Page 45 Review by Stephen
I do wish this series didn't make me cry so often.
"I DON'T WANT IT TO BE A PART OF ME! I WANT TO BE NORMAL!"
Oh, Wynd...
"All I want is to wake up one morning, and have small, normal ears, and regular dreams. Maybe I could even... introduce myself to someone like that boy at the castle. That gardener. I don't know his name. Maybe... Maybe I could ask him his name. Maybe we could have a life together."
There I go again....
But I shouldn't be surprised, because this Young Adults edge-of-your-seat entertainment is brought to you by Page 45's best-selling writer, as well as my personal favourite, right now: James Tynion IV of NICE HOUSE BY THE LAKE / SEA, DEVIANT, W0RLDTR33, DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH etc.. Michael Dialynas offers us all manner of exotica, and excels especially when it descends into darkness or tears. Then there's his young main protagonist who soon looks like Raziel from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, complete with impossibly skinny waist, wings and the hugest mop of raven-black hair.
Were I to show you the double-page OMG spread that this comes from... "LET... MY... FRIEND... GO..." I would quadruple sales in a second. But you have to travel there yourselves. Still, it does set the tone, for WYND is allllll about loyalty. Loyalties, and an inevitable betrayal or two.
Adopted as a child, Wynd was born into a world whose tumultuous past of warring factions (humans, Vampires, Faeries, and those in-between) has made magical heritage punishable by death, and Wynd's is betrayed by his ears. Various citadels have forged different alliances but they too are on the brink of being broken and our friends are forced to flee their hometown in search of sanctuary and truth. At every turn their journey is confounded, and their plight may prove compounded as Wynd's nightmares become reality and he begins to transform.
Spoiled princes, devoted subjects, the self-sacrifice of parents, monsters disguised as men, ruthless, brutish physical power and private agendas... plus, tellingly and delightfully, each book contains a wholly different semi-religious history of the land, depending on who harbours it.
