A Song For You and I by K. O’Neil

TL;DR: You bet I pre-ordered this as soon as I was done. I adored this.
Source: NetGalley and I have pre-ordered my own copy!

Plot: Rowan is assigned work with Leone while their winged horse companion heals, and the two couldn’t be more different.
Characters: The strength of K. O’Neil to me (besides their art) is the characters they manages to bring to life so well in these panels.
Setting: An absolutely beautiful fantasy world with winged horses. I’m never going to say no to horses.
Fantasy: Winged horses but no magic. It didn’t need it to be honest, the artwork lent itself to the fantasy feeling.

Thoughts:

I wonder if this is an unbiased review. I don’t know K. O’Neil but at this point I have read every single one of their works I can get my hands on and I have loved all of them. This one hit harder than some of the others, I related a lot to Rowan here, so this is going up with Tea Dragons on my K. O’Neil ranking.

Rowan is an apprentice Ranger, who makes a poor decision getting their winged horse companion Kes wounded. While Kes recovers they are assigned an easy task of patrolling the meadows and towns below the Ranger headquarters. They begin to help out Leone, a mellow shepherd who spends their days playing music in the fields. Rowan is a bit of stick in the mud at first but the two become companions and traveling buddies as they do delivers through the area. Along the way Rowan discovers new things, people, and more about themselves.

It’s all lovely. All of it. From the art which had me actually gasping at times, to the story itself which had me tearing up at the end. I love the slow but clear progression of Rowan’s character. Leone as well gets a soft and careful story. The only thing I could nitpick and ask more of would be more of Kes, the winged horse, which seems unfair since they were in almost every other panel. The interactions we got between Kes and Rowan, those few focused moments really pulled on the heartstrings.

I’m so excited to get this physical copy in my hands, I cannot wait to read it and soak up the artwork on the page. 5 amazing stars out of 5. I highly recommend.