One Good Dragon Deserves Another

I am loving this series

I haven't been this enamored with an author's world-building in a while, and the fact that this world is packed with one of the snarkiest and most interesting cast of characters I've read about makes it ten times better. Every new plot twist and magical reveal brings a new depth to the story, and I've found that my intrigue in the world somehow manages to keep growing.

Despite the many unread books on my Kindle, I'm off to go buy book three now because I just can't leave these guys alone.

4,5 stars. Took me long enough to finally write my opinion on this one and that's not because I had really any issues with the work itself. I'm just busy. And lazy. Hi.

The Heartstrikers are under an outside threat, namely Estella of The Three Sisters clan and her plans of tricking the ever ambitious Bethesda into messing things up for herself. Julius is still not particularly respected in his own clan, but he is getting more attention from people who are, which can be either a blessing or a curse, as all the other dragons play power games and he would have preferred to avoid those at any cost. Marci is still his companion, which only complicated things as he is supposed to have human servants, not companions.

This is what I'm talking about when I want to see the worlds of books opening up. Here it wasn't too too much, it wasn't at all overwhelming, but we got to see a bunch of other dragons from the Heartstriker clan. And here comes one of the ideas from the previous books that at first seemed cool, but not too too significant; all the offspring of Bethesda who hatch together get the same initial, in alphabetical order. When there are more and more characters introduced it's just so easy to know who is here on the ladder when it's obvious that Chelsea is below Bob, but above Ian. I'm learning to appreciate this little piece more and more, as this had the potential to be a confusing mess of names. Bethesda really does know how to breed, man.
And how amazing the family dynamics were, ooooooh. At first you assume the kiddos are all perfectly loyal to mother dearest and perfectly inclined to stab each other in the back for her attention. Think again. These are the best of the best. People who would do anything, who think of themselves as the apex everything. Would someone like that be 100% loyal to someone obviously above them who has no intention of letting them on her level or above? No. You know the answer is nope.
That's exactly the most interesting thing about this book. Old issues surfacing and people realising that deep down they are all thinking the same and they only need that tiny little spark to finally open their mouths and in a way... get closer to each other than ever before.
This whole family aspect is something I love about this series so far.

Bob is of course being Bob-y, so the story has room to progress further. Nice.

In a way I feel where this one really shines is people relating to each other. I like them separately, which is always nice, but they have very interesting dynamics and changes in said dynamics. Shoot here, but that reminds me of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files; it has a lot of action and still the appropriate amount of people interacting with each other in interesting ways that make this a worthwhile read.
The pacing and the whole structure of this series works so much better than in the Eli Monpress series, also by this author. She managed to step up her game a lot and that's the type of developing skill set I like to see in relatively new authors.

I definitely really liked this, will go on with the series. I would ever recommend it for people who want something that's a fun adventure and is planned out well, with lovely characters.

Good night and let me list the cool thing about this, from A to Z!

This was going to be a 5-star book but I wasn't excited about the ending.

I hated that Bethesda was left on the council. I think people always make a strong argument for keeping people from an old abusive regimen in place in order to ensure a smooth regime transition. However, I feel like rather than keeping the peace, all this does is leave remnants of abuse in the new system that is being created. It allows people who caused irreparable harm to stay in power and escape accountability. Additionally, I think even the in-universe explanation for keeping Bethesda is weak. I think other dragons are going to respect the Heartstrikers less if Bethesda occupies the council. With her continued presence, the others will see a diminished Bethesda and respect her less for "giving up her power" and then respect the family less for not taking out a tyrant like Bethesda when they had the chance. I appreciate and support Julius' no-murder principle. However, they didn't have to kill her. Amelia could have just left her on one of the kinder planes sealed. I just think there is no way to create a new more egalitarian regime without rooting out the old. All that including tyrants in new democratic governments seems to do, is allow them to keep positions of power.

I'm still going to continue the series because I'm trying to not just “burn” a book/series when I disagree with some aspects of it.