This is book 2 of the series. If you’d like to read our review of book 1, Shield of Sparrows, check out this link!
Book Stats
- Series: Book 2 of the Shield of Sparrows series
- Publication Date: 04/07/26
- Publishers: Entangled: Red Tower Books (ebook) & Recorded Books (audiobook)
- Format: ebook & audiobook (immersive read)
- Chapters: 63
- Pages: 594
- Narrators: Jason Clarke, Samantha Brentmoor, & Megan Wicks
- Length of audiobook: 17 hours & 23 minutes
- Narrator POV: 1st person POV, alternating primarily between Caspia and Odessa, with one chapter from Ransom’s POV and one from Andreas’s
- Available on Kindle Unlimited 🖤
Book Rating
Overall:⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5
Spice: 🌶️🌶️ /5
Summary & Review
First off, the cover is gorgeous and I just love it. I think it would look beautiful on my bookshelf and that alone made me excited to start the book. Did I read book 1 and love it? Yes. And are we supposed to judge books by their covers? No. But I 100% do and this one increased my excitement to read the book!
If book covers don’t impact you so strongly, then I’m sorry you don’t get to experience the thrill of seeing a beautiful/ intriguing cover. 🥺
Alright, in this book we have dual timelines happening. We follow the adventures of Odessa, as well as Caspia. Odessa, after the ending of Shield of Sparrows, is traveling with the Voster toward Quentis, to get Evie to a safe place before the Crux migration. We also have Caspia, a princess of Nelfinex, from the continent of Kenn. She is part of the Starling bloodline – women who have magic in their veins and can shift into animals after completing their ritus. However, the ritus does not call to all Starlings and even if it does, it could result in their death. But those who succeed are able to shift into various creatures and that’s pretty cool.
Between both princesses, we see a lot of adventure and intense situations. We get to meet a bunch of new characters along the way and get a more detailed history of Calandra, its magic, Lyssa, and Odessa’s lineage.
For this book, I decided to do an immersive read. I borrowed the ebook on Kindle Unlimited and purchased the audiobook on Audible. I’m happy to report that this one was recorded as a duet narration, so we got a lot more Jason Clarke. He voiced the men in the series and did a fantastic job. He has the perfect voice for Ransom. Samantha Brentmoor continued rocking her roles and bringing to life the women in the story, as well as little Evie. She really does a great kid voice for that child. We also got a new narrator added into the story – Megan Wicks. I hadn’t had the pleasure of hearing her narrate before this, but she did a wonderful job with Caspia’s chapters, and she was very easy to listen to!
So basically, the narration was superb.
And of course, the writing was just as lovely as book 1, Shield of Sparrows. Devney Perry does a wonderful job with her descriptions and monologues. It really brings the entire story to life in such a fun way.
This story doesn’t have much Ransom until about halfway through, but don’t worry! We get to meet Jodhi, who is essentially another sarcastic, smirking book boyfriend who keeps us a bit entertained until Ransom returns to the pages. I actually really enjoyed Jodhi’s character and would love some more backstory on him.
There is a bit more smexy time on page than there was in book 1, though many scenes are pretty vague, with only a few being more detailed. I think it was well done and contributed to the relationships that were developing between characters.
I did find that even with the dual timelines, the story dragged at times and felt a bit repetitive. I mean, how many times is Odessa going to be attacked by creatures? (This happened in book 1 as well, so not really a spoiler) I know they’re drawn to her or whatever, but it felt like it happened every one of her chapters and it kinda lost its thrilling aspect due to being overdone.
I also didn’t really have any shocking “Wow” moments because I felt like some of the plot points that are revealed at the end were kind of obvious. I won’t give details, so I don’t spoil anything, but I guessed all the big twists, though there were a few smaller ones that I hadn’t expected (such as who was Hain/Brother Hain?) and those were fun.
Additionally, I would’ve loved more chapters from Ransom’s POV (there was only 1) to show us his part of the journey just because we spent so much time getting to know his character in book 1 that it felt odd to have so little of him for half this book.
Ultimately, those reasons are why I settled on 4 stars instead of 5. The book was still beautifully written and the ending was a nice little cliffhanger that has me impatiently waiting for book 3. 🖤
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