A Dragonbird in the Fern

I would have given 3.5-4 stars, except I found the ending too deus ex machina. I found the explanation of the ending even more deus ex machina... What were the chances of that book being written, much less found??

Still, good writing, good characters, and an excellent reason for the “why can't you just talk about it to solve the problem” conundrum.

A Dragonbird in the Fern is a story about a girl who has to find her sister's killer before the sister (who has turned into an “Earthwalker”, a sort of spirit that hasn't moved on) becomes more violent (as Earthwalkers become the longer they stay on the side of the living and not move on) as well as marry the king her sister was supposed to (before she was killed) and figure out a whole new language along with all the new customs and traditions. Something I really enjoyed about this book was Jiara's dyslexia. She has always been made to feel stupid because she couldn't read as fast as her siblings but she never lets that discourage her. In fact, she figures out an important piece of information about her sister's killer despite her dyslexia.
Another thing that I really liked was that the reader comes to the same suspicions as Jiara as to who the killer is even though a lot of evidence, especially people defending the person/not entirely understanding Jiara because of the language barrier. It does end up the person Jiara thinks it is which was a good sort of conclusion to that question.
Lastly, I really loved the subtle, lovely relationship between Jiara and Raffar. Yes, Raffar was meant to marry Jiara's sister but honestly, I was rooting for both of them throughout the whole book!
I really loved the fact that Jiara has dyslexia and the subtle sapphic couple hehe. The beliefs were interesting and that plot twist at the end-
This was a really fun fast paced book that I highly recommend!
ARC was provided through NetGalley