RANTS AND RAMBLES

• • DISCLAIMER: When I review books, weaknesses and inconsistencies tend to dominate my discussion; therefore, I will emphasize that any particular rant (and, yes, they can be long-winded) does not have special bearing on my unified opinion of the book. For this, please refer to my overall star rating. Additionally, this review is my personal opinion, intended to help like-minded readers navigate the plethora of available options. Use it as a tool but do not assign undue importance to it (i.e. feel free to disagree with me).
  • Donita sets up quite an impressive world with her first novel including interesting geography, a motley collection of magical creatures, a vast array of humanoid races, and a bustling cultural and political system. Many of these elements are only hinted at in this novel which makes sense given how Kale only knows the life of her backwater hometown and is discovering everything for the first time. And there is a lot of ground to cover in developing this world. Fourteen races of humanoids (seven high races and seven low races) plus magical creatures including monsters and a host of different dragon types. Spreading all of this information across multiple books is the most organic way to approach the world building here, and while I thought the world-building done in this book could have been handled a bit more elegantly, the choice to not attempt to paint the reader a full picture in a single volume was a wise decision.
  • SPOILERS: The pacing at the end of the story is weird and one of the most noticeable flaws with the book. Rather than using a standard 3 act plot arc with rising action leading to the climax and then resolution, Donita opted for a non-standard approach. She tries to fake the reader out with a pseudo-climax (check the novel for what form this took and if it was possibly better than the real ending). The characters then spend several months recuperating in a town. The chapter which covers this is not overly long, but it serves to dial the action down and begin the resolution phase of the book. Then, out of nowhere, Kale ventures back out, drawn once more by her character-defining attraction to dragon eggs. This puts her into direct conflict with Risto, the main villain of the book, in the true climax. Unfortunately, this scene is incredibly anti-climactic for two reasons. First, the action and struggle with Risto is bland and uninspired and more importantly, the momentum building throughout the book was sapped by the fake climax, causing the true one to fall on its face (especially since, if I remember correctly, Kale fails at the end of the false-ending which is interesting for her character and sets the stakes a bit higher for future volumes when you demonstrate that the hero can fail).