Murder of crows, humans of murder

Despite crows revealing their hyper-intelligence to humans being the only speculative aspect in an exceptionally well written piece of historical fiction, Palaces of the Crow by Ray Naylor is one of our favourite novels of 2026.(Image via Goodreads)There are no technological advancements allowing for mind-melds between bird and human and there is no indication of avian uplifting. There are no spaceships or dragons or wizards. Palaces of the Crow is a narrative told from the perspective of four very human protagonists in our very real world across two different timelines, during and after the Second World War. The brutality of survival during war is both backdrop and foreground amidst the Labanoras Forest in early 1940s Lithuania. Thrown together by horrible circumstances, three teenagers and a young child rely on the forest and the corvids to fall through the cracks of moving battlefields and power-shifting warring factions. Their horrors are manmade, but their saviours are avian.…