When two warring kingdoms unified against a deadly menace laying waste to both their lands, they had to make a choice: vow to marry their heirs to one another, or forfeit their lives to the dragon.
Centuries later, everyone expects the sheltered princess Sorrowlynn to choose the barbarian prince over the fire-breathing beast—everyone, that is, except Sorrow, who is determined to control her own destiny or die trying.
As she is lowered into the dragon’s chamber, she assumes her life is over until Golmarr, the young prince she just spurned, follows her with the hopes of being her hero and slaying the dragon. But the dragon has a different plan. . . .
If the dragon wins, it will be freed from the spell that has bound it to the cave for centuries. If Sorrow or Golmarr vanquish the dragon, the victor will gain its treasure and escape the cave beneath the mountain. But what exactly is the dragon hiding?
There are no safe havens for Sorrow or Golmarr—not even with each other—and the stakes couldn’t be higher as they risk everything to protect their kingdom.
****Thank you to Random House Kids for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review****
This was a big disappointment for me since I was expecting to really love this book, honestly, it was just sort of a big mess. This book is basically one big insta-love romance that just so happens to be in a fantasy world….
The overall premise of the story is interesting and, come on, who doesn’t love the promise of dragons? Unfortunately the ONLY interesting thing in the story were the dragons and even then they weren’t that great. Other than that the plot was boring more than half the time and it was predictable, NOTHING new or original at all.
Everything that happens in this story is too convenient and entirely unbelievable even for fantasy. Princess Sorrowlynn is unskilled in anything not necessarily even very clever and yet an event in the story MAGICALLY makes her so. Really? You had to magically make your character skilled and clever? She couldn’t have any skills beforehand or slowly develop some? Needless to say the rest of the plot was similar with everything falling into place conveniently rather than with any work.
Generally I don’t mind the writing in stories but this was…..terrible. The dialogue was cringe-worthy and way too simplistic, overall it didn’t feel like I was reading Young Adult but more like Middle Grade because of how immature the writing felt. This was one of the bigger issues I had with this book which just goes to show the writing can really make or break you, in this case it broke it.
I can’t really tell you why I felt compelled to finish this book other than I was a little curious to see where the story would go since I had no idea what direction it was going in but also because I wanted to give a full review on this ARC. Honestly I think the only truly interesting parts were with the dragons and their “treasure”, that was it.
One other random thing that bothered me is the Antharian people are essentially a rip-off of the Dothraki from the A Song of Ice and Fire series. They have dark, tanned skin, long black hair which represents their status as a warrior, they come from grasslands, and they are known for their love of horses. I’m sorry but that is EXACTLY what the Dothraki are!
Overall the story is bland, boring, unoriginal, and unexciting. I had to skim through some parts because I was so bored and could have cared less what happened to anyone or anything.
All of the characters are very flat and two dimensional, there’s virtually NO development whatsoever especially since what development there is is done over the course of minutes rather than slow, realistic development over the course of a few days or weeks. I didn’t like any of them!
Princess Sorrowlynn is NOT a badass, fantasy heroine so if you’re here for that you will not be finding it! She’s unskilled and honestly makes some very drastic, stupid decisions such as choosing to be fed to a dragon over being married to a “barbarian”. She also turns out to be quite the “special snowflake”….
Golmarr is one of the Antharian princes and was kind of interesting but he, too, makes stupid decisions. For one, he made Sorrowlynn believe she would have to be a sister wife to his brother and would she would not be treated well which ultimately made her choose the dragon. What a great guy!
The rest of the characters were just as boring and badly written, I’m sorry but I cannot get behind characters that have dialogue this painful to read through!
Insta-Love to the max! I haven’t seen it this bad in a while but this is pure, 100% insta-love folks. The romance feels so forced too and there is zero chemistry between the characters but that can be just because the dialogue isn’t that great. No slow-burn romance here at all.
I did not like this book and I’m really sorry to say that since I was really looking forward to this book. There was nothing in here redeemable for me so it’s a bit of a total loss.
What I Liked:
- The dragons and their interesting concept of treasure
What I Didn’t Like:
- The writing was awful including the dialogue
- The characters were flat and undeveloped
- Everything in the plot was way too convenient
- Major insta-love
I can’t say I’d recommend reading this since there are so many better YA Fantasy books out there.
Links: Goodreads / Amazon / Book Depository
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