Enjoyed the book but did find it slow in places. Lots of good elements here, including:
- interesting view of elemental type dragons (fire vs water), and different societies reacting very differently to dragons
- great, strong female characters - in fact this world's history seems to mainly revolve around female heroes and leaders
- good character growth for several of the main characters
- LGB friendly (no trans characters I noticed, though not against such a thing either, just not there). Gay and lesbian relationships taken for granted, as main characters

I wasn't as crazy about the likeability of the characters though - while I didn't hate any of them I also never really felt that I much liked any of them, I just didn't find them approachable for some reason. I probably liked Loth best but, while important, he's not one of the most central characters. It was also very LONG; there's a lot of detail and politics in there (reminded me a little of a Guy Gavriel Kay sweeping epic fantasy) but I feel it could have either been condensed a bit or written to flow more easily. Sometimes it's just as effective to sum up some details or let the reader guess them as to spell out every single detail. Jumping around between at least four different main characters was also a bit hard to keep straight, especially in the early book, although they did all cross paths in the end.

If you like dragons and politics and fantasy nations at war with magic forces and Guy Gavriel Kay style sweeping epics then you'll probably enjoy this! If you like a quick and captivating read with lots of action and not too many different points of view you may struggle with this one.