Come for the early steps in one hero’s journey, stay for the puppylike dragons and princes in exile.
Following a coup, two teenage survivors on the lam join magical forces to fight their way back to their respective kingdoms.
Jai and his brothers have spent the last decade serving the Sabine dynasty faithfully, far from the Great Steppe and cut off from their native culture. Their father, the high khan of the Kidara tribe, lost his head to the former emperor Leonid’s axe. A royal wedding between Leonid’s grandson, Prince Titus, and Princess Erica of the Dansk promises to unite two of the world’s great powers and net the Empire a new weapon in its conquering arsenal. Powerful as the Sabine Empire’s soulbound—warriors granted superhuman abilities and magical powers as the result of their “soulbond” with legendary creatures—are, their Gryphon Guard are hardly a match for the noble Dansk soulbound, who forge psychic connections to dragons. Welcoming the Dansk princess and her father into the capital is just the opening the opportunistic Titus needs to usurp his father’s throne. The prince and his cronies kidnap the princess and massacre all foreign citizens in the Sabine court, including Erica’s father, Jai’s brothers, and the soulbound dragons belonging to the Dansk nobles. Jai escapes with an exceedingly rare, powerful artifact—a dragon egg, cut from its mother’s corpse—and soon finds himself with powers he does not understand as he soulbonds with the beast inside. Thankfully, he has Frida, herself a soulbound, to help guide him—at least until they must part ways at the end of the road, that is. As magical epics go, Matharu isn’t reinventing the wheel here. Still, fantasy fans will find much to love in this series starter. The author describes the interior aspects of Jai’s magic—such as refilling his mana core and grasping hold of the invisible threads binding him to his hatchling—so deftly, readers will forgive him if these sequences run just a little too long at times. Jai is a mixed-race person of color, and Frida’s pale features set her apart in the Sabine Empire.
Come for the early steps in one hero’s journey, stay for the puppylike dragons and princes in exile.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780063227576
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf