Uptown Oracle Reads… The Merciful Crow | Not If But When You Need a Unique Magic System

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

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A future chieftain.

Fie abides by one rule: look after your own. Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime.

A fugitive prince.

When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses—and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns.

A too-cunning bodyguard.

Hawk warrior Tavin has always put Jas’s life before his, magically assuming the prince’s appearance and shadowing his every step. But what happens when Tavin begins to want something to call his own?

So first up I wanted to talk about the Crows as a group of people as they’re this worlds plague doctor/sin eaters who collect bodies of sinners who’ve got the plague. I loved the introduction of them, as well as our main Crow character Fie, and it was so nice to read an introduction which gave you so much context from them by using links to plague doctors and sin eaters. We understand that they wear masks to have something that smells nicer than death, that they may kill the sinners themselves, that they’re doing the job given to them by someone else. All these, plus showing us the diffuculties they face in the first few chapters.

The book itself is split into three parts, of which the middle third is the slowest with the least happening. However, I did love that during that middle third the travel times were cut down a lot, and this allowed the book to focus on character development without slowing it down completely. There’s also a couple of plot points that I could predict would happen, and so reading up to them was irritating as you knew the characters were walking into a bad place.

Our titular The Merciful Crow is Fie, a chief-in-training who definitely isn’t ready to become chief herself. She’s our introduction to all things Crow, and their feelings towards to royals, gentry and society as a whole. Despite resentment, she has a strong leaning on her oaths, honor and duty as a crow and the covenant oath taken to get Jas to safety.

Fie is both a strong and tough woman, who also shows emotions. I find that characters have to often remove emotions in order to be seen as “strong” but I loved that she shows grief, rage and god-awful sadness at every single turn of the book. She’s also shown to be dependant on only herself over and over again, and she knows what it’s like to survive.

Different castes in this world have different birthrights, but a Crow has no birthright except that the witches (AKA Chiefs) can use teeth as magic. Teeth from different castes allows them to use those birthrights. It’s overall and intriguing magic system which has clear limitations, but is easily understood too. Owen has clearly thought out the systems of both magic, castes and politics before completing the book, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the well thought out world.

A bit more about the magic system is that each witch of a caste is a dead god reborn, and each caste has a certain number of gods. It’s mentioned the Swans have only three, and so only three witches from that cast can be around at one time. This premise intrigued me because it was woven into the story but it wasn’t a huge part of it like the teeth, hawk or phoenix birthrights we see. I’m hoping this becomes more important in the next book.

Both Tavin and Jas work well to contrast with how the Crows live because of their upbringing and privilege. Neither of them have understood what it’s truly like to be a crow, and so when they must disguise themselves they do so with some reservations. As the story continues, and they recieve treatment as if they are Crows, they slowly start to understand how badly they are treated, and how they need to change this if they manage to obtain back power.

Tavin feels a lot more fleshed out as a character than Jas as he’s more outgoing, talkative and charming towards Fie and the other Crows. Although Jas does get more page time near the end of the book where he shows growth and learning from his journey. At the same time, Jas is an open book in what we know about him from the start and Tavin has mysteries we get to uncover throughout the story. Both boys were intriguing to read about, and you wanted them to improve how they view the world.

I loved The Merciful Crow for it’s world building and unique magic systems, got dragged into reading more because of the characters, and I will most definitely be picking up the next book too.

Positives of The Merciful Crow

• Brilliant world building, magic systems and politics
• Characters really develop into better people

Negatives of The Merciful Crow

• A bit slower during centre third of book

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