In the Mood for Some Paranormal YA-Fantasy? Try "A Flight of Broken Wings"

I have never been the one to wish to be able to fly in the skies, but Nupur Chowdhury’s A Flight of Broken Wings sure made me think about how cool it would be to have a pair of huge, beautiful wings with which I can float around and which look like those on the awesome cover, my god, look at the beauty of that!

Because in Chowdhury’s universe this is possible. Well at least, for creatures called Aeriels, an ancient, human-like species, beautiful bird people, who are similar enough to humans that they’re compatible with each other sexually and personally, but at the same time so different in their natures to incite great wars.

In fact, so big is the enmity between the two species that humans regularly celebrate a so-called “Emancipation Day”, the first victory of a human platoon against an Aeriel stronghold; spend significant amounts of energy and resources in developing a special weapon called sif that can effectively kill Aerials (who are energy beings and thus unaffected by conventional weapons) and finally maintain political and military units dedicated to combatting and destroying the ancient beings. One of these military units are the Aeriel Hunters and the absolute superstar among the hunters is the young and talented Ruban Kinoh.

The story of this first installment of the Aerial Chronicles focuses on Ruban and a mysterious visitor from a strange Kingdom, Lord Ashwin Kwan of the Zain People, trying to solve the source and the mystery of a new sif-formula which exceeds any other sif in lethality. Not everybody is honest though, and there are quite a few twists and turns and obscure interests that keep the suspense alive until the very last page.  

Nupur Chowdhury’s writing is clear, the text has a good flow and the story kept me interested and absorbed at all times. The real strength of A Flight of Broken Wings, though, is how successfully fleshed out most characters were and although I never would have thought I’d read and enjoy a young adult bromance, but well, here we are.

Which brings me to the one and only aspect I will criticize; it was a little too much male focused and I don’t really enjoy the too black and white, “absolutely evil woman who uses her sexuality to realize her rotten plans” trope. The antagonist here was, contrary to the other characters, very one-sided, very predictable and I wished it had been a more complex personality.

The technology in this universe is a point that I think could have been elaborated a little more deeply – to be precise, sif and the science behind it. The idea of an energy consuming material is awesome and bears so much potential, that I think goes a little untapped here. Also, Aeriels being energy beings and the consequences of that is a concept that is well invented but that too could have been taken a little further. I would have loved it if Chowdhury had really blasted off and filled us with some complex pseudo-science to back the premise.  

Amongst all the doom and gloom I'm reading it's sure nice to read some escapist young adult every now and then and if it's a good one like this, all the better. All in all, I enjoyed reading this urban fantasy about awesome bird people and I’m happy the second book is already out! My thanks to the author and the publisher for providing me a review copy.