Long ago, dragons were hunted to near extinction by the Order of St. George, a legendary society of dragon slayers. Hiding in human form and growing their numbers in secret, the dragons of Talon have become strong and cunning, and they're positioned to take over the world with humans none the wiser.
Ember and Dante Hill are the only sister and brother known to dragonkind. Trained to infiltrate society, Ember wants to live the teen experience and enjoy a summer of freedom before taking her destined place in Talon. But destiny is a matter of perspective, and a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught. As Ember struggles to accept her future, she and her brother are hunted by the Order of St. George.
Soldier Garret Xavier Sebastian has a mission to seek and destroy all dragons, and Talon's newest recruits in particular. But he cannot kill unless he is certain he has found his prey: and nothing is certain about Ember Hill. Faced with Ember's bravery, confidence and all-too-human desires, Garret begins to question everything that the Order has ingrained in him: and what he might be willing to give up to find the truth about dragons.
I was very much looking forward to this one. It was YA, had a pretty cover and mostly it was going to be about dragons. Unfortunately about twenty pages in I had the entire plot pretty much figured out, which kind of puts a damper on things. It didn't really help of course that we're slowly getting a love triangle thing, even though it's obvious who Ember prefers. Also the world building felt lacking to me. To me it didn't really seemed to be about dragons and more about two teenagers, who just happen to be dragons.
Their entire lives they've been preparing for this and now Ember and Dante get to infiltrate human society, while still training of course. Ember sees this as a chance for freedom and do whatever the hell she wants, damn the consequences. She seems to be fitting in a bit too well with the humans, and it seems that at times she nearly forgets she's a dragon. Therein lies one of the bigger issues. Ember is a dragon pretending to be a human, not the other way around, but that's the feeling I got off of her.
I'm not saying the girl should agree with everything Talon is telling them to do, but she's not really being smart about it. When a pretty boy or two shows up, she becomes entirely hopeless. Ember is so self involved at times, she's not seeing the bigger picture here and overlooks clues all the time.
So while I did enjoy the book and certainly towards the end when there was more action it became interesting, there were a lot of issues with this one. I will probably read the next one, but I'm not sure if I can make the five book commitment.
Julie Kagawa, the New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Fey and Blood of Eden series was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish, and the odd eel.
When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time (okay, at least the illustrations did), but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a
real job.
To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dog trainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full time.
Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, an obnoxious cat, an Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and a hyper-active Papillion.
Their entire lives they've been preparing for this and now Ember and Dante get to infiltrate human society, while still training of course. Ember sees this as a chance for freedom and do whatever the hell she wants, damn the consequences. She seems to be fitting in a bit too well with the humans, and it seems that at times she nearly forgets she's a dragon. Therein lies one of the bigger issues. Ember is a dragon pretending to be a human, not the other way around, but that's the feeling I got off of her.
I'm not saying the girl should agree with everything Talon is telling them to do, but she's not really being smart about it. When a pretty boy or two shows up, she becomes entirely hopeless. Ember is so self involved at times, she's not seeing the bigger picture here and overlooks clues all the time.
So while I did enjoy the book and certainly towards the end when there was more action it became interesting, there were a lot of issues with this one. I will probably read the next one, but I'm not sure if I can make the five book commitment.
Buy book: Amazon - Book Depository
The Author
When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time (okay, at least the illustrations did), but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a
real job.
To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dog trainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full time.
Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, an obnoxious cat, an Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and a hyper-active Papillion.
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