Palaces of the Crow

by Ray Nayler

In Ray Nayler’s speculative novel of the recent past, four young teens caught between Nazis and the Red Army survive winter in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows with a magnificent secret of their own to protect

Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, has befriended a local flock of crows in her shtetl. Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier who deserts the Red Army and runs into the freezing Lithuanian woods. Kezia is a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization. As the German blitzkrieg crashes across the border in June 1941, all three are caught up in the onslaught. Along with Innokentiy, an abandoned boy who cannot speak, they are driven into the primeval forest, where they survive by forming an unbreakable bond with one another—and with Neriya’s intelligent crows, who for years have been bringing her intricate gifts suggesting they are no ordinary corvids.

As the war goes on, the crows warn the children of danger and help them hide from the human threats of the forest—not only the Germans but also Russian deserters, Polish partisans, fascist Lithuanian police, and the other bandits and outcasts wandering the benighted landscape.

From the Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist, and Hugo and Locus Award winner, Ray Nayler, Palaces of the Crow blends history and haunting speculative wonder into a story of survival, loyalty and the fragile beauty of life in the darkest of times.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Historical, Fiction, World War II

384 pages, Hardcover

First published May 19, 2026

About the author

Hugo 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.

Reviews

[Travis Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Sara Zia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Nayler's writing--both his exploration of human and animal behaviors as well as his sparse prose. The only reason this isn't five stars for me personally is this novel is really leans historical fiction, not speculative. Crows truly are unbelievably smart and so this, combined with the story's historical setting, felt plausible compared to the sci fi premises of his other books. It's a fast, engaging (and heartbreaking) read.

~Thank you to the publisher for an advance reader copy ~

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodness. Well, this was phenomenal. It feels like I've read a number of outstanding books grappling with war and humanity recently, but it turns out they haven't really been all that recent: The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed was March of 2024 and I read the stunning The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden at the end of 2023. They both just stand out in my mind so starkly that it feels like I must have read them more recently. (There's also little specific overlap, beyond the fact that war novels done well can be very powerful indeed, and when done poorly, for cheap emotional punches, I'm all the more disappointed in them for failing to live up to the heft of their subject matter.)

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is set in WWI, Siege of Burning Grass takes place in a completely fictional war and world, and Palaces of the Crow takes place in WWII. I went into this book totally blind, having loved some short stories by Ray Nayler and willing to just trust him to take me somewhere interesting. (And how!) I'll get into some detail, keeping spoiler-free, but for what it's worth, I think my experience of the book was better for not having read any reviews or even the book's blurb before diving in. If you'd like to do that too, I'd recommend stopping here.

If you aren't up for that, then here goes: in the book you meet 4 kids who find each other and try to survive and keep from starving to death before the nebulous, undetermined "when all this is over" comes to pass. You and I, being from the future, know roughly when and how WWII wound down, but none of our protagonists do. They only know that the world has gone absolutely insane, that no institutions or people can be relied upon, and they have no idea when that will change. There is a shattered landscape of shattered people who, even if they had their selfhood still intact, wouldn't be able to muster much in the way of sympathy for anyone who has lost everything, because everyone as far as the eye can see has lost everything and is carrying unspeakable personal grief and burdens. Often guilt, too.

Our protagonists are 14 and under, though this is absolutely not a YA book.
Czeslaw is Polish, his family forced into labor in Siberian forests, and he lied about his age to join the Red Army. He's the only surviving member of his unit. Neriya loves biology and her parents are doctors (her father is a doctor, her mother is effectively a doctor in all but title)--her family is Jewish and she's befriended some crows who live near the shtetl her family spends summers in, and they seem just... a few degrees different? from other crows. Some similar behavior types to those we associate with corvids--recognizing and remembering individual humans, offering gifts, a talent for puzzle-solving and games--but just a bit uncanny, a bit turned up to 11. Kezia is Romani and being followed by an abandoned unnamed little boy who doesn't speak. All have already suffered terrible, senseless losses by the time they find each other.

For those for whom this matters, this book struck me as less fantasy than as magical realism. There are fantastical elements, but they just *are*--and they're eclipsed by the realities of the war. If you desperately want to know why these crows are different or what their story is, well. You will get to learn a little more about who they are now, but not how they got this way. Acceptance of the other as an other on their own terms, rather than as a fulfillment of our expectations or projections, is a theme here. So is the importance of memory and stories to honoring those we lose. So is kindness as a self-perpetuating cultural meme that can echo down through years and generations.

Even when Nayler didn't do things with this story and these characters that I wanted him to do: have characters we care about emerge from the war, or emerge unscathed, or become adults that we the readers could have uncomplicated feelings about, it was still always the right thing to do for the story.

Throughout Palaces of the Crow, there are references to and excerpts from a work called Autobiography of a Burned Village. I am a sucker for references in fiction to fictional works (even if they are thinly-veiled allusions to, or fictional analogs of, a real work); it's up there with footnotes as just a personal dopamine done-deal. So, needless to say, I loved them. These excerpts were, without exception, poignant and evocative.

I received an ARC of Macmillan Audio's audiobook edition of this book, narrated by Eunice Wong. Gosh, does a talented actor / narrator make all difference in the reader's experience of an audiobook. And she is MARVELOUS. Her tone, her inflection, the cadence of her speech*--all pitch-perfect. I always knew who was speaking based on how individual the characters' speech patterns sounded. She brought the perfect tone and speed to every scene.

I love this book. Love it. I will be getting a deadtree copy for my shelves. (I keep thinking that reviewing advance copies of books will let me buy fewer of them, but that's not how it turns out.) Palaces of the Crow is heavy, and it should be. There's no other way to write about war unless you're making propaganda. But it has hope and human (and inter-species!) connection in it too, and I loved the elements that felt like mythic fiction--all of that served to keep it in the realm of "heavy" rather than crossing into "bleak."

If you're thinking you don't have much stomach for heavy anything these days, so did I. This is complicated but it's also beautiful and so sublime, trust me. It's worth it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance copy--my opinions are my own.

*Not to mention her pronunciation of a number of words in several different languages--just nailed it. Spot on.

[Madeline Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect historical fiction 👌
I loved the characters (human and crow) and the science/biology he weaved throughout the story. Heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Jay Brantner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been a Nayler fan for a few years now, but this might be my new favorite. It hits many of the themes that he has returned to frequently, and the style of prose and characterization is familiar. But the historical setting marks a sharp departure from his previous two novels, and it makes for a story that feels more cohesive. There’s no musing on AI here, nor ways that society could unravel in the near future. Instead, it’s rooted in a particular time and place, one in which society has already pretty thoroughly unraveled, and is centered on three youths trying to keep both their bodies and their psyches intact in a world where anyone who finds them will more-than-likely want to kill them.

It’s still a speculative novel, and you could convincingly argue it as first contact in a similar vein to The Mountain in the Sea—though with corvids rather than cephalopods. But it feels like a historical novel *before* it is a speculative novel, and it’s tighter both in the cast and thematic focus.

The crows are great. But this is a novel about people: a pair of teenage girls, one Jewish and one Roma, and a Polish soldier cut off from the Red Army and likely to be shot as a deserter before he’d be welcomed back. There’s a lot of musing on how society has cut them off and created such horrifying conditions, tucked into bits of conversation and character backstory. But there’s just as much on the reasons to press forward and on the value of leaning on one another. The social commentary is on-point, but it’s so folded into the character struggles that it never feels preachy.

It’s hard to call this an uplifting book, as it is, after all, taking place amidst the Holocaust. Perhaps the best that can be done is bittersweet. But it does achieve bittersweetness. There are moments of heartbreak, but there are also things that are truly preserved. It doesn’t shy away from the horrors, but neither does it revel in them—it’s a book that’s always pushing beyond. Not towards a naive ideal future. But toward a future that the readers know as a past, that the readers know is deeply flawed, but in which they still find reasons to live.

I adored this book.

First impression: 19/20. Full review to come at www.tarvolon.com

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four children, barely teenagers, are forced to survive in a forest when they find themselves victims of a war they have no part in. Caught between Nazis and the Red Army, they have only each other to survive the winter in a wild forest that's full of people who will hurt them and a highly intelligent flock of crows who help them along the way.

This story is an intriguing mix of historical and speculative fantasy that remains grounded in how the children each tell their part of the story. It's a tragedy softened by the fact that they have each other, pushed to survive because they have someone else they want to protect, even when they might have been ready to give up on themselves. I loved how it shows that even people from very different backgrounds can get together to support and uplift each other when everything around them is falling apart. It's a tragedy from beginning to end, but there are moments of light that highlight the best of humanity and the boundless potential of nature.

Eunice Wong does a wonderful job narrating, and I praise her and the audiobook team for the decision not to give the characters accents despite them being Eastern Europeans. They're all from such different places and backgrounds that it would have been a mess of accents that hindered the story instead of adding to it. In its place, we get nuanced narration that gives life to each character and their thoughts as we explore the harshness of the world they're thrust into. It's a masterclass in narrating emotions through nuance.

Delighted thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the engrossing listen!

[LambchoP]

Sounds interesting. I really liked Tusks of Extinction and The Mountain under the Sea. I'll definitely have to check this one out.

[Ricky · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up expecting more of Where the Axe is Buried and/or The Tusks of Extinction. What I got was a bit more of The Mountain in the Sea, crossed with, of all things, Slaughterhouse-Five and just a touch of H is for Hawk. I wasn’t expecting that at all. If you are, check your assumptions at the door because this is an awesome, heartbreaking, riveting and frequently terrifying read – but it isn’t any of the things I thought it would be.

This is one of those “fiction is the lie that tells the truth” stories, about the parts of World War II that got buried by various governments in the post-war economic boom and the Cold War. And it feels like a truth, as it quotes from a searing collection of firsthand accounts from survivors of Belarusian villages burned by the Nazis (and looted by the partisans) during World War II. That book, variously titled “I Am from the Fiery Village” or as it is referred to in Palaces of the Crow, “The Autobiography of a Burned Village” grounds this fictional story in a reality that tears at the reader over and over – but also carries the reader over the magical realism-esq parts of the story, meaning those ‘palaces’ and the crows who built them, inhabited them, and sheltered the human protagonists of this story within them during a war that did its worst to kill them and everyone around them over and over again.

And did succeed in taking one of their lives – and leaving even bigger holes in the hearts and souls of those who survived.

The story is told from the perspective of four children who became adults in the crucible of war in the middle of territory contested between Russian and Germany in what is now the Republic of Belarus. Neriya, a Jewish girl whose shtetl was burned to the ground – like over six hundred others. Kezia, a Roma girl whose family and clan were slaughtered, like so many others. Czeslaw, an underage Polish deserter from the Russian army, and an unnamed boy whose last order from his mother was to be ‘quiet’ and hasn’t spoken a word since.

Palaces of the Crow is about their survival, all too often just barely, by the skin of their teeth, in the midst of crossfire between opposing armies and/or bands of desperate, barely human survivors, in a land laid waste by war. A survival made possible by the help and protection of a flock of preternaturally intelligent crows, who warned them of danger, herded them away from hunters, and took them inside the very heart of their vast nest to allow them to survive the war’s last, desperate winter.

That description is barebones and not enough. It doesn’t convey the desperation, the danger, the moments of joy or the love between the no-longer-children in this found family of lost souls. For that, you need to read the story, and you should. Because this isn’t a hero’s story of war. It’s a survivor’s story, and that’s the perspective that needs to be told – and remembered.

Escape Rating A+: I picked this up for the author, and that’s a good thing, because it’s both not what I expected and frankly not a story that any of the blurbs are having any luck summarizing. It’s also NOT, as some of the sites have it, in any way science fictional. It’s even dubious whether it is even in the realm of speculative fiction at all.

Which doesn’t mean that it isn’t like the author’s previous work, because it very much is. Especially The Mountain in the Sea. Their themes are surprisingly similar even though their settings are centuries apart. The Mountain in the Sea is a story about an attempt to communicate with other intelligences on Earth, set during a future period of global catastrophe when survival, any and all survival, seems to be in doubt.

Palaces of the Crow is also a story about attempting to communicate with, or understand the communications of, other intelligences on Earth, set during a historic period of global catastrophe when survival seemed to be in doubt.

If The Mountain in the Sea had been set in the world of Slaughterhouse-Five – without that classic’s science fictional elements, it might have been something like Palaces of the Crow. Only bloodier and even more horrifying albeit with a somewhat more hopeful, for certain, bleak definitions of hope, ending.

But that bleakness fits the characters, the setting and the perspective of the whole story. Because this story is not told from a Western point of view. World War II, as seen from the U.S., was a distant thing, a righteous quest for glory – whether it actually was or not. The war wasn’t HERE (except for the Aleutian Islands and the lower 48 still have a difficult time seeing any parts of Alaska as ‘here’) Even for Britain, there were lots of bombs and they suffered a terrible loss of life, but they weren’t invaded. France was invaded, but it wasn’t starving frozen as it was in Belarus. It was war and it was horrifying, but it wasn’t the frozen bleakness of Belarus and the stories of it are just different (All the Light We Cannot See might serve as an example of what this story might have been if it were set in France during the same time period). The bleakness of THIS story is very much an eastern European perspective and it’s not one we see often in Western literature.

There are two twists at the end. One I saw coming, the other led to that bit of hope in the ending that I wasn’t, but was very pleased to see. Not because it was happy – although it is if you squint a bit, but because it was home.

I’m back to where I was at the beginning, that this book is marvelous and heartbreaking as long as you check your assumptions about it at the door before you start. It’s the kind of story that you’ll be thinking about for a long time after you finish – and not just because of the crows.

Originally published at Reading Reality

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodness. Well, this was phenomenal. It feels like I've read a number of outstanding books grappling with war and humanity recently, but it turns out they haven't really been all that recent: The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed was March of 2024 and I read the stunning The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden at the end of 2023. They both just stand out in my mind so starkly that it feels like I must have read them more recently. (There's also little specific overlap, beyond the fact that war novels done well can be very powerful indeed, and when done poorly, for cheap emotional punches, I'm all the more disappointed in them for failing to live up to the heft of their subject matter.)

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is set in WWI, Siege of Burning Grass takes place in a completely fictional war and world, and Palaces of the Crow takes place in WWII. I went into this book totally blind, having loved some short stories by Ray Nayler and willing to just trust him to take me somewhere interesting. (And how!) I'll get into some detail, keeping spoiler-free, but for what it's worth, I think my experience of the book was better for not having read any reviews or even the book's blurb before diving in. If you'd like to do that too, I'd recommend stopping here.

If you aren't up for that, then here goes: in the book you meet 4 kids who find each other and try to survive and keep from starving to death before the nebulous, undetermined "when all this is over" comes to pass. You and I, being from the future, know roughly when and how WWII wound down, but none of our protagonists do. They only know that the world has gone absolutely insane, that no institutions or people can be relied upon, and they have no idea when that will change. There is a shattered landscape of shattered people who, even if they had their selfhood still intact, wouldn't be able to muster much in the way of sympathy for anyone who has lost everything, because everyone as far as the eye can see has lost everything and is carrying unspeakable personal grief and burdens. Often guilt, too.

Our protagonists are 14 and under, though this is absolutely not a YA book.
Czeslaw is Polish, his family forced into labor in Siberian forests, and he lied about his age to join the Red Army. He's the only surviving member of his unit. Neriya loves biology and her parents are doctors (her father is a doctor, her mother is effectively a doctor in all but title)--her family is Jewish and she's befriended some crows who live near the shtetl her family spends summers in, and they seem just... a few degrees different? from other crows. Some similar behavior types to those we associate with corvids--recognizing and remembering individual humans, offering gifts, a talent for puzzle-solving and games--but just a bit uncanny, a bit turned up to 11. Kezia is Romani and being followed by an abandoned unnamed little boy who doesn't speak. All have already suffered terrible, senseless losses by the time they find each other.

For those for whom this matters, this book struck me as less fantasy than as magical realism. There are fantastical elements, but they just *are*--and they're eclipsed by the realities of the war. If you desperately want to know why these crows are different or what their story is, well. You will get to learn a little more about who they are now, but not how they got this way. Acceptance of the other as an other on their own terms, rather than as a fulfillment of our expectations or projections, is a theme here. So is the importance of memory and stories to honoring those we lose. So is kindness as a self-perpetuating cultural meme that can echo down through years and generations.

Even when Nayler didn't do things with this story and these characters that I wanted him to do: have characters we care about emerge from the war, or emerge unscathed, or become adults that we the readers could have uncomplicated feelings about, it was still always the right thing to do do for the story.

Throughout Palaces of the Crow, there are references to and excerpts from a work called Autobiography of a Burned Village. I am a sucker for references in fiction to fictional works (even if they are thinly-veiled allusions to, or fictional analogs of, a real work); it's up there with footnotes as just a personal dopamine done-deal. So, needless to say, I loved them. These excerpts were, without exception, poignant and evocative.

I received an ARC of Macmillan Audio's audiobook edition of this book, narrated by Eunice Wong. Gosh, does a talented actor / narrator make all difference in the reader's experience of an audiobook. And she is MARVELOUS. Her tone, her inflection, the cadence of her speech*--all pitch-perfect. I always knew who was speaking based on how individual the characters' speech patterns sounded. She brought the perfect tone and speed to every scene.

I love this book. Love it. I will be getting a deadtree copy for my shelves. (I keep thinking that reviewing advance copies of books will let me buy fewer of them, but that's now how it turns out.) Palaces of the Crow is heavy, and it should be. There's no other way to write about war unless you're making propaganda. But it has hope and human (and inter-species!) connection in it too, and I loved the elements that felt like mythic fiction--all of that served to keep it in the realm of "heavy" rather than crossing into "bleak."

If you're thinking you don't have much stomach for heavy anything these days, so did I. This is complicated but it's also beautiful and so sublime, trust me. It's worth it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance copy--my opinions are my own.

*Not to mention her pronunciation of a number of words in several different languages--just nailed it. Spot on.

[Kellie Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Chewable Orb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Palaces of the Crows by Ray Nayler
4.45 rounded down to 4 🔮 orbs
Est. Pub. Date: May 19, 2026
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux / MCD

In the soil of Lithuania, 1941…

💡 Orbs Prologue: Eyeless, I wiggle through the dirt consisting of rotted flesh and bones. Vibrations pound the surface, a bombardment of hatred and fury unleashed. An inherent feeling resurfaces, and my main objective becomes relocation. Squirming my way through streams of blood, I break through to the chaos of human civilization. Swiftly now, or as swift as a worm's body will allow, I make my escape through the vast, harsh wilderness. Cold cylindrical casings obstruct a direct path, and the decaying carcasses become tiring obstacles along my escape route. A lingering question infiltrates my mind. Where are those dive-bombing reapers of death, or as you humans like to call them, crows?

🧐 A small glimpse: In Ray Nayler’s latest novel, we take a look at a not-so-pleasant part of human history, WWII. As readers converge on a forest-laden area in Lithuania, it remains clear that no human is safe. Russians, Germans, and Jews alike fall to a society hellbent on creating wastelands of destruction. While the atrocities remain stained on the hands of all who take part in the looting of human decency, there are those from the skies who attempt to intervene. The crows become an important part of helping our four teens, thus giving new meaning to man’s best friend. Each child is equipped with very different social situations, which help define the overall arc that Nayler attempts to convey. From various points of view, readers gain an immediate empathetic feel for the hardships of the time, regardless of one’s prior allegiances. The crows, therefore, stand without such knowledge of religion or power structures. Through their beady black eyes, they only see friend or foe, which further drives home the point of the story.

👍 Orbs Pros: Uplifting, well, sort of! A story of four strangers coming together as one to survive a borderline apocalyptic scenario is heartwarming, to say the least! The message! Be kind. This simple message rang throughout my readthrough, and yet, I caught myself wondering, "Why is this so difficult for humans to remember?” Introspective! Through the hazy, smoke-filled air, a thundering of tanks rolls forward, squashing the lives from those within. Further testing the fortitude of the human spirit often results in an interesting dichotomy in the human psyche. While certainly flawed, we remain ever resilient.

👎 Orbs Cons: War!! This book doesn’t sugarcoat anything. It is raw and in-your-face. I wouldn’t go as far as to say anything was overly done, but when writing a book based around WWII, there will be plenty of morbidity, and quite frankly, it might be too much for some to stomach. However, I will say that Nayler doesn’t dwell on the death aspects just to marinate the pages with some bloody fodder. There is a point to the madness. For us, as readers, to understand our past transgressions, we must see the cold, hard truth in its totality. A bit of a slow burn at the beginning!

Highly Recommended! Going in this completely blind, I left thoroughly impressed with Nayler’s writing acumen. I would gladly suggest Nayler to fans who love learning about human nature through a variety of lenses. Quickly becoming a must-read author for me, I can highly recommend this offering, that is, if you can endure the heartache of humans at their utmost worst.

💡 Orbs Epilogue: Ahh yes, the crows. Their soaring presence is something I do not look forward to. Often, we become morsels to satiate their hunger. Interestingly, the birds' shadows have eluded my senses. Are they off doing other important tasks? Teaching their young to hunt? Feeding them the scraps of my kind. Shivering my way along, my body glistens in the steady rainfall, wondering if this is the environment's selfish attempt to wash away the truth of humanity's sins. Perhaps it could have something to do with these explosions. That is why they are not around! Faster now, avoidance remains the key. As I exit the wooded area, I prepare myself for a well-deserved descent into the dirt abyss. Wriggling, I burrow, earthworming my way down to a new home, my tail end dangling only slightly in the breezy air above. Pluck! Snatched from soil, I dangle from the onyx beak of my nemesis with one thought on my mind. Couldn’t I have been born with actual legs?

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux / MCD for the ARC through NetGalley. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Will Swardstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

**This review can also be found at: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-palace...

As a Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror book reviewer, it’s a little hard to categorize Ray Nayler’s latest book, Palaces of the Crow. It’s a work of historical fiction set primarily in Eastern Europe during the early 1940s, but there’s more to it. It comes from a place of speculative fiction, but the argument could be made that there’s very little here. The history and horror of World War II is on full display, while the characters grapple with the repercussions nearly 30 years later. The titular crows are special and perhaps sentient, but Nayler leaves enough to the imagination to not commit either way. Nayler defies us to pigeon-hole this book, and that’s okay with me — Palaces of the Crow is an excellent book that doesn’t need a specific classification.

There certainly is a horror component, but ultimately, whatever horror comes about in Palaces of the Crow is the terror and violence borne of war and hate. But Nayler doesn’t stop at the day the Allies finish sweeping through Europe. As we finally connect with each of the four main characters during what are simultaneously the worst and best years of their lives, Nayler throws in the curveball of flash-forward scenes from 1971 as we work to piece together a mystery we didn’t even know existed.

And that’s what makes this book special. Nayler’s prose takes our characters and expands them from simply caricatures of Jews or soldiers or Roma. They all have personalities and unique motivations. In fact, he uses our own expectations of how characters are supposed to work to throw in a razor-sharp knife twist as the book nears its end. Nayler was able to convince me it was the best way to end the book while simultaneously hating him for it.

The found family aspect was the heartbeat of the book and that shows in the adoption of the crows as well. And by adoption of the crows, I mean the crows adopting the humans. The crows that Neriya, Czeslaw, Kezia, and the boy (as he’s known during the war) encounter and befriend are their saviors in more ways than one. The crows warn them of danger, provide them with shelter, and keep their eyes open to goodness in the world. If there is a speculative fiction aspect, the crows are it, but Nayler doesn’t rely on them entirely.

In a very real way, Palaces of the Crow is a coming-of-age story as well, for each of the four leads. That loss of innocence happens quickly and violently as war overtakes their lands, but as they are thrown together into desperate circumstances they are forced to grow up in their own ways. Later we learn that growth may not have been perfect — the war and violence probably stunted natural growth — but they did what they needed to do to survive in the moment.

Palaces of the Crow continues something that Nayler has become a master of — taking animals (octopus in The Mountain in the Sea, elephants in The Tusks of Extinction) and using them to show us the worst and best of humanity. In this novel, the Germans and Russians are both threats to our characters for different reasons and death is a constant shadow lurking behind the next tree. Four teenagers living on their own in nature not knowing if their families are alive (or knowing they aren’t) and everything that comes with that… Yet… the crows are giving without expecting recompensation and show our four teens that there is good in the world.

Eunice Wong does an excellent narration, nailing the Russian, Polish, and other Eastern European pronunciation while providing emotion to the riveting story in some very key moments of the story. She’s narrated a few other Nayler works and it looks like the two have a great connection between author and narrator.

I was moved by Palaces of the Crow and found it a wonderful exploration of life and what it takes to survive while war wages all around you. I could keep talking about so many things with this book — there’s even a meta-quality to the whole thing as we find later that the 1940s portions are snippets of a book that one of the characters wrote later in life. But I have to stop at some point, so here it is — I highly recommend the novel no matter what genre you prefer to read.

Thank you to MCD for providing this book and for Macmillan Audio for providing this audiobook for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[Joe Karpierz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a way, I didn't see Ray Nayler's latest novel, PALACES OF THE CROW, coming. In a way, I did. What I didn't see for sure was just how brilliant of a novel this was going to be. I'd heard him talk about this novel on a podcast awhile back. He didn't talk about it much. What he did say was that it was something different for him, more of a historical novel than a speculative one. Now while historical novels are not normally in my wheelhouse, this one drew me in and captivated my attention more than I thought a novel like this could.

The story takes place in the early 1940s in Lithuania. Neriya is fascinated and enthralled by a group of super intelligent crows. She meets with them every day, playing games and solving puzzles. One day, Buster (as she's named one of her favorite crows) leads her away from her family's summer home, as the war is closing in around them, with the Russian Red Army on one side and the Nazis on the other. She flees into the forest under the protection of the crows. They seem to be intelligent enough to lead her, guide her, and protect her as she tries to evade the warring factions. She is eventually joined by a young Roma girl named Kezia whose family was murdered by the soldiers; Czeslaw, a Polish deserter from the Russian army; and a nameless young boy who does not speak.

What is the novel actually "about"? Survival, on the surface. Four young people fleeing from the Russians, Nazis, and anyone else who would find and slaughter them. Four young people, scrambling through a torn and destroyed countryside, protected by a band of crows that warn them when danger is coming, lead them away from the soldiers, and help them hide when it is necessary to hide. It's about companionship, friendship, and teamwork. It's about found family in the face of constant terror and pressure. It's about four young people coming together to survive, four young people who just hope to make it to the next day in one piece without losing each other.

It sounds grim and dark, doesn't it? It is indeed. War is grim, relentless. Neriya and the rest don't really have time to rest, or if they do, it's not a very peaceful rest. They are always on the lookout, always worried that they'll be caught, always worried that eventually they will die.

If you're looking for a cheerful book this isn't it.

Eventually, the story splits off into segments in the 1970s. Neriya eventually did survive, make it to university, study crows, and write a paper about them. But if the reader is anticipating discovering the contents of that paper, they will be sorely disappointed. Because this is really not the point of the exercise. Neriya is contacted by Czeslaw, and agrees to meet him where they spent so much time hiding in the countryside. There's another surprise visitor - the boy who wouldn't speak. He still doesn't speak, but we find out why. And as the 1970s segment goes along, Nayler flashes back to the mid-1940s, wherein we found out how the band split up, and why the fourth member of the group is not at the gathering all those years later.

The crows? They had their part to play, of course, and their descendants are there with Czeslaw, Neriya, and the boy who does not speak. But while we don't learn a whole lot about the crows, we do find out that there is significantly more to them than meets the eye (I know, you're thinking we already knew that. Believe me, the revelation about the crows is fascinating). Nayler saved it for later in the book, of course, and I was surprised by it and in awe of it.

I earlier said that I saw this book coming. Nayler has been telling more complex, detailed stories, with the speculative elements taking more of a back seat (If you haven't read "Where the Axe Is Buried", you should) as his work has progressed. Sure, this is historical fiction with a taste of a speculative elements, but it is, if anything else, a literary novel that is brilliantly written, with characters that you find yourself caring deeply about. This is surely Nayler's best novel, and while (as I said earlier) it's not in my wheelhouse, I loved it from start to finish.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into Palaces of the Crow expecting something a little different from Ray Nayler’s previous work, and it delivered in the best way possible. While there are speculative elements woven throughout the story, this leans much more into historical fiction and horror, creating something bleak, haunting, and very human. Set in 1940s Lithuania during the chaos of the German blitzkrieg, the novel drops us into forests filled with danger from every direction - not just the Germans, but Russian deserters, Polish partisans, fascist Lithuanian police, and all the desperate outcasts and bandits trying to survive in a country being torn apart by war. There’s this constant sense of fear and instability hanging over the entire book that makes it impossible to put down.

At the center of the story are four unforgettable young characters: Neriya, Czeslaw, Kezia, and The Boy - Innokentiy. Neriya especially stood out to me: a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist and who has spent years observing and befriending the crows around her shtetl. Czeslaw, an underage Polish deserter from the Red Army, carries his own weight of guilt and survival. Kezia, a Roma horse trader fleeing Soviet collectivization with her family, brings another perspective to a story already layered with displacement and loss. Then there’s Innokentiy, an abandoned boy who cannot speak, but whose presence says so much regardless. Watching these four come together in the woods, forming fragile bonds while trying to stay alive, was honestly one of the strongest parts of the novel for me. The found family element here hit incredibly hard.

And then there are the crows.

The flock watching over the children adds this eerie speculative thread running beneath the novel that never overwhelms the historical setting but instead deepens it. The crows warn them of danger, bring intricate gifts, and behave with an intelligence that feels uncanny and almost otherworldly. Nayler handles this aspect so well because it never fully shifts into outright sci-fi or explanation. The mystery surrounding the birds lingers over the story in a way that feels beautiful and haunting rather than flashy, and it fits perfectly with the atmosphere of the novel.

This is not an easy read emotionally. It’s true horror in many ways - not really because of monsters, but because of the brutality of war, cruelty, starvation, fear, and what people become when survival is all that matters. But despite all of that darkness, there’s also so much tenderness in this story. The care these teens show one another, the moments of loyalty and quiet hope they cling to, and the fragile beauty threaded through the narrative kept this from ever feeling hopeless. The synopsis says Nayler “blends history and haunting speculative wonder into a story of survival, loyalty and the fragile beauty of life in the darkest of times,” and that description could not be more accurate.

The writing itself was stunning. Atmospheric, sharp, and deeply immersive, with nonlinear storytelling that slowly pieces together these characters’ lives and experiences in a way that feels incredibly intentional. It’s very different from Nayler’s usual science fiction-heavy work, but you can still feel his fascination with intelligence, survival, and humanity woven throughout the novel.

If you’ve enjoyed Nayler’s previous books and are open to something much darker and more historical, I absolutely recommend giving this one a chance. And if you love nonlinear storytelling, found family, survival narratives, and speculative elements that stay subtle and haunting rather than overt, this will likely work really well for you too. I know this is going to be one of those books that lingers in my mind for a very long time.

4.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advance listening copy - this was stunning work.

[Alex Zoubine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is like an onion (overused metaphor - bear with me...) Not only does it have an incredible number of carefully wrought layers, it may also make you cry.

The story is largely set in WWII-Europe and follows a group of 4 children as they struggle to survive against, well, everyone. This isn't a simple "good versus evil" book -- although Nazis do briefly make a cruel appearance. In this book, Nayler dives much, much deeper into the stories rarely told anymore about life "behind enemy lines" in Eastern Europe -- where revolutionaries, counter-revolutionaries, anarchists, and bandits roamed the countryside whenever it wasn't being ravaged by the armies of totalitarian states.

As I read this book, I thought to myself -- this is an increasingly rare book that looks back at a time quickly fading out of popular memory. It's a treasure that the book treats its subject matter with such care and understanding.

The "scifi" element of this book is the blink-and-you've-missed-it kind. The kind that lives adjacent to Magical Realism or Fabulism. You can enjoy this book without knowing anything about scifi, fantasy, or any of Nayler's previous work.

I think that while I always enjoy Nayler's writing and the depth and breadth to which he develops his characters, what I ended up liking most about this story -- and what I honestly didn't even expect -- was the puzzle-box mystery of it. It snuck up on me. Without spoilers, there are small details that suggest that you don't know everything and that you are as much the subject of the story experience as an external reader to it. When I really got a sense for what Nayler was doing with these hints, I really hoped he had a plan for these mysteries -- and oh boy, did he!

It turned "Palaces of the Crow" book from "A fun read" to "I liked this AND I'll have to read this book again."

I think the element I struggled most with was the way this story does jump around in time (and place) quite a bit. Initially, I didn't pay close attention to the dates. That turned out to be an error. Even so, I almost thought I needed to break out a map and red string to keep track of it all. It ended up being satisfying -- just not something I was necessarily prepared for.
As a "survival" narrative, this book also doesn't necessarily have one "big bad" for the characters to struggle against or defeat. This isn't Stranger Things. I don't think it's a spoiler to say so, either, since this is fairly standard for this type of story. Set your expectations accordingly.

So - that onion metaphor? It's about all of the carefully wrapped details and story-arcs that surround a central narrative that packs one heck of an emotional punch by the end.

Who this book is for you if you:
- Enjoy fiction set during WWII
- Like your fantasy/scifi to be there... but not too obvious
- Just like really good writing

You might not enjoy this book if you:
- Need a super fast pace; this book is immersive but it's not a thriller
- Want the fantasy/scifi elements to be the constantly front-and-center
- Don't like WWII settings
- Don't like child characters; the kids in this book have more rational and developed minds than a lot of adult characters in books you read, but they are still kids
- Need to have every mystery clearly explained by the narrative

The writing and story justify a 3- or 4-star rating. The re-readability elevates this book to a 4- or 5-star level.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher/author in exchange for an honest review.

[Michael S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Palaces of the Crow is a Historical Fiction of found family in the face of horrific happenstances.

Note: My review is based on the audiobook ARC/ALC, so please excuse any character names that may be spelled incorrectly. There seems to be a debate over one of the Polish-language names; I’m going with the web search result for that spelling.

Palaces of the Crow follows three POV characters, a mute character, and benevolent crows.

Caught in the midst of the German invasion of Poland, then the Soviet Union in World War 1, our cast of characters are thrown into battle for survival.

The main POV for much of the story is Neriya, a Jewish girl who has a fondness for Crows. Her parents are doctors and well-educated. They raise their daughter to be independent and well-read. She is intelligent but out of her element.

The driving force of the found family is largely Czesław, a large, competent, and far too brave Polish soldier whose family had been exiled to Siberia. Drafted into the Soviet army for the Winter War with Finland, he is a deserter who uses that Siberian experience to survive in the forests between warring armies.

We also have Kezuia, a Roma girl who is younger than Neriya and Czesław. Then lastly in our midst is a mute-boy — in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I’ll skip using his real name.

Lastly, we have the crows, who repay kindness by working to keep the four children alive through the war. Once the kids learn to trust the crows, they find the flock acts as a warning system, hiding them from a wide variety of dangers.

I didn’t catch exactly where the story takes place (I did Audio, and sometimes things go by fast), but it is in forests somewhere near Poland and Lithuania. The boundaries of those nations were fluid in the war years, and the populations, and hence the dangers, were varied.

Our characters are hunted by Nazis, Russians (both soldiers and partisans), Lithuanians (who largely were working with Germany against the USSR, which had invaded Lithuania in 1940), desperate Poles, and antisemites from all nationalities. The constant distrust and pograms are recurring themes.

The narrative hops between time periods from the prewar era to the war, and then into the postwar era.

Things this book does really well:
Historical settings
Crows being mysterious
Yiddish terms are interlaced, but still inferable for those without much experience in them.
Painting a picture of being absolutely in a no-win situation
Solid twist (being vague on purpose here)

Things that could have worked better for me:
Pacing
The halfway point felt like the book should be wrapping up.

A solid historical fiction. 3 3/4 stars. If you love historical fiction and found family, then you’ll likely enjoy this book even more.

Many thanks to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for providing an Audio ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[Alecia Hefner · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say about Palaces Of The Crow by Ray Nayler? It is spellbinding and fascinating while being heart rendering and gut wrenching at the same time.


Neriya is a young Jewish woman who has befriended the crows that gather around the shtetl that her family travels to in the spring seasons. She has learned how intelligent the creatures can be and has bonded with them in a way that has made her part of the flock. One day her best friend Buster, a crow that brings her gifts, refuses to let her go back home. She will never forget being afraid of him for the first time as he attacks her to keep her from going toward home. Buster saved her life that day, the day that she lost the only life she knew.


Czeslaw left home and lied about his age to join The Red Army, fearing that if he didn’t find a way to hide that he was Polish he would soon lose his life like his father and he couldn’t bear to do that to his mother. Better he leave her knowing he is alive out there someplace than for her to watch him die in front of her eyes. At the age of 14 he forged his documents and the adults that could plainly tell he was a child looked past that and put a gun in his hands and sent him off to fight a war that would take the lives of thousands. 


Kezia has spent too long running with her Romani family. Fleeing into the forest to find shelter from the Germans and the Partisans that want to kill just to do it. Her life is forever altered when she sees her father and uncle killed in front of her and the sounds of her sister being dragged off, her screams echoing until silence is all that is left.



Crows will take care of their own. Whether they be maimed, ill, or elderly. The way they care for one another is an amazing thing to witness. They are loyal and intelligent creatures who can remember faces for years to come. 


In Palaces Of The Crows we learn the story of 4 children that have to survive with one another in the wild, doing their best to avoid being discovered by any other people. The world is no longer safe for them or for anyone really. War gives people a chance to release their baser instincts as an excuse to do things in the name of war that they know would never be allowed any other time. We forget we are human when war takes over. It no longer matters that these children are just children playing adults trying to find a way to survive in a time when being Jewish, Romani, Lithuanian, Polish is a death sentence.



I found myself in tears by the end of this book for these characters that lived a brutal life that took so much from them, for the lives lost that I wasn’t expecting. I found absolute beauty in the crows which are creatures that have always fascinated me.



Thank you #Netgalley for the chance to read #PalaceOfTheCrows by #RayNayler in return for a fair and honest review

[Reneaue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, "Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books" and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
==============================

“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.”

[Cassidy | fictionalcass · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

This was the first time in a while that I picked up a book and genuinely couldn’t put it down. This was a one sitting read for me!! From the opening pages, I was immediately grabbed by the story and with every subsequent page I felt like I was being pulled deeper into the forest with these young people and the crows they found themselves acquainted with.

There is a fluidity to the prose in this book that works so well for the speculative elements of this historical fiction. It’s detailed but not overbearing, and with each of the perspectives included it felt like I was right beside Neriya, Czesław, Kezia, and the Boy, listening to and watching the crows. There’s an interesting balance between the tension of hiding from people who mean them harm and the almost languid unfolding of the days, months, and years of this story; the routines developed by these young people and the regular appearances of the crows. Just as the lives of these young people are fractured across the years, so too is this story, told in snatches of memory across a battered landscape.

I really enjoyed the way that many of the themes in this novel were explored, specifically the power of memory and the things that shape us as a person. The way that these elements are explored through the unique experiences and culture of each of the perspective characters was so well done, and I especially loved the way that these things began to intertwine in their lives and the stories and memories they shared and created with one another. I loved the way that time passed in this story and how all of these characters were in and out of memory, and somehow existing alongside the memory of the entire landscape as they grapple with the changing of the world over their lifetimes.

This was absolutely one of my top reads of the year so far. I’ve never read anything quite like it, and Nayler painted such a clear picture of where we were in time and space throughout this book. It all comes together so beautifully to explore how these people were so affected by the world they were born into and the choices (or lack thereof) before them.

[Dawson Sprinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this Nayler piece is really intriguing to me. It's clear he wrote it, his style is all over it, but it is quite the departure from his usual speculative science fiction, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

Readers of Nayler who like his scifi worlds are perhaps going to be a bit turned off from this piece, since for all intents and purposes it is significantly more down to earth than any of his other work, alongside being pretty grounded historical fiction set in WW2. I loved Where the Axe is Buried, so I was a bit surprised when I started reading Palaces of the Crow and it was very strongly in a different direction, but I ended up loving this a lot.

This book doesn't pull its punches when it comes to the nature of life during Nazi occupation. Two of its main characters are Romani and Jewish respectively so the nature of their situation, and the odds of their survival are rough. This isn't an easy read tonally and while some of his previous work had some pretty grim undertones, Palaces of the Crow doesn't bother to hide much of anything from you. It's pretty horrifying at times.

The central aspect of this book (despite what the title might lead you to believe) is the found family of all the kids, and not the crows. The crows are quite important to the story don't get me wrong, but they aren't used as the vehicle for the primary thesis of the book. I really like Nayler's usage of the crows. He's careful to not humanize them too much, especially later in the book. Mentioned early on is the concept of 'Umwelt' which I was excited to read here because we learned about it in my Literature and Animals class in the fall. It sucks that the guy who coined that term was 100% a nazi, but I really liked seeing it on display throughout this story. The kids' relationship is really the central piece of this book, and if Nayler hadn't smashed it out of the park, this book would have sucked. As you can probably tell based off my rating, it didn't suck, actually it was really amazing. I found myself deeply caring for the safety and wellbeing of all of these characters pretty quickly.

Definitely give this one a read if you liked his previous work. It's different and familiar at the same time, and it's still his writing which is always phenomenal.

[Chira · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Ray Nayler book was my introduction to Eunice Wong as a narrator, so it feels right to listen to another of his books narrated by her. She does a great job with the cadence of each character, and while there are fewer accents (something that I actually really appreciate, that people speaking in their native or fluent language don't have a narrated accent, even if it's a non-English language), Nayler's style in wrapping you in the setting and unsettling nature of the plot come to life with her narration.

Similar to The Mountain in the Sea, we've got humans interacting with animals that are acting out of their normal sphere of behavior. This time, however, with the focus being on teenagers during WW2, the focus is much more human in nature, using the crows as a mirror to hold up to human behavior. What is a story about survival during unprecedented times unfolds into a story of memory and storytelling, of learned behaviors and identifying what it takes for a thing or person to be truly lost or forgotten.

I feel like while there's a lot of WW2 novels that focus on resistance or how people were oppressed and disappeared, the Baltics and Eastern Europe get kind of forgotten in the English language. Most of the stories get as far northeast as Poland, so it was really nice and interesting to experience a story that captures the people trapped in the middle, both before and after the war. The forest is a perfect setting for that kind of liminal transition, but also as a natural force that cares little for humans and in which people can disappear, either willingly or not. I didn't know the tensions between Lithuania and Poland, between Russia and the rest of the Baltics during WW2, particularly with the threat of the Germans and the shadow of the pogroms and all the various racial tensions. The historical march of empires and the people forgotten or assimilated in their wakes is something that I didn't think would fit into speculative fiction as well as Nayler has accomplished. This has definitely solidified him as an auto-buy author for me

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the run from different facets of WWII, four teens' lives collide in a forest filled with unusually intelligent crows where they must fight to survive and avoid detection. In the war-torn winter everyone is an enemy.

Objectively, I think this is a good book. The writing is well-done and there are definitely some visceral scenes that hit where it hurts, plus I love the premise so much. Subjectively....I don't know, this just didn't work for me. For one, and I hate to say this, if I had to give a one line critique: Need More Crows. I know that's not very helpful feedback, but for a book that is really being sold on the whole "group of super intelligent crows" thing, they just aren't a very significant part of the story and for the most part I don't think the actual plot would be that different if they weren't there at all. This is very much a historical novel with a whisper of maybe magical realism, which is fine but it's not really what I was hoping for.

Unfortunately, with the crows being a small part of the plot, this book just doesn't feel very unique. There are so so many stories about the horror of WWII out there—I would know! For some reason I have been given stories about my ancestors being graphically massacred since I was like six. The speculative elements were what was meant to set this book apart, but they're not central enough to the story to make this book stand out. I also think more scenes with the kids bonding or at least interacting would have also made their weird little survival family more believable and compelling. It's a lot of internal monologue and flashbacks which flesh out their histories a little but don't give you a love of reasons to root for them other than indicating that these kids have experienced some truly horrific stuff.

Most people who read this will probably enjoy it more than I did! But TLDR: Needs more crows and compelling character relationships.

Thank you to Ray Nayler and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advance listening copy in exchange for an honest review.

Going into Palaces of the Crow, I expected speculative fiction with historical elements, but what I found was something much quieter, sadder, and more haunting. While there are mysterious and fantastical aspects involving the crows, this story feels deeply rooted in the human cost of war and survival.

Set in Lithuania during World War II, the novel follows four young people hiding in the forest while danger surrounds them from every direction. The atmosphere throughout the book feels heavy with hunger, fear, grief, and uncertainty, yet there are also moments of tenderness and connection that keep the story from becoming hopeless.

The crows themselves were one of the most interesting parts of the novel for me. Nayler handles them with restraint, allowing them to remain mysterious and unsettling rather than over explaining their behavior. They add a strange, almost dreamlike layer to the story that lingers long after the book ends.

This is not a fast-paced read, and at times the story unfolds slowly and reflectively. I think readers expecting action-heavy speculative fiction may be surprised by how literary and emotionally intimate it feels. For me, the emotional atmosphere and the relationships between the characters were what stood out most.

Eunice Wong’s narration was excellent. She brought warmth and personality to the characters while still preserving the bleakness and tension woven throughout the story. Her performance added a lot of emotional depth to the listening experience.

The production was lovely, with hauntingly beautiful music and excellent sound.

This is ultimately a very somber and thoughtful novel about survival, memory, cruelty, and connection in impossible circumstances. I think it will especially resonate with readers who enjoy literary historical fiction with subtle speculative elements and emotionally atmospheric storytelling.

I highly recommend this novel, and rate it 5/5 stars.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

1941, Lithuania.
Neriya, a Jewish girl, dreams of becoming a biologist. She has a strong memory and a family who nurtures her interests. Every summer her family leaves the city and travels to the shtetl, where she befriends a flock of crows who leave things for her. Her world drastically changes as the German Blitzkrieg devastates her village, and she flees to the forest where she encounters Czesław, a boy who lied about his age to join the Red Army and has now deserted, Kezia, a bright Roma girl on the run from the Soviets, and a boy who cannot speak. They make a home deep in the woods, surviving on the gifts and foresight from the crows.

Ray Nayler is a writer unafraid of any topic, and in Palaces of the Crow he tackles the challenging story of four refugee children in WWII. The crows gives us a speculative component to the story, but the atmosphere of the novel feels speculative, too. Nayler weaves together each perspective from a few different timelines, and builds an atmosphere of suspense. It's WWII, this isn't a romance, who is going to survive? While the speculative touch remains light, Nayler uses similar techniques from his other stories to give us this chillin, yet keenly insightful story.

I've enjoyed all of his books so far, but Palaces of the Crow demonstrates how good of a writer Nayler is, to write something as poignant in a historical rather than futuristic setting. Tales of resistance are important now, and stories of friendship in dark times even more so. As unsettling a story as this is, it's one I will continue to think about.

Eunice Wong narrates the audiobook, and I always enjoy listening to her. Despite multiple timelines, the story is easy to follow on audiobook, so if that's your preferred method of reading, I can recommend it.

Thank you to MCD for an eARC and MacMillan Audio for an ALC. Palaces of the Crow is out 5/19/2026.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I saw this on NetGalley, the cover immediately caught my eye, and the description sealed the deal — a young Jewish girl, a Polish soldier, a Roma horse trader, and a mute boy with no name, all banding together for survival deep in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows as they try to escape the horrors of WWII. Caught between the Nazis and the Red Army, guided by birds? Ok, call me curious!

Strangely, this is the third war‑set book I’ve read this year, which is usually a hard no for me. But the first two — Sarafina by Philip Fracassi and The Girl With a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean — both had elements that intrigued me. Sarafina leaned into historical horror with touches of magical realism. TGWaTF was an alternate historical fantasy. So when I picked up Palaces of the Crow, I was hoping it, too, would lean in one of those directions. I mean… a group of kids being led through the woods by crows practically begs for magical realism, right?!

So there I was, waiting for something strange or uncanny to happen — and instead, I found myself reading a much more grounded story about a group of children who’ve lost everything, hunkering down with their feathered companions. It’s a book rooted in survival, friendship, trauma, and loss and explores the world through multiple perspectives, breaking down the boundaries between humans and animals... yet it never fully steps into the magical or fantastical space I was expecting.

Taken at face value, it’s a solid story about resilience and connection in the midst of war. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed that it didn’t dive into the elements that initially drew me to it. Is it unfair to say I feel a little cheated?

[MarilynW · Rating 4 out of 5]

Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler
Narrated by Eunice Wong

I did not expect for this story to hit me so hard. I read a lot of WWII stories and was drawn to the story of four children, three teens and a mute boy who seems younger than a teen, struggling to survive long term in woods filled with enemies from every side, enemies trying to kill each other and every living thing. Humanity seems to have taken flight and these four children must survive while their bodies slowly starve, must spend their time quiet, sometimes freezing, always hungry, always knowing that at any minute the terrible things that they have seen happen to friends, loved ones, neighbors, and strangers, could happen to them.

Brilliant Jewish Neriya wants to be a biologist someday, Illiterate Roma Kezia absorbs what Neriya teaches her as if she is a sponge. Their years together almost melds their minds, they dream of writing a book together about the very special crows who protect them, so the pair can let the world, a world they dream will someday be peaceful, know of this great avian discovery.

Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier because he lied about his age in order to join the army rather than to be killed by the army. But all the boys and men he fought with are dead and he must hide from those who will kill him. Finally there is the mute boy, who they call "the boy". The four children come to love each other, would be willing to die for each other, live for each other. And it was the crows who brought them together in one way or another and it is the crows who keep them alive, warn them, guide them, entertain them, give to them and talk to them. There was someone before these four who interacted with the crows and maybe that is why these four have been adopted by them.

The story is heartbreaking from the very beginning and the heartbreak never lets up. How can it when death is a constant and one can only hope when death comes that it will be swift? The war goes on, the years pass, how can anyone live under this constant stress and lack of nourishment? These four do just that until things happen and then we move farther into the future. I could not have hoped for a better ending than we get with this story. The ending was what I wanted but never imagined I would get.

The reason I wanted to listen to this book so much was because I saw it was narrated by Eunice Wong. She has a very distinct way of speaking and narrating and I have picked books before based solely on the fact that she was narrating the book. Her narration fits so well with the stream on conscious thinking of the children and with their dialogue with each other. I wanted so much for these children and for the birds and I'm so glad I was able to listen to the audiobook of this journey.

Publication May 19, 2026

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this ARC

[Lorena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved The Mountain in the Sea and The Tusks of Extinction , so I had high hopes for this story. Although the previous books included violence and gore, they felt more hopeful. This was just too bleak for me.

I liked the premise of four young people from different oppressed cultures surviving World War II in the Lithuanian woods with the help of hyperintelligent crows. I liked the found family vibes. I thought the book was well written, but I was expecting science fiction, and this is really historical fiction with minimal speculative elements. I wanted more of the crows and less of the horrors of war.

The nonlinear narrative jumps between multiple points of view and back and forth through space and time. If you’re not paying close attention, it’s easy to get confused.

The audiobook production was good, and Eunice Wong’s narration was fine. Her voice is pleasant, and her pacing and pronunciation is fine; however, she basically reads the story rather than performing the different characters with unique voices. Since the story is set in Eastern Europe, I would have preferred a reader with a relevant accent. Still, I enjoyed listening to the audiobook.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with a free ARC and to Macmillan Audio for providing me with a free advanced review copy of the audiobook through NetGalley. I volunteered to provide an honest review.