“Hawksong” by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

I picked this one up after reading on LibraryThing that it was really good. (If you don’t have a LibraryThing account, you should really get one). The reviews all said it was better than Atwater-Rhodes’s other books, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I wasn’t disappointed by the reviews. This story follows Danica Shardae, the soon-to-be-leader of the avian people, and Zane Cobriana, the soon-to-be-leader of the serpiente people. The two peoples are at war, and have been for as long as everyone can remember. Danica and Zane, tired of the war, go to the tiger people for advice – which is for them to marry, and bring the two peoples together through love.

I was really into the story – it was such an interesting concept, shapeshifters who live as their shapes prefer (birds in high places, snakes in close quarters), but in their human shapes more often than not. My biggest complaint was how Atwater-Rhodes felt the need to invent names for EVERYthing. I wouldn’t consider this a High Fantasy story (like the Lord of the Rings) that would require such extensive naming. It seemed everything was called something else, and then called something else again by the serpiente people. Other than this, I thought it was a good story and I really liked how Zane and Danica ended up. There’s a sequel, which I’ve already put on hold because I give Hawksong a 7.