Hardcover, 528 pages
English language
Published June 3, 2023 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll …
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
not really my kind of thing. more of a wizard school/romance/save the world story than I'm usually into. The writing was good enough to keep me turning pages, though. If you are too old for Harry P*tter, this might be more your speed.
This was overall a very enjoyable read that bogged down at the end. It made heavy use of YA tropes but had adults-only romance and those two components fit awkwardly together. The characters' dialogue was very modern, which took getting used to with the setting.
The first two-thirds were a real page-turner that I compulsively read until I slowed down at the end.
The equation here was (a worse version of Scholomance) + (a better version of Divergent) + (a few Game of Thrones elements) + (sex scenes).
I'll definitely read the next one, and I wonder if the school will continue to feature in the plot, or if it will go another direction.
Content warning spoilers ahoy! discussion of horniness/gaping plot holes/character development
Decently written fighting sequences Worldbuilding/history of lands great, logic of how/when magic works not Enemies-to-lovers arc is Really Central Two extended hyper-explicit hetero sex sequences that feel out of place with the rest of the text, kind of written like fight sequences (consent is prominent, don't recall any non-con threats/assault in text), but as someone expecting a magic-school-but-dragon-riders fantasy....yow! Maybe a disclaimer that this is not YA on the cover?! Such a horny book. Dragons and characters outside the main pairing felt cardboard. Protagonist is too small and thus can't handle riding the dragon (who's main descriptors are 'big and black') is cringe. Of course the handsome male lead's magic power is smoke. Of course he's overwhelmingly hot to her, but he shoves down all his trauma, so its just hot trauma. Of course her power is lightning and its outside her control and she's the powerfullest. Like cell phones in horror flicks set after Year 2000 CE, telepathy works only when its needed to advance the plot, and we have to forget the option is available when the plot requires. Magical creatures are horses without agency but they do have their own lore and laws which we as humans can't know. Why are the dragons helping the humans? What's new and innovative to the lore of dragons coming from this book? Logistics of 'war-bonded-pair' dragons that are supposed to live 200 years tied to the lives of humans who have...at most 20 years of good military service...don't add up. Where's the Temeraire of dragon-kind who's letting the humans battle for 400 years and watching all their dragon-bros get killed? Breadcrumbs were more bread-loaves that telegraphed upcoming events. (that comment based on snark from my spouse, hearing me rant to her about this book). I guess we're just going to all have to agree that the only way to solve the problems in this society is through violence and a high death rate for the navy seals program. Meh. I'm not sure who the target audience is for this one. #FourthWing
Content warning spoiler alert
This book is so hyped, which is probably why this review is a little bit unfair.
If you've managed to avoid the hype it goes like this: really compelling fantasy series, with tons of hot smutty sex scenes.
So first, to address the latter. There are a couple of sex scenes. As in... two. They are both in the last third of the book. The rest of the book is filled with the kind of yearning a 7th grader might write about in her diary (drooling over a crush's muscular abs, or his thick hair). They are not the stuff of adult desire. At least, not from my perspective. And that's what's missing, even from the sex scenes for me: desire. I was not exactly carried away on the wings of fantasy reading them. I saw another review that said "these sex scenes were so explicit". Were they?! I'm worried about that person's sex life now. They were explicit, and they were graphic, but they described pretty vanilla hetero sex? and I'm not super kinky, and I like smut as much as the next person, but this was not compelling smut for me.
But here's the thing! I think, were it not for the awkward attempt at smut, this would have been a half-way decent fantasy book. Clearly, it borrows a lot of plot and universe building from other IP (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games). Still, it creates a mostly compelling narrative on its own (even though I guessed at every plot twist in the book since the author does some very obvious breadcrumbling). But the sex almost detracts from it: it feels completely unnecessary.
So... I will not be reading the sequels, is what I'm trying to say, unless I'm looking for something to occupy a weekend when otherwise very depressed.
I put this book down and couldn't pick it up again. I never felt the plot materialize any stakes for the characters, and the main character describing her horniness in excruciatingly cringey detail for the nth time was enough to make me give up waiting.
Ugh. Where do I even start. Yes, the premise of the book is very promising. But the prose is so poorly written. It's as if the author just kept filling up her word count for the day. Also, there are many plot holes. I can accept flawed characters, but the MC couldn't get any more generic and cliché. I tried to give it time to see if it improves but no it just the same over and over. I really wanted this to work for me but unfortunately it didn't.
Guilty: this is my first romantasy. I devoured this book, however, not a fan of the landing... Felt shallow and underdeveloped. Neat worldbuild.
I jumped on the hype train with this book, mainly because the premise sounded interesting - a dragon riding college? But I admit that this is the first ever "romance" book I've read, and I'm not sure what to make of that regarding this book. In my opinion, there wasn't really much romance in this book, but rather quite a lot of horniness. Which ironically is also what I liked least about this book (aside from its very militaristic nature). I think it could have been an infinitely better book without the main character constantly salivating over some guy, who no less is supposedly the son of someone who killed her brother? WTF??? I get that it serves to illustrate that not everything is black and white, but I found it cringe at times.
What I did like about the book is the worldbuilding (again, minus the militaristic nature). The …
I jumped on the hype train with this book, mainly because the premise sounded interesting - a dragon riding college? But I admit that this is the first ever "romance" book I've read, and I'm not sure what to make of that regarding this book. In my opinion, there wasn't really much romance in this book, but rather quite a lot of horniness. Which ironically is also what I liked least about this book (aside from its very militaristic nature). I think it could have been an infinitely better book without the main character constantly salivating over some guy, who no less is supposedly the son of someone who killed her brother? WTF??? I get that it serves to illustrate that not everything is black and white, but I found it cringe at times.
What I did like about the book is the worldbuilding (again, minus the militaristic nature). The dragons are pretty cool, as is the magic system of bonding to magical creatures. It's a very decent entry-level fantasy book, which is well written and mostly well-paced (but IMHO could also have been condensed in some aspects).
Does it live up to the hype? I don't think so. Will I still read book 2 and 3? Definitely.
Another book that I enjoyed more than I thought I would! We follow Violet SorrengaiI when she joins the Basgiath War College to become a dragonrider in the kingdom of Navarre. All she wanted was to become a scribe, but her mother, who is a war General, forces her to join the Dragonriders Quadrant, instead of the Scribe Quadrant. Just to keep family tradition (her older siblings were also dragonriders). I feel bad about the ruthlessness nature of this military school (there are zero concerns with safety and well-being of the cadets) but I got past that. Cadets die if they make mistakes or fail the crazy challenges and test assigned to them. They are prepared to bond with a dragon and become a rider. The bond is strong, rider and dragons can telepathically communicate. And if you're a rider and your dragon dies, you die! I'm loving the mental …
Another book that I enjoyed more than I thought I would! We follow Violet SorrengaiI when she joins the Basgiath War College to become a dragonrider in the kingdom of Navarre. All she wanted was to become a scribe, but her mother, who is a war General, forces her to join the Dragonriders Quadrant, instead of the Scribe Quadrant. Just to keep family tradition (her older siblings were also dragonriders). I feel bad about the ruthlessness nature of this military school (there are zero concerns with safety and well-being of the cadets) but I got past that. Cadets die if they make mistakes or fail the crazy challenges and test assigned to them. They are prepared to bond with a dragon and become a rider. The bond is strong, rider and dragons can telepathically communicate. And if you're a rider and your dragon dies, you die! I'm loving the mental banter-dialogues between the riders and the dragons. The romance is a slow burn well developed enemies-to-lovers. It's over the top and I loved it! I definitely want to check out the second book in the series.
Content warning Lots of plot devices remain unaddressed. If the protagonists can mentally talk to each other, there must be others who can? Not addressed. If more than 3 meet, then they are invisible to the bad guy? Surely that means he knows of such occasions.
Started off with a fairly intriguing world but devolves into tired tropes by the end. Plot holes galore.
Very entertaining, the writing was better than I expected, reading some reviews, the plot was actually the best part of this book I think, and I liked the characters (and romance
I loved this book so much and can’t wait for the sequel!
