GILDED WINGS by Emily Thiede
9781250407863
1/12/2027
Wednesday Books
Ages 13–18
E-galley available on Edelweiss and NetGalley
NEW YORK, November 3, 1899 — The city’s gilded elite parade in jewels and jewel tones, armor against the winged beasts that hunt the city’s skies. A centuries-old pact protects the wealthy from dragon attacks, but the factory workers and farmers in smokestack gray and mousy browns are fair game, and Stella is one of them.
Stella seeks a different future than the inevitable sepia-toned one laid out for her on her family’s farm. She joins her sister in a garment factory, where workers risk dangerous machinery, chained doors, and flammable conditions for a smidgen of financial security. But even that is tenuous in a city of striking disparities. Unionization calls to Stella’s sense of justice, but fear is the factory’s strictest foreman.
Fortunately, Stella meets Gentry, a newsie who’s more aware than most of the city’s strict inequality. Flirting is Gentry’s shtick, but the charmer is charmed by the righteous girl the color of a sunset. When he mistakes Stella for a con artist, they’re drawn unexpectedly together in a small town with millions of residents. But when the dragons’ smaller kin—the mischievous and clever infaerna—start to go missing, it seems that workers aren’t the only ones in danger of exploitation. Sparks fly as a deadly winter sets in, and Stella, Gentry, and their newsie friends must take a stand for life and love, no matter the cost.
GILDED WINGS proves that all that’s gilded is indeed gold—at least when it comes to titles! This book is a must-read for anyone who loves historical fantasies like The Gilded Wolves series and GILDED IN VENGEANCE. Looming shadows of dragons shape the glittering excess of the era as the turn of the century tests the limits of the American Dream.
Like Stella, I moved to the city from the surrounding countryside, and I felt transported again while wandering through the streets of Old New York in her and Gentry’s dual narration. The overlay of a newcomer’s hope and a native’s jaded assurances adds texture to their sweeping romance. In the background, a nuanced picture develops of a city that so many, Gentry included, have “hated to love and loved to hate.”
Highlights of the novel include Gentry’s motley crew of newsies, who form a delightful supporting cast, and the infaerna, which act like incendiary stray magpies and lend charm to the city’s smoggy underbelly.
Emily Thiede also cleverly develops themes of gender roles in activism and progress. The novel poses interesting, resonant questions about what kinds of labor can or should be automated, which are especially relevant at the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Ultimately, Stella’s story empowers anyone to challenge the status quo.
GILDED WINGS is an incandescent historical romantasy novel perfect for fans of Newsies, The Gilded Age, and WHEN DEALING WITH DRAGONS.
Happy reading!
<3 Jadyn
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