Review: SHADOW SCALE by Rachel Hartman

My review of Rachel Hartman’s Shadow Scale, the sequel to Seraphina, is now up at NPR Books.

Shadow Scale picks up where Seraphina left off, with the Queendom of Goredd coming to terms with the existence of half-dragons, a civil war among the dragons themselves after an act of betrayal, and the risk of that war spilling across their borders. 40 years of peace have left Goredd’s dragon-fighting abilities depleted — but Seraphina and her fellow half-dragons may hold the key to protecting it with their unique abilities.

I adored Seraphina and couldn’t put it down. I had a more complicated reaction to Shadow Scale, as befits a more complicated book, but all those complications were of the order of needing to shout as things happened or flail about on Twitter about them.

This is very much the sort of novel I almost regret having read in advance of it coming out because I’ll have to wait that much longer to get to TALK about it with people, so please, do me the huge favour of reading these incredibly rich and wonderful books and then come back and we can all squee about them together.

#SFWApro