake one) adopted daughter. Evie’s actual parents, though, are the queen and king (weird dynamic, I know). 
• Ransom’s mom created Lyssa and is now dead (I forgot her name so someone help me out!!)
• Lyssa is poisoning monsters and basically making them rabid. 
• Odessa has this weird necklace that gets tied back to the Crux at the end when one of the Crux is killed and revealed to have major red hair like Odessa. Whether or not that’s Odessa’s mom is another story, but Odessa obviously has something to do with the Crux. 
• The brotherhood magical priest guys obviously know Odessa’s true nature and aren’t saying anything because they disappear at the end of the book. 
• Banner is dead because Odessa killed him. 
• Odessa doesn’t have starburst in her eyes (likely because she has some kind of magic), and Ransom doesn’t have starburst because of the Lyssa. 
• There is very little spice until the end. This doesn’t need to be remembered obviously for the next book, but I know some of you want to know the spice level ☺️.

Overall, my favorite things about this book was all the dang secrets (and the ones that have still not been revealed), our FMC, the pacing, and the FREAKING WORLD BUILDING was the best ever. People aren’t hyping this book up for no reason and I genuinely think that anyone who likes romantsy will like this new series by Devney Perry. Here’s me crossing my fingers that book two for Shield of Sparrows will come out VERY quickly!!

Source: Personal Copy

(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)