This Romeo and Juliet-esque story follows two families of traveling performers, the Corbeau and Paloma (crows and doves), who have had a bitter, dangerous rivalry for the last twenty years. The Corbeaus perform as fairies, dancing in the highest branches, and the Palomas perform as mermaids. Both families have just enough magic to make this novel magical realism. After accidentally saving each other on various occasions (without ever learning the other's name) Cluck Corbeau and Lace Paloma are pushed into contact with each other, the only non-violent contact their families have had for years. Both Cluck and Lace are undervalued members of their own families, who the novel spends a lot of time making clear are much more alike than not. Romantic feelings quickly start to develop.
Reading this book is an interesting experience. There were many things that weren't done particularly well: the plot was fairly predictable, the romance seemed in both cases to have very little to do with the other person, there are some details that make me personally pretty uncomfortable (most of which veer into spoiler territory), and I found the ending extremely unsatisfying; yet, overall I still enjoyed reading this book. I believe that it is mostly because the concept is strong enough to carry it through the patches of sub-par writing. The pov characters were strong and the prose itself was quite good, which made this a fun book to read, and I think I'll be thinking of this world for a while.
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