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Palaces of the Crow
Not yet published
Expected 21 May 26June 1941, Eastern Europe
As the German blitzkrieg tears across a divided continent, four young lives are thrown into Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a scientist; Czesław, an underage Polish deserter fleeing the Red Army; Kezia, a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization; and a nameless,, abandoned boy who cannot speak.
Driven deep into the Lithuanian woods, they form an unbreakable bond with one another and with a flock of crows whose uncanny intelligence hints at a secret older and stranger than they could ever have imagined.
From the Locus and Hugo Award-winning author Ray Nayler, this haunting novel blends history and speculative wonder into a story of survival, loyalty and the fragile beauty of life in the darkest of times.
As the German blitzkrieg tears across a divided continent, four young lives are thrown into Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a scientist; Czesław, an underage Polish deserter fleeing the Red Army; Kezia, a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization; and a nameless,, abandoned boy who cannot speak.
Driven deep into the Lithuanian woods, they form an unbreakable bond with one another and with a flock of crows whose uncanny intelligence hints at a secret older and stranger than they could ever have imagined.
From the Locus and Hugo Award-winning author Ray Nayler, this haunting novel blends history and speculative wonder into a story of survival, loyalty and the fragile beauty of life in the darkest of times.
Kindle Edition
Expected publication May 19, 2026
10 people are currently reading
505 people want to read
About the author
Ray Nayler
85 books1,107 followersHugo and Locus Award winning author Ray Nayler was born in Quebec and raised in California. He lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and in Vietnam.
Ray's Locus Award winning first novel was The Mountain in the Sea, which was also a finalist for the Nebula, the Arthur C. Clarke, and the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Awards.
Ray's novella The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award, and was also a Nebula and Locus Award finalist.
His third book, the cybernetic political thriller Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April of 2025.
Ray most recently served as international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and as visiting scholar at the George Washington University's Institute for International Science and Technology Policy.
Ray lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats.
Ray's Locus Award winning first novel was The Mountain in the Sea, which was also a finalist for the Nebula, the Arthur C. Clarke, and the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Awards.
Ray's novella The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award, and was also a Nebula and Locus Award finalist.
His third book, the cybernetic political thriller Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April of 2025.
Ray most recently served as international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and as visiting scholar at the George Washington University's Institute for International Science and Technology Policy.
Ray lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Palaces of the Crow
By Ray Nayler
Pub Date: May 19 2026
This is a historical fiction taking place during World War II. Four children from different walks of life are lead into a forest and kept safe from nazis surrounding them. The protectors are that lead them to safety is a group of crows. There is a found family theme here. I enjoyed this this book. It was different and with that kept my interest. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book early in return for my honest review.
By Ray Nayler
Pub Date: May 19 2026
This is a historical fiction taking place during World War II. Four children from different walks of life are lead into a forest and kept safe from nazis surrounding them. The protectors are that lead them to safety is a group of crows. There is a found family theme here. I enjoyed this this book. It was different and with that kept my interest. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book early in return for my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Netgalley and MCD for this ARC!
The foray into history was not what I expected from Ray Nayler, who's other works exist in the sphere of the distant future, but I hope it won't be his last. In Palaces of the Crow, we follow our four characters as they attempt to survive 1940s Lithuania in the woods, surrounded by desperate people who would kill them without hesitation, with the help of a community of crows.
Neriya, Czeslaw, Kezia, and The Boy find each other and in finding each other they find their will to survive. Neriya is Jewish at a time when that word alone is a death sentence in Eastern Europe. Czeslaw forged the year on his birth certificate to join the Red Army and barely escaped when his unit was ambushed. Kezia, a Roma girl with a "sickness" in her bloodline that she is terrified of, is escaping from the Soviets. And lastly, The Boy, the smallest and youngest, and mute, who has been left with no history or name by the world. The community they cultivated with each other can keep them safe as long as they stay sharp and aware of their surroundings.
Ray Nayler has captivated me before with the worlds he sees and creates, but his character work has really come a long way and he has hit his stride with this book. As the story unfolded, I was truly just along for the ride among all the twists and turns. Usually I am able to see where I'm being led by an author, but with Palaces I was blind to where I was being led until the moment Nayler decided I should know. And I really wanted to know, I couldn't put this book down.
I don't think this book will be for everyone, but the people who this book will be for... Once they find it, they will love it. I would recommend this to anyone who loves found family, nonlinear storytelling, survival through the worst of it, and if you have previously read and even marginally enjoyed any of Nayler's other works. Especially Tusks of Extinction.
I'm so thankful that I got to read this book before it's publication date (05/19/26) so I can tell everyone to read it.
The foray into history was not what I expected from Ray Nayler, who's other works exist in the sphere of the distant future, but I hope it won't be his last. In Palaces of the Crow, we follow our four characters as they attempt to survive 1940s Lithuania in the woods, surrounded by desperate people who would kill them without hesitation, with the help of a community of crows.
Neriya, Czeslaw, Kezia, and The Boy find each other and in finding each other they find their will to survive. Neriya is Jewish at a time when that word alone is a death sentence in Eastern Europe. Czeslaw forged the year on his birth certificate to join the Red Army and barely escaped when his unit was ambushed. Kezia, a Roma girl with a "sickness" in her bloodline that she is terrified of, is escaping from the Soviets. And lastly, The Boy, the smallest and youngest, and mute, who has been left with no history or name by the world. The community they cultivated with each other can keep them safe as long as they stay sharp and aware of their surroundings.
Ray Nayler has captivated me before with the worlds he sees and creates, but his character work has really come a long way and he has hit his stride with this book. As the story unfolded, I was truly just along for the ride among all the twists and turns. Usually I am able to see where I'm being led by an author, but with Palaces I was blind to where I was being led until the moment Nayler decided I should know. And I really wanted to know, I couldn't put this book down.
I don't think this book will be for everyone, but the people who this book will be for... Once they find it, they will love it. I would recommend this to anyone who loves found family, nonlinear storytelling, survival through the worst of it, and if you have previously read and even marginally enjoyed any of Nayler's other works. Especially Tusks of Extinction.
I'm so thankful that I got to read this book before it's publication date (05/19/26) so I can tell everyone to read it.
Want to read
February 6, 2026Sounds interesting. I really liked Tusks of Extinction and The Mountain under the Sea. I'll definitely have to check this one out.
January 14, 2026
I wasn't expecting Nayler's next novel to move into historical fiction but still keep the speculative intelligence angle, but he's done an amazing job here. We get a novel that shuttles between the early 70s in Russia, decades removed from a small group of children's experiences as they attempt to survive the German blitzkrieg of Lithuania in the wood. This time, Nayler gets to talk about the intelligence of crows, and brings them into the lives of these four children in a truly amazing and unexpected way as they try to survive World War II and also deal with their unique backgrounds as they learn to survive. Also interesting is that Nayler chooses to take the dive into a period of time that was fucking bleak as hell, but focuses on how to get through when it looks like maybe the future isn't worth it and the present sucks. This comes out in May; highly recommend preordering this.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley, "Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books" and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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“Hope is the thing with feathers” - Emily Dickinson
Let me begin by saying, historical fiction set during WWII is not something that normally attracts my attention. It has to be exceptional, giving me an in-depth personal perspective and a story of hope or redemption outside the general suffering. It has to be engaging and informative. Ray Nayler delivers on this in “Palaces of the Crow”.
Here we have four young people struggling to survive in the Lithuanian woods while WWII rages around them. Initially strangers from diverse backgrounds, they have a common bond. Each has a special connection with a community of crows. And not just any crows, but a community of crows that is just slightly ahead of their brethren down Charles Darwin’s path of evolution.
The story begins with Neriya, who is led deep into the woods minutes before her shtetl was razed by the Germans and burnt to the ground. There are none of the Jewish community left in the countryside, and she takes refuge in a zemlyanka (a hunting dugout) hidden in the forest. She is soon joined by Czeslaw, whose entire Red Army unit was destroyed and Kezia, a Roma girl who evaded an attack on her family. Completing the grouping is a mute and nameless boy left behind as people fled the countryside.
We are treated to the perspectives of the first three children, while there is a dual timeline voiced by "Neriya Abramovna Kantorova" in 1971. The chapters are interspersed with excerpts from a journal found by the children “An Autobiography of a Burned Village” that gives the perspective of a survivor of the Russian pogroms from the First World War.
Nayler leads us on a journey of found community, resilience and survival during a period from 1941 to 1944. By August 1941, the vast majority of Jews in rural Lithuania had already been murdered. Entire communities (shtetls) that had existed for centuries vanished in a matter of days or weeks. But there were some who survived, hidden in the forest, evading not only the Germans but also by local Lithuanian partisans and militias. Nayler gives a voice to the children who endured the horrors of this time and at the same time presents a fragile community of crows. Their's is a unique and intriguing adaptation that could be wiped out if discovered by the wrong people. The analogy isn’t lost in this telling.
This isn’t just a historical fiction about the annihilation of the Yiddish-speaking Litvak culture, but of the impacts to those living during those times. It is a story of found community, of scientific observations and of hopes for a future.
==============================
“Hope is the thing with feathers” - Emily Dickinson
Let me begin by saying, historical fiction set during WWII is not something that normally attracts my attention. It has to be exceptional, giving me an in-depth personal perspective and a story of hope or redemption outside the general suffering. It has to be engaging and informative. Ray Nayler delivers on this in “Palaces of the Crow”.
Here we have four young people struggling to survive in the Lithuanian woods while WWII rages around them. Initially strangers from diverse backgrounds, they have a common bond. Each has a special connection with a community of crows. And not just any crows, but a community of crows that is just slightly ahead of their brethren down Charles Darwin’s path of evolution.
“The crows fed us during the war. They warned us of danger. They took care of us. But not for the reasons we may have thought they had: it was all for reasons of their own.”
The story begins with Neriya, who is led deep into the woods minutes before her shtetl was razed by the Germans and burnt to the ground. There are none of the Jewish community left in the countryside, and she takes refuge in a zemlyanka (a hunting dugout) hidden in the forest. She is soon joined by Czeslaw, whose entire Red Army unit was destroyed and Kezia, a Roma girl who evaded an attack on her family. Completing the grouping is a mute and nameless boy left behind as people fled the countryside.
We are treated to the perspectives of the first three children, while there is a dual timeline voiced by "Neriya Abramovna Kantorova" in 1971. The chapters are interspersed with excerpts from a journal found by the children “An Autobiography of a Burned Village” that gives the perspective of a survivor of the Russian pogroms from the First World War.
Nayler leads us on a journey of found community, resilience and survival during a period from 1941 to 1944. By August 1941, the vast majority of Jews in rural Lithuania had already been murdered. Entire communities (shtetls) that had existed for centuries vanished in a matter of days or weeks. But there were some who survived, hidden in the forest, evading not only the Germans but also by local Lithuanian partisans and militias. Nayler gives a voice to the children who endured the horrors of this time and at the same time presents a fragile community of crows. Their's is a unique and intriguing adaptation that could be wiped out if discovered by the wrong people. The analogy isn’t lost in this telling.
This isn’t just a historical fiction about the annihilation of the Yiddish-speaking Litvak culture, but of the impacts to those living during those times. It is a story of found community, of scientific observations and of hopes for a future.
“Because there would be a future. All of this had to end eventually. And once it did, one way or another, change would come.”
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Historical fiction that feels like the truth.
Ray Nayler's books always embroil me in contemplation about the nature of consciousness and the nature of being - what does it mean to be something and to become something? Wherein lies the purpose? How do we make meaning of our lives, of the many millions of lives, especially in the face of violence?
"The past remains whole, in its own eternal moment. The bathhouse remains unburned, somewhere in time.
Somewhere, the seller of chestnuts sings, and is not dead in a ditch from a bayonet blade."
More than just thoughtful, Nayler writes in prose that is weighty and beautiful at the same time - the reader follows this deer trail through the woods and feels the importance of secrecy and silence at the same time as they notice the liveliness of the forest.
"What was important was the fact of their existence. Their thriving. Their safety here, dep in this protected place, where they could nurse their aged and injured, teach their young, make their tools.
Where they could continue to become what they were becoming."
Eminently readable, I honestly think that this book lies at a perfect cross-roads to recommend it for all sorts of readers - I came to it from my previous enjoyment of Nayler's science fiction, but historical and literary readers will also love this. I think the element of the crows intelligence is less alternative science fiction and more a crystallization of interspecies relationships and the ways in which our relationships with other creatures reflect our relationships to one another.
Ray Nayler's books always embroil me in contemplation about the nature of consciousness and the nature of being - what does it mean to be something and to become something? Wherein lies the purpose? How do we make meaning of our lives, of the many millions of lives, especially in the face of violence?
"The past remains whole, in its own eternal moment. The bathhouse remains unburned, somewhere in time.
Somewhere, the seller of chestnuts sings, and is not dead in a ditch from a bayonet blade."
More than just thoughtful, Nayler writes in prose that is weighty and beautiful at the same time - the reader follows this deer trail through the woods and feels the importance of secrecy and silence at the same time as they notice the liveliness of the forest.
"What was important was the fact of their existence. Their thriving. Their safety here, dep in this protected place, where they could nurse their aged and injured, teach their young, make their tools.
Where they could continue to become what they were becoming."
Eminently readable, I honestly think that this book lies at a perfect cross-roads to recommend it for all sorts of readers - I came to it from my previous enjoyment of Nayler's science fiction, but historical and literary readers will also love this. I think the element of the crows intelligence is less alternative science fiction and more a crystallization of interspecies relationships and the ways in which our relationships with other creatures reflect our relationships to one another.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This is one of those rare books that is greater than the sum of its parts. A story about four young people surviving the horrors of the eastern front in WW2. it’s also the story of how they were rescued by a large group of crows. A story about the wonder of connecting with an intelligence that is new and strange. And also the story of coming to terms with how one survives when it appears all is lost. I’m trying to put into words my absolute joy of this book. Yes, it’s only February, but this may be my favorite fiction title of 2026. Highest possible recommendation.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Memories of survival and the life before war shape this story of found family.
March 8, 2026
Just incredible. Sad and tense and mysterious, with crows that perhaps are more than they appear. Great follow up from The Mountain in the Sea.
Want to read
March 10, 2026Ray Nayler you are right up there with Suzanne Collins. I can't wait for this!
February 7, 2026
4.5🐦⬛ Bleak but very original WWII novel with an eco twist. The main story follows 4 children from different backgrounds who are trapped surviving in the Lithuanian forest together as they wait out the last 3 years of the war happening on all sides. They rely on help from a massive colony of crows that has adopted them into their mysterious, intelligent world. Lots of beautiful prose and philosophical points about humanity and nature. Excited for this to come out!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews