A tantalizing sneak peek into a rich world and diverse characters

With names as distinctive as the characters themselves and a great war tearing apart the land, the author's story feels like a Tolkien-inspired legend if spread across a beautifully diverse landscape. The opening section, Chaos, is a gut-wrenching experience into the Dragon scion Caspian’s life as he grows up with a gift that failed to save his mother or father. The next section, Enemies, switches from 3rd person to 1st person narration as we meet Darling: the woman from Caspian’s prophetic paintings. The world feels well-established as readers begin the story. The characters’ lives are enmeshed in the war that’s been raging for fourteen years by this point. As the dragon clan and the kraken clan clash, the author deftly creates differences of culture, fighting style, and beliefs. Its easy to feel the tension between characters. This first peek at the book has me hooked.