*****
5/5 Stars
There aren’t enough books filled to the brim with breathless action, cutting love, and complex culture that cut me to the bone. Happily, this long, wonderfully polished book is one of them.
Dragons. Battle of good vs evil. A lovely romance between two powerful women who take on the weight of the world with barely a stumble. A complex, huge world with clashing politics, stunning grace, and dark, gritty shadows.
Characters who are morally gray, outstandingly relatable and oddly endearing even through their mistakes (I’m giving you the side eye, Doctor Roos). Magic that makes no sense yet truly balances the mysticism of the book. Universal attunement. The list really goes on.
Shannon’s snappy, honed narrative is both skeletal in description yet wonderfully rich in imagery. She doesn’t soak in a moment. She tears through each scene with crisp, cutting words that delve right to the point before whisking off to the next moment. There are some brief instances where I felt like things were a smidgeon rushed, but they were minimal, and effortlessly carried away by the overall pillared strength of the book.
I’m not one for long reviews that cut books into chunks. All I’m going to say now is that this book is a polished gem that shines through the heavily saturated industry of epic fantasy. Read it, and read it now. You won’t regret it.
