Shield of Sparrows ♥ Devney Perry ♥ Shield of Sparrows #1

Published May 2025 ♥ Published by Entangled

❥  Romantasy

❥  Slow Burn

❥  Arranged Marriage

❥  Enemies to Lovers

❥  Found Family

❥  Hidden Identity

Did I get sucked in by the gorgeous cover? Yes. Yes I did. I mean, look at it. Ultimately, and as usual, I’m going into this book blind. I’ve seen it floating around on social media but I haven’t actively looked into the series. Beyond knowing it’s a fantasy with monsters, I know little else.

Spoilers Sweetie: You know the drill, my commentary may have spoilers. Jump down to my Final Thoughts to avoid this section.

1. Why all the grey tho? This is some Cinderella shit. 
2. It seems like Odessa is the only one who can feel the Voster’s magic. 
3. So The Guardian is the same oddity as Odessa. 
4. What a little scammer Father Dearest is. 
5. I wouldn’t trust him. 
6. Except I don’t think this is Zavier Wolfe. 
7. Yanno, I haven’t read a pirate book in a while. A why choose pirate book would be killer. 
8. Poor Brielle. 
9. I like that he calls her Cross. 
10. Good thing she’s in pants!
11. Because the Guardian is the Prince!
12. A better lock is not going to stop The Guardian.
13. What I want to.. need to know is Zavier a “real” person.. or golem like?
14. I mean, some of these questions are valid. 
15. Honestly girl, I’m inclined to believe Ol’Samuel Hay. 
16. I really wish this was dual pov. 
17. King Ramsey is a dick. 
18. Girl, idk if you can do this. 
19. I mean, maybe if you answered some questions she wouldn’t of run away in search for answers. Spy or no spy. 
20. Yanno, fuck the dad for putting her in this position. 
21. Why are we burning all the gd libraries!?
22. I don’t think it exists. 
23. I feel like there’s a deeper meaning to the horses name. 
24. Oh it definitely belonged to your mother and is a clue to your true heritage. 
25. Agreed. Not a coincidence at all. 
26. Ransom! Love it. 
27. Omg. Spit it out. 
28. Girl, your reaction is not normal.
29. The Voster are suspish af. 
30. Oh shit. 
31. I’ve been waiting for this secret to be revealed   
32. Always something interrupting.
33. These lady maids. 
34. Oh my.

Shield of Sparrows Review

Minor Spoilers

“Not all monsters are born from the gods, my queen. Some of us were made.”

Devney Perry’s Shield of Sparrows is a slow burn enemies to lovers romantasy taking place in a world overrun by monsters. Calandra is composed of five kingdoms, although Shield of Sparrows only focuses on two of them. Each kingdom is bound by an ancient treaty, the Shield of Sparrows. This treaty requires the daughters from one royal line to marry into another, maintaining a fragile peace among the kindgoms. Shield of Sparrows opens with a marriage between the kingdoms of Quentis and Turah.

Does Shield of Sparrows follow the same formula as just about every romantasy ever written? Yes. That doesn’t make it any less exceptional. The world in which it takes place and Perry’s writing sets it apart from your typical powerless princess saves the day trope. Princess Odessa of Quentis has lived her whole life in the shadows, with all the focus on her younger half-sister, Mae. Mae is the one who has been groomed to be the Shield of Sparrows. Mae has trained her whole life to be a spy and assassin. Mae is to marry the Prince of Turrah.

The space around us faded to a blur. All that remained were those silver eyes.

I wanted to carve them from his skull.

The Prince of Turrah, Zavier, rejects Mae as his bride-to-be. To the surprise of all those involved, and not at all to the reader, Zavier chooses Odessa instead. Shield of Sparrows is a single pov story, and that point of view comes from Odessa. Limiting the amount of information available to the reader is a major plot deice in Shield of Sparrows. I really enjoyed Perry’s characters. However, I did see the hidden identity trope coming from a mile away and felt as though it was dragged out longer than necessary.

One of my bookish pet peeves is plot twists and reveals hinging on ignorant characters not asking questions. Odessa is not an ignorant character letting the plot pass her by. Or at least, she’s trying not to be. That girl has questions.. lots of them. So many in fact, I’ve seen a plethora of complaints about the sheer number of questions this girl asked. And yes, if you were to take a shot every time Odessa asked a question, you would need your stomach pumped by chapter five. As someone who asks a lot of questions, I liked it.

There was only one way for me to break free.

Knowledge.

Every secret I exposed would lead me to freedom.

The issue for me personally was the fact that no one answered Odessa’s questions. She’s an outsider and no one trusts her. I get why they kept Odessa in the dark but I was frustrated, I wanted answers. Eventually we did get them, but the length of time it took was excruciating. Withholding information from Odessa became too much of a crutch in moving the plot forward. Especially when some of the answers were glaringly obvious to the reader.

Being a spy was hard.

The final chapter of Shield of Sparrows is from the view point of the Prince. Personally, I would like to see book two, Rites of the Starling written as a dual pov story. Now that we have moved from enemies to the lovers portion of the tale, there is no need to keep Odessa or the reader in the dark. Shield of Sparrows ends on a cliffhanger with our two main characters separated. At the very least, a handful of chapters from the view point of the Prince would be welcomed by me.

I was tired of being a Sparrow in a cage.

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❥ Purchase : Kobo ♥ Indigo/Chapters ♥ Barnes&Noble ♥ Amazon ♥ Bookshop