When She Reigns (Fallen Isles, #3)

by Jodi Meadows

“A fiercely imagined world!” —Mary E. Pearson, New York Times bestselling author of the Remnant Chronicles

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of My Plain Jane and My Lady Jane comes the final book in a smoldering fantasy trilogy about a girl who must embrace her latent power or lose the dragons she loves. Perfect for fans of Julie Kagawa and Kendare Blake.

The Great Abandonment has begun, and now dragons aren’t the only creatures facing extinction in the Fallen Isles.

As entire islands rise up from the sea, causing earthquakes, tidal waves, and utter devastation, Mira must use her growing connection with dragons to track a legendary treasure that could stop the destruction—the bones of the first dragon. But finding the treasure means traveling into the land of her greatest enemies.

What will it cost Mira to save the dragons, the people she loves, and the only home she’s ever known from total ruin? And what will be left of Mira once the final cataclysm is over?

• ISBN10: 0062469460
• ISBN13: 9780062469465
• Publish Date: 17 October 2019 (first published 10 September 2019)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 22 August 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 544
• Language: English

Reviews

[ladygrey]

I don’t know what to think of this book. I feel like I keep saying these books aren’t bad, but that also they’re not terrible. Which in a way is a virtue...? I don’t hate the characters and I wasn’t really annoyed by Mira in this one. So it’s got to be some sort of plus to write characters that don’t evoke any passion in either direction and still keep me engaged. Moderately. I did put these books down for days at a time but then I kept picking them back up again.

Here’s the one thing, though. There were so many plot points that they cancelled each other out. First the Mira treaty sold the islands to the empire. Which would have been a fine misdirect except a) her father who wrote the darn thing confirmed that falsehood (why? Why if it wasn’t true) and b) ‘sold’ implies they got something out of it—taxes or labor or authority and secretly forcing decisions. The empire got nothing. Except seven dragons, not because of the treaty but as a bargaining chip. Then the Mira Treaty sold the islands to Anahera, again how did that work? They didn’t get taxes or wealth or authority. They got the sick dragons...because they were sick! If the dragons hadn’t gotten sick would the sanctuaries have sent them to Anahera? Then (because two empty misdirects isn’t enough) really the Mira treaty was a smoke screen that Paroh created and then sabotaged so people would like his way of doing things better. Which if he was subversive enough to get them to draft the treaty in the first place, why not get them to draft something he liked instead of something he disagreed with so he can undermine it so he can get what he wants in the end?. It was all just a big mess.

But a big mess that I kept reading and didn’t dislike. I guess I didn’t love any of it because I never felt anything throughout the trilogy. It was all very decently written but not evocative for me. Though she turned the whole chosen one trope upside down a little. And I get her connection to LaLa. I didn’t think I would, but I do. And there’s lots of dragons, so there’s that.