Book Review: Boy with Wings by Mark Mustian

Publication date: 15 March 2025

Publisher: Koehler Books

Pages: 332

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format read: ARC – e-book

What does it mean to be different? From Mark Mustian, founder of the Word of South Festival of Literature and Music and award-winning author of the international bestseller “The Gendarme,” comes the new Southern gothic novel, “Boy With Wings” (March 15, 2025, Koehler Books).

About the book: Johnny Cruel is born with strange appendages on his back, frightening his neighbors and leaving him struggling to find a home. Johnny ends up in a “freak show” traveling the 1930s South, where he bares his back to onlookers who come to gape and fawn. Is he a horror or an angel? Should he hide himself to live his life?

As Johnny comes to grips with his uniqueness, he embarks on a journey of love and finds the miracles that give our lives meaning. Mustian’s thrilling and emotional story of self-discovery is perfect for book clubs and fans of historical fiction.

Rating: ★★★★

My thoughts:

I had spectacularly high hopes for this novel, particularly with such a strong start. I was immediately drawn in by the ‘boy with wings’, Johnny, and his story; unable to stop reading until well past my bedtime.

Born different, in a time when being different was to be feared or jeered at, Johnny Cruel faces a hard life journey. Still a young boy, scared and alone, he suffers immense loss, torment and abuse. Having lost his mother and his home, he is forced to ‘star’ in a freak show where he daily exposes his body for the paying public, doing whatever it takes to survive.

Set in the South during the Depression era, with rampant poverty, racism, freak shows, carnivals, crime and violence, Johnny’s coming-of-age story was quite emotional and difficult to read, my heart breaking for the atrocities Johnny had to endure.

There were some small victories for Johnny – friendships made and lessons learnt – but the overall tone of the novel was one of sorrow and hardship, perfectly carrying out the writer’s intent. This was never going to be a ‘fluffy’ read and neither should it have been.

A four star read with a powerful beginning and a satisfying end. There were some pacing issues, with the middle seeming to lose some of the story’s earlier punch, possibly due to the introduction of multiple POVs. The accompanying chopping and changing tended to confuse the direction of the story and with that, this reader. Not a lot seemed to happen in the middle of the novel – some conversations with others, a reunion of sorts, a dark sense of foreboding – but all of the nitty-gritty of the story happened at the start and end, the last 50 pages hooking me right back in.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.