Well crafted characters and perfectly paced plot. My only criticism is the relationship between characters isn't as well built up as I would have liked.

A Palace Near the Wind felt very much like a fever dream. It’s a quick read set in an interesting world with several odd elements and a plot that kept me guessing. It wasn’t necessarily my favorite type of book to read, but it was definitely a unique story. I think most fantasy readers would find some enjoyment in this, especially if you find yourself gravitating towards more experimental writing.

Thanks to Titan Books, NetGalley, and the author for sending me an early copy!

It was cute! Though I can’t help but say I found the characters a bit flat, and the third act somewhat disappointing, I think it has a lot of potential. I can’t wait to see what this author does next.

Jiang writes A Palace Near the Wind like a storybook tale, readers of T. Kingfisher’s Thornhedge and Elizabeth Lim’s Six Crimson Cranes will enjoy this book and it’s mysterious introduction to the Natural Engines novella duology. The concepts in this story are intriguing; nature being threatened by the humans seeking to advance technology with some ghibliesque travelling contraptions, curious people and an elder daughters duty to her family and land.

A Palace Near the Wind is told solely through protagonist Lufeng’s point of view. Descriptions and explanations are through her understanding and her feelings, which clouded comprehension of the people and world for the reader. Throughout this book the reader is forced to rely on the perception of the world told, the well known fight between nature and technology, rather than it being explained which sadly made the plot feel simple yet convoluted.

Unfortunately the world wasn’t developed enough to give a better grasp of what these concepts really looked like. At first I visualised a steampunk setting with character names coming from metals but the rather harsh mentions of modern technology felt tacked on and out of place. The inclusion of all these raw materials, bark, metals, bone etc. were great ideas but as basic descriptors confused the visual imagery of the story. The concept of this book is interesting and has potential however it was underdeveloped and needed more direction.

I wanted to enjoy this one more but it fell a bit flat for me, in the end it’s the ideas within this book—the materials and Ghibli style imagery—that I found compelling. I’m looking forward to seeing how the second book will flush out the world, its characters and the overarching plot.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

[DNF AT 30%]

I really wanted to love this book. The prose is very beautiful and flowery, but that does not work in its favor. At times, it is hard for me to follow what is going on, and I have no investment in the characters, the worldbuilding, or the given circumstances.

I am intrigued enough to keep a closer eye on book two! This is a shorter work- less than 200 pages and I applaud Jiang for her ability to immerse us in a world in such a short amount of time. The imagery and world building felt really descriptive, so much so that I almost was lost with the plot.

The story follows Liu Lufeng who comes from Feng, a civilization in sky with a group of tree Ent-like people who are being manipulated and exploited by the human realm below. The keep the human realm from expanding into Feng, Liu must become a bride to the human king who (kind of confusingly also married her mother and her older sisters?). She seeks to find them and also plots to assassinate the king, stopping the end to the exploitation. There are definitely themes of exploitation, animal cruelty, globalization/technological expansion, environmental health, and sacrifice.

Definitely would make a stunning Studio Ghibli film!

There is a diverse cast of magic in this book, such as water shifters which I HOPE book two A River in the Sky will focus more on.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Titan books for my arc in exchange for my review!

Studio Ghibli meets Attack on Titan in this wildly original science-fantasy.

"I would show the King what it was like to have his home threatened, to feel attacked, to be afraid. And I would mock his terror in silence."

Liu Lufeng, is part of a people who live within nature, she has a bark face and braided branches instead of hair. She is arranged to marry a human prince who lives in a castle made of bone. She plans to kill him at the wedding, until something unexpected is revealed to her.

I am obsessed with Ai's writing style. It's like I'm there with Lufeng on this highly emotional journey and never lets up pace.

This is the first book in the Natural Engines duology, and Ai did an amazing job setting up the characters and the stakes. I can't wait to find out how Lufeng will overcome the threats to herself and her family.

What to expect:
🍃 Dark sci-fantasy adventure
🍃 Oppression and rebellion
🍃 Amazing worldbuilding
🍃 Studio Ghibli x Attack on Titan vibes
🍃 Gorgeously written
🍃 Eco-trauma

This book is best read while wiping sap from your eyes, and hiding your knife.

The cover is beautiful, and the title and concept are also beautiful. Overall, the story has the potential to be a good fantasy, but the characters felt underdeveloped. There was a certain something missing. Additionally, I found the magic system confusing and felt it wasn't well-developed, especially since both the people and the magic system shared the same name.

When dark secrets and pure hearts collide, destiny takes flight.

In Ai Jiang’s A Palace Near the Wind, a delicate narrative unfurls like a map drawn in the soft breath of a mysterious breeze. The story beckons with a lyrical promise, drawing readers into a world where family bonds, deception, and the quiet revolution of dreams interlace with pointed social commentary. The novella explores profound themes of the roles of women and society’s expectations of them, as well as the transformative power of education and a deep communion with nature.

Liu Lufeng, whose portrayal is nothing short of exquisite, anchors the tale with a compelling presence—even as the surrounding cast and richly imagined world yearn for deeper emotional resonance. Though its world-building and character arcs could have soared to even greater heights, this novella remains a delightful, thought-provoking journey—a four-star gem that hints at the full brilliance within, inviting lovers of the genre to step into its windswept corridors and explore more of Ai Jiang’s captivating narrative universe.

My heartfelt gratitude goes out to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with the eARC of this enchanting book.

3.5 stars for this novella. This is (I think?) climate fiction. Lufent is a princess (again ??) of the Wind Travelers, a vaguely botanical people. She and her sisters are being married off every 5 to 10 years to keep their natural world free from "progress." But once Lufeng's turn as a bride arrives, she'll learn that she's been kept in ignorance about her true background and role.

The prose is purposely opaque; in the first person, Lufeng throws around lots of terms she's familiar with but the reader isn't. But also, Lufeng is completely clueless about her political role, so the reader is also thrown into the deep end there.

I'll be honest and say that I was super confused about everything that I read. Was this an allegorical novella that I was just missing the metaphors to? Is it just a vague dystopia that ends with some nebulous hope? I honestly can't say. But - it's short and I didn't consider a DNF!

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novella.

A Palace Near the Wind has a learning curve I wasn't quite prepared for, but by the end it won me over. Like other reviewers, I wondered about Ents and arranged marriages and marrying the same person as your mother and sisters...but when you get comfortable with that incredibly uncomfortable plot is the same time the author teaches our narrator how to read, and of course that changes everything.
I enjoyed this novella more than I thought I would. I still feel on shaky legs with the world building, but I am very curious. I want to know more about this place and its complex politics. I would definitely read a follow up from this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC!

Thank you to Titan books and the author for an ARC of this novel.

The first novel in the Natural Engines duology invites us into the world of Liu Lufeng, on of the Feng people, who have bark faces, carved limbs and other tree like features who can control the wind. Liu is going to marry the human king for her people to keep their land and prevent expansion of the human’s mechanical advances. Once she arrives, she soon realizes that circumstances are more dire than she expected, and she needs to think quick and work with the right allies to help the Feng people.

Ai Jiang is one of my new favourite authors. Every time I read one of her novellas or short stories, I don’t know what I’m going to get. Some lean more fantasy, some horror and others sci-fi. A Palace Near the Wind blended all three quite beautifully, and it’s convenient that those are my three favourite genres. Going into reading this, I felt I would enjoy it and I was not wrong! At first, I had to really focus to make sure I understood the ins and outs of this world. That’s the only downside to a fantasy novella is that the introduction happens quick!

After that, the story flowed and was very easy to follow. There are unique pieces of the culture, characters and the world that really pop and it blows my mind a little bit when someone can think of such a distinct and creative world. I loved the Feng people and the Travellers. Those types of designs will stick with me for a while.

Despite the short length, there are still moments of excitement and twists that had me flipping the pages quickly to learn what happens next. I can’t wait to read the second novella in this duology to see what is going to happen next!

A fantasy novella with plenty of interesting ideas and compelling things to say, weakened by aspects of the writing itself.

Its themes are laid out early on in the imagery of the King’s machine-vehicles tearing up the land, and the desire of protagonist Lufeng (who, like her mother and sisters before her, is to be married to him) to visit the King’s own violence on himself. Its imagery—metal skin versus bark skin, wax candles versus glowing insects, wind-breath language versus gear-grinding language—drives a sharp dichotomy between the land of Feng’s treelike Wind Walkers and the Palace’s human Land Wanderers. This is very much a theme-forward story. As a metaphor for colonialism and ecological destruction, the book is rarely subtle. Does it have to be?

Well. In a story of less than 200 pages (even the first half of a duology), there’s neither the time nor the space for a slow reveal of the setting, but some early exposition feels less than graceful. The repeated juxtaposition of Palace customs against Feng ones begins to grate. The terseness of the writing style combined with the surreal details of the world makes for an intriguing opening… but the intrigue wears off, and the prose begins to feel unpolished, simplistic, and clunky. Subtext and subtlety are often absent.

Other reviewers have commented on certain elements of the plot leaving them repulsed—this is almost certainly intentional. Without spoiling anything, this story is about the ways in which a system enmeshes those it victimises within itself. If a reader is disturbed by the ways Jiang represents that, then the author has done her job in that respect at least.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

A Palace Near the Wind has so many things I love, from a people living close to nature to a mysterious technologically advanced culture, from a stunning cover to a "I'm gonna kill the man I'm forced to marry"-plot. And yet, while this novella is full of intriguing ideas and concepts, I struggled with it quite a bit. Thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novella in exchange for an honest review.

Liu Lufeng is the latest princess of Feng to be given in marriage to the human king of the palace. As her bridewealth means a brief stop to the palace's incursion into Feng, perhaps it will be worth it. She has plenty of plans however, including finding her mother and sisters and, perhaps, finding a way to break this agreement by killing the king. Lufeng is bound to the palace and over the days and weeks she is there, she uncovers secrets and hidden pacts which change what she thought she knew about her world. The Feng are tree-like creatures, deeply connected to nature and the wind, while the humans of the palace are technology-minded. This clash between nature and technology is a big theme in A Palace Near the Wind and much of it is beautifully described. Jiang's descriptions of Feng are stunning and the palace itself, with all its contraptions, is also very intriguing. So much of this novella is full of promise and yet somehow it fell a little flat for me. There is, for example, clearly a history between Feng and the other countries (realms, nations, cities?) but throughout the novella, I did not ever get a clear picture of the world. I don't know how big any of these places are, how they are connected, etc. It might be that this is because the second novella of the Natural Engines duology will fill some of this in, or we are meant to identify with Lufeng's more limited knowledge, but it frustrated me a little. This was also a shame because, as I said above, so much of the world is intriguing and yet I never felt like a got a foothold in it.

This was my first time reading anything by Ai Jiang and there are so many intriguing things she put into A Palace Near the Wind. Maybe because I was so hyped by the premise I ended up being more disappointed than I would otherwise have been. I cannot, however, entirely put my finger on what it is that didn't work for me. A lot of it was really imaginative and beautifully written so on that level of craft, all was good. Structurally, however, I felt like there were issues. For example, the amount of time passing was unclear to me. Jiang uses different terms for days, weeks, and years, something I actually love from a world-building perspective, so that wasn't the issue. Rather, there was an urgency to some moments, a tension of things needing to happen ASAP, and then days would pass almost without comment? I also struggled a little with the characterisation, especially of Lufeng. She is oddly naive, I feel, for the position she is meant to have within the novella. Part of this is also the writing, which seems to insist on laying out, literally, what is intended. Either Ai Jiang doesn't trust the reader to work this out for themselves or this is part of her writing style. Lufeng, for example, will have realisations and spell them out for the reader and, for me at least, it robs these moments of a certain depth. It is overt telling, rather than showing. Because I enjoy the world Ai Jiang creates here, I will be reading the second novella of Natural Engines when it comes out. For that reason, that despite the issues I'm still intrigued, I've upped by rating to a three.

A Palace Near the Wind is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, it is beautiful and stunning, full of interesting ideas, themes, and images. On the other, however, I had issues with how it was structured and some of the writing.

The world of A Palace Near the Wind is something I'm not sure I'll get over. It's such a unique premise that I cannot wait to see more of in the sequel. There's this interesting exploration of the destruction of nature and the pace of 'development', 'industrialization'. What will we sacrifice, and how will we change, for the sake of the 'future'. A Palace Near the Wind examines the personal, the community, and the world through this lens. What little pieces of ourselves, our culture, our community, do we have to sacrifice?

This book wasn't like I pictured it from the summary and the cover, but I'm not complaining at all.

This duology named "Natural Engines" starts very strong and maybe a little too fast. I would have liked it better if the book was more detailed and the story diluted into more pages. But overall, I found this book's concept and idea very interesting and original. I also think that, even if we're clearly talking about a fantasy story, this plot can be considered very close to some major historical and ethical problems. I can confidently say this since the main theme that the reader notices while reading is the great and important dilemma of the human technology and progress versus Mother nature and wonders.

I found very interesting every character of this story:
- Lufeng has always been an obedient daughter and never doubted what others teached her, but she starts to evolve and take the lead in her own life, yearning for freedom and justice;
- Zinc is charming and eccentric in his own way, and I immediately considered him someone to keep an eye on;
- same goes for Copper, but for different reasons because I had the impression that her cold attitude hid something else;
- I found the Grandmother suspicious right away, didn't know why, just a gut feeling;
- my favourite is, at least for now, Geyser: I find him interesting and with a lot of potential and I hope to see him blossom even more in the next book.

I'm not a fan of the first-person narration, but I have to say that I didn't hate the way this book was narrated. I think the first-person fits well the story.

I also want to say that I'm totally fascinated with this book's worldbuilding concept. Words are very powerful and I loved how the author named every contraption, character and place. And I love how they're thought out and described.

★★★★(4.5 Stars)

Princess Liu Lufeng, a member of the Wind Walkers, humanoid beings made of wood who live in harmony with nature. She’s chosen to become the next bride of the human king as part of a deal to save her homeland. Lufeng enters the palace with one mission: kill the king and save her people and home. However, nothing is as it seems inside the palace walls, the truth, deception, and difficult choices await Lufeng...

This novella completely swept me away. In less than 200 pages, Ai Jiang covered so many heavy themes such as environmentalism, colonialism, and the eternal clash between nature and industrial progress. In Lufeng’s eyes, we witness the closing in of her home, the strength of a people to do what it takes to protect their homeland, and the delicate balance of preservation and change.

The worldbuilding is stunning and the concept of the Feng people is both fresh, unique and original. This story felt like something new. Something necessary that will leave you consumed in thought long after you’ve closed the book.
Overall this was a refreshing and thought provoking read, and I can't wait for book two.

Thank you Titan Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5

I confess I picked this novel out because of the beautiful cover. I'm not really a fantasy fan but often find the sweeping nature of them interesting. It's always nice to sink your teeth into a series.

As this is the first of a series I'd expected quite a lot more explanation but we're thrown in at the deep end beginning with the joining of Feng of the Wind Walkers to the King. Previously her mother and younger sisters have all been married to the King and Feng has no knowledge if they are still alive in the Palace the King inhabits.

There are lots of strands to this story which will no doubt, be explained and evolve through the series. It isn't always easy to say if you'll like it from the first one as there is usually a lot of scene setting.

So you should know that there are lots of different peoples who have different skills. The Wind Walkers which Feng comes from appear to be the hardest hit, having to make alliances with the King to prevent their land being destroyed.

There are quite a few twists in this first novel and the writing is good. It's not a long book so just enough to whet your appetite. I enjoyed it despite not being a particular fan of the genre.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Titan Books for the advance review copy.

Well-written and fast read! It's a unique world with complex issues between the different groups of people. I loved that many of the characters were imperfect; the "good guys" had their flaws and the "villains" of the story had justification for their actions as well.

3.5 stars
This was such an imaginative and unique read that packs a punch, considering it's only small, at around 190 pages! The world-building was intriguing, and I really liked our main character, Feng. She was incredibly strong-willed and determined to protect the ones she loves.

I will admit that I struggled a bit with imagining the characters, but I saw a review that said about visualising it like an animated movie, and this really helped me. Once I had done this, I found myself enjoying the story more and found it more engaging.

This is the first book in the Natural Engines series, and I'm intrigued to see where this story takes us and to learn more about these characters and this world.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.