'Puts Samantha Shannon in the same league as Robin Hobb and George R.R. Martin. Shannon is a master of dragons' Starburst
‘Epic fantasy with added dragons. A blockbuster’ Guardian, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy
An enthralling, epic fantasy about a world on the brink of war with dragons - and the women who must lead the fight to save it.
A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.
We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs.
This was an okay book but since it's been a while since I read high fantasy, I decided to reintroduce myself to the genre with this, figured it wouldn't hurt much (page count aside, of course).
The world was dense and the exposition even more so, it took more than a third of the book for things to start rolling. Shannon could have eased back on the info-dump and done more on the characterisation and this would have made for a more enjoyable read.
