Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MCs, MLM MC, F/F, M/M, secondary demisexual character
Published on: 27th July 2024
ISBN: 0316418099
Goodreads
From Aurealis Award‑nominated author Devin Madson comes a new rip-roaring epic fantasy full of dragons, alchemical magic, and forbidden romance that unfolds as three people in a shattered empire become entangled in a looming revolution.
The old kingdom of Paicha has been split into city states, but there are those who seek to reunite the shattered realm—by force if necessary. Amidst the turmoil there are three who will find their destinies inextricably tangled.
Tesha is a glassblower’s apprentice who becomes a tribute bride when her city is conquered by the south. In the enemy’s court, she’s perfectly placed to sabotage them, but her heart has other plans.
Naili is a laundress in the house of an eccentric alchemist who is awakening to strange new powers. When radicals approach her, she faces a choice between keeping her magic to herself and using it to change the world.
And in the desolate Shield Mountains, dragon rider Ash protects the cities from the monsters in the Iipao sands beyond. But, soon he'll have to learn how to protect his dragon when hunters unlock the secret to killing them.
As war sweeps across the land, Tesha, Naili, and Ash must fight for survival against political enemies, dragon hunters, and monsters both within and without.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Highlights
~one dragon, no wrath
~politics that make no sense
~the blurb is a lie
Well, that sucked.
Between Dragons and Their Wrath starts very strong, in a world that seems fascinating, with glass dragons fighting off monsters on the regular to protect cities joined by glass roads. But it all goes downhill pretty fast.
Mostly because the book focuses on all the wrong things. It’s clear that there’s a lot of cool worldbuilding here, but we see barely any of it, because instead of exploring the colonised population, the strange people fighting alongside the monsters in the desert, or the alleged almost-invaders who are behaving very strangely… Instead of any of that, the only culture we get a good look at are the Regency British stand-ins, and that is just MADDENING.
An example: in the very first chapter, we learn that Apaians don’t have marriage in their culture. Two people tying themselves together exclusively is, apparently, something that’s leaking in from the ruling Emorrans.
“Marriage? Family?” I all but spat the words. “You know as well as I do how dangerous those customs are to our communes and care groups.”
!!! I am so interested!!! What’s a commune in this setting? What’s a care group? What does this culture do in place of/instead of marriage? What is the alternative to family? You don’t have families? Please explain!
Spoiler: it is not explained. The no-families thing is mentioned again near the end of the book, but not once is it explained, and I still have no clue what a care group is or how Apaians arrange things without any kind of marriage.
(And I mean – one of our Apaian MCs has a brother who is the love interest of another MC. They use the same surname, call each other family. So…? Were they raised somewhere that had adopted Emorran ideas of family? Or are they not actually blood-related and something else is going on? What???)
The whole book is like this: sprinkled with incredibly intriguing tidbits or hints that are never explained, never mind expanded on or explored. Even details the whole book hinges on – like the concept of an ‘insult bride’ – are just hand-waved. I genuinely couldn’t believe how much of what was interesting and/or FREAKING IMPORTANT was just glossed over.
” The substitution of a commoner in place of a high-born marriage candidate.”
…
A few solemn, thoughtful nods met this, but I’d missed the part that made it all make sense. “But what will it achieve?” I asked. “It sounds like it will just make Reacher Sormei look bad.”
“Looking bad is political death in Emora,”
Okay, wait. You’re telling me that YOU – the conspirators – passing off a commoner as a noble for the purpose of a treaty-marriage…makes the guy who wants the treaty look bad? Instead of making the noble family who pretends the commoner is their daughter? Why aren’t THEY the ones who look bad? How does that work? Why does it even matter who marries who to seal a treaty when there is no monarchy? Why is there ANY marriage to seal a treaty when no monarchies are involved? Why wouldn’t people think it was the conspirators who’d done wrong, when the substitution becomes public knowledge? Huh???
This is chapter one. The fate of all the cities could hinge on this treaty. And in the 439 pages Between Dragons and Their Wrath is on my Kindle, we’re never told why an insult bride is a thing in this culture, why it has any meaning at all, or how or why exactly it would ruin anyone but the people pulling one over on their elected president-person (the Reacher).
Madson does this with plot too, by the way. The number of times we had events described or summarised for us after the fact instead of having them on-page was UNBELIEVABLE! Particularly with the political intrigue parts; don’t go expecting glittering balls full of people politicking, because those are all skipped over. Don’t expect to see how the wedding night of the insult bride goes, despite what exactly happens being INCREDIBLY PLOT-RELEVANT – we’ll hear the all-important Thing summarised the morning after instead. The story another MC is told about the true origin of the dragons and the world-changing history that’s been buried? Told off-page – we don’t hear a single word if it.
WHY IS THIS LIKE THIS???
The blurb is almost painfully misleading on every count. Tesha – our insult bride – her city isn’t conquered, it accepts a treaty, one most of its politicians seem to want. Naili doesn’t join a rebellion; she joins a criminal gang, not to change the world but out of desperation, having nowhere else to go. Ash does absolutely ZERO protecting of ‘his’ dragon – who we barely see; I think she’s bodily in one chapter, and speaks telepathically in one other, right at the end. There are no dragon hunters. In fact, for a book with dragons in the title, there is an appalling scarcity of them. I’d call the title+blurb combo extremely false advertising.
Even leaving aside the blurb (which after all is not written by or under the control of the author)…nothing really happens in this book. We follow Tesha, Naili, and Ash in alternating chapters, and for the first few chapters of each POV, things are happening…and then they just stop. And drag. And go nowhere. Tesha sits around fretting. Naili performs one (1) burglary. Ash…honestly, everything after Ash left the Citadel of the dragonriders (which happens far too soon) is a vague blur for me, none of it has stayed in my memory, which should tell you everything you need to know. All three get truly terrible sex scenes (which I’ll expand on in a moment). But there’s no character development, no relationship development, no action, no exploration. Just…mehness. Up until the last chapter of each character’s POV, all three of which end on Big! Dramatic!! Cliffhangers!!! because of course they do; it’s a last-ditch attempt to get us interested in what’s going on again, enough to make us want to pick up book two, and friends, I will not be doing that.
(It might have been better if there were fewer POVs – maybe the one or ones that were kept would get more room to breathe and develop. As it was, I think the need to alternate chapters meant that nobody had time for actual plot. It’s as if Between Dragons and Their Wrath was actually a third of its length; this book is functionally three novellas stuck together, and not only do they not overlap each other’s stories, but they are really, really boring novellas.)
I don’t usually comment upon sex scenes in my reviews – I’m not super interested in them, and most of the books I read don’t have super explicit ones. But I have to comment on these, because they are so fucking bad.
In Tesha’s sex scene (each POV character gets just one, remember), she and her ex-boyfriend fuck right before/after her wedding (I can’t remember which, and I do not care), and it would be…fine…except for Tesha saying ‘Please don’t’ TWICE and said ex going ahead anyway. That hit me in all the wrong ways, and I actually didn’t touch the book again for weeks after reading that part. It probably goes without saying that I was also really pissed off that it is 2024 and we still get sex scenes that don’t care about consent, but which we’re totally supposed to approve of anyway. It’s supposed to be hot!
Spoiler: it really isn’t.
Naili’s sex scene is…honestly bizarre: she apparently went house-breaking without any underwear, because after breaking in, she gets finger-fucked on a table by a woman she hates who hates her back, and there is no mention of underwear being removed or pushed aside to make room for said finger-fucking. There’s also an attempt at dagger-at-your-throat kink, but it’s so rushed it falls very flat.
Ash’s sex scene is the one that had me calling up my friend in publishing, asking if there’s a writing version of intimacy coordinators and do editors keep any on staff, because. What. Besides giving no explanation for why Ash’s love interest is suddenly on board with them getting it on, despite having ignored Ash’s feelings for a good while at this point, Madson also manages to lose track of a cigarette. Which is kind of a big deal, because the making out starts with one character holding it in their teeth, with the lit end in his mouth, offering it to the other that way. You know, so the other guy will have to kiss him to smoke it. And then they are making out. Apparently without setting aside the cigarette.
Can you imagine the burns?!
Perhaps the underwear and cigarette will appear in the published version of the book; I read an arc, after all, and those have typos and things in them sometimes. But that still means Madson originally wrote the scenes as I read them, and hi, I hate all of it. It certainly doesn’t help that the prose is very dull the whole way through the book; there’s certainly no sensual description that might lend itself well to writing sex.
I was so, so excited for this book. I loved the first few chapters. But it’s not what I was led to believe it was, and what it actually is is monotonous and frustrating. It’s not a dragon book, never mind a dragon-rider book. It’s not an intrigue book. It’s not a revolution book. Everything interesting was barely touched on or kicked off-page entirely; too much that was important was kept off-page. I have no idea what the point of this story was, when it deliberately avoids all the cool bits and does nothing with its characters or its world. It certainly wasn’t entertaining – just infuriating.
Go ahead and skip this one – we all deserve better.
Eww, that cigarette scene sounds gross, but kind of a fitting one to end on. I liked We Ride the Storm, but found it frustrating for many of the same reasons – it didn’t delve into what I felt were the most fascinating aspects of the world-building, it relegated my favorite POV to the shadows, and had a frustrating lack of answers.
I was planning on checking out We Ride the Storm, after the first little bit of Between Dragons and Their Wrath, because I was enjoying myself…but now, definitely not. It sounds like this is just how Madson writes :/