To Ride a Rising Storm (Nampeshiweisit, #2) by Moniquill Blackgoose
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Native American bi/pansexual polyamorous MC (autistic-coded, aromantic-coded), Native American love interest, Black lesbian love interest, F/F/M polyamory, secondary selectively mute autistic character, secondary Jewish character
PoV: First-person, past-tense
Published on: 27th January 2026
ISBN: B0DT2LRMK3
Goodreads
A young Indigenous woman and her dragon fight for the independence of their homeland in this epic sequel to the bestselling and multi-award-winning To Shape a Dragon's Breath, "a remarkable novel that is bound to be a staple of fantasy shelves for years to come" (BuzzFeed).
Anequs has not only survived her first year at Kuiper's Academy but exceeded all of her professors' admittedly low expectations—and passed all her courses with honors. Now, she and her dragon, Kasaqua, are headed home for the summer, along with Theod, the only other Native student at the Academy.
But what should have been a relaxing break takes a darker turn. Thanks to Anequs's notoriety, there is an Anglish presence on Masquapaug for the first time ever: a presence which Anequs hates. Anequs will always fight for what she believes in, however, and what she believes in is her people's right to self-govern and live as they have for generations, without the restrictive yoke of Anglish rules and social customs. And fight she will—even if it means lighting a spark which may flare into civil war.
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
~LOKI(‘s representative) ENTERS THE CHAT
~the importance of dragon saddles
~terrible sex ed
~a most unsecret secret society
~riots
~metamour bonding
~totalitarianism is still bad even when the good guys do it
My review of book one, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath
:Beware minor spoilers for book one, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath!:
The second book in the Nampeshiweisit levels UP from the first, so if you were concerned about a second-book slump in this series… I AM DELIGHTED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU REALLY DON’T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT.
Nor was the climax of To Shape a Dragon’s Breath – when poor Anequs was shot – any kind of peak with regards the stakes.
To Ride a Rising Storm is not packed full of action, exactly – but it is constantly tense. Sometimes the tension is from Marta trying to be a white saviour, or authority figures trying to insist that Anequs is practising bad husbandry by spending so much time with her dragon Kasaqua. Sometimes it is ‘town meetings’ where people want to challenge Anequs to holmgang (the somehow legal one-on-one duel the Anglish allow). And now and then, it’s riot and mass-murder and whatever you call an invasion of your own people.
I continue to be incredibly impressed with how thoroughly Moniquill whips my Feels around; if I described some of the instances that had me flailing, they wouldn’t sound terribly dramatic, but her writing makes it so. We saw plenty of that in TSaDB and it continues here. Some things become easier for Anequs in her second year at the dragoneer academy – a new teacher in one particular subject is an immense improvement on their predecessor; a third roommate joining Anequs and Marta is a wonderful character I adored every time she was on-page; Theod is gradually unlearning the nonsense the Anglish brainwashed him with. But other things are hard even before the school year starts; as the book’s blurb states, Anequs comes home after the events of TSaDB and finds the Jarl’s dragoneers everywhere, keeping watch and taking notes, tracking people’s coming and going, dispersing community meetings, and throwing fits when people move to the island at the invitation of Anequs’ chief. As anxious and enraged as this made me by turns, I also appreciated it, because I did think the Jarl – when we met him briefly at the end of TSaDB – was a bit too good to be true. And yet for Anequs’ sake, I’m sorry to have been wrong about that.
Power and who has it – and who’s unwilling to share it – was a major part of TSaDB, but it’s an even bigger part of TRaRS. Blackgoose remains brilliant at conveying nuance, and one of the things I loved about this book is how she doesn’t let Anequs’ Anglish ‘allies’ off the hook for their actions and beliefs just because they happen to be on Anequs’ side. With political tensions rising and rising outside of the academy, some of the actions the Jarl and his people take are…deeply concerning, and aren’t any less so just because they’re aimed at the people who want Anequs and Kasaqua dead. It would have been very easy to cast these actions in a heroic light because of the perspective we have on them – because they’re being directed at The Bad Guys – but this is one of (many) times when the actual perspective of this series is so important, because our PoV is Anequs, not a random white girl in a generic fantasy setting. And Anequs’ perspective is crucial, is what makes visible the problematic, or even deeply awful, nature of so much that white readers would otherwise be likely to take for granted.
It felt dangerous, defying Anglish will. But it felt important, too.
One of the most exciting aspects of power as a theme in TRaRS was Anequs’ discovery that her people’s dances are skiltas – designs or patterns that can direct dragon’s breath to accomplish what readers would consider alchemy at best and possibly magic outright – making it clear that pre-colonial society absolutely understood and utilised the potential of their dragons as much (if not moreso, possibly) as the Anglish currently do. Naturally this is something Anequs hasn’t shared with the academy! But we get more hints and implications about this in TRaRS, in a way that made my jaw DROP, because if what’s suggested at one point is true, the title of TRaRS gains a whole new meaning. The reveal/hint would unquestionably mean that Anequs’ people, the Masquisit, were vastly more advanced in their application of dragon’s breath than the Anglish have ever been. Which adds another layer of tragedy to the loss of that knowledge.
But. But, but, but. Yes, the Masquisit have lost that knowledge. But is it really likely that they’re the only ones on the whole continent who ever knew it? TRaRS reminds us that there are many other First People nations, and we know of at least a few who haven’t lost their dragons, some of whom are still resisting the Anglish with everything they’ve got. Yes, Anequs has to graduate the Anglish dragoneer academy to satisfy their law – but no one said she couldn’t go find other teachers afterwards. I don’t know if that’s where the series is going – I truly have no idea where Blackgoose is planning to take this story (especially in just one more book) – but oh, I hope so!
Now I’m going to be extremely nerdy about the worldbuilding, sorry not sorry.
TRaRS answers, or implies answers, to a tonne of the questions TSaDB raised among obsessive readers like myself. Let’s take a not very spoilery example: why on earth do white people in this world think dragons are ‘just’ animals? Why do the other students at the dragon academy have no problem locking their dragons up and barely seeing them from one day to the next? We get a hint at a possible answer in this book when Kasaqua demonstrates that she can unlock and exit her stall whenever she likes – and the AngIish are stunned by this.
I don’t know how much Blackgoose knows about animals, but I’m guessing a lot, which would make this a very deliberate detail – and so this gave me pause. I live with a small zoo, and both of the dogs and both of the cats in my house can open all kinds of doors (you would not believe the Tombraider-esque set-up required to keep the door of the cats’ room shut at night) as well as bottles, jars, and all kinds of puzzle toys. A guide dog can learn incredibly complicated procedures. It’s not at all unheard of for horses to learn how to get out of their stalls, and it seems pretty clear that the dragon stalls are designed very much like horse ones. So my takeaway is that Blackgoose wants us to understand that Anglish dragons – at least for the most part – are much less intelligent than common housepets and/or horses.
Which means…they probably don’t get bored when they’re kept in a stall all day. Which their dragoneers know, and so feel free to just…leave their dragons like that. And if their dragons are less smart than an average cat, no wonder the people who share psychic bonds with them think that they’re only animals.
Not that this is the whole picture – Theod is bonded to a Kindah dragon, and he spends an immense amount of time with his dragon. Are Kindah breeds smarter, or is the difference Theod himself? I’m leaning to the former, because although Theod is a nackie (what Native Americans are called in this setting, if you’ve forgotten) he was raised by the Anglish, so he never had a chance to absorb his people’s views on dragons. We learn of a Jewish student whose father sent all the way to this world’s Poland to acquire a dragon egg; maybe because tradition is important to him – but maybe because Polish (Jewish?) dragon breeds are smarter, more magical, than Anglish ones.
And as we’re told near the end of TRaRS – the Anglish made their dragons this way. The implication being that they don’t want intelligent dragons who can think for themselves, who are very much people even if they’re not bipeds. (This would explain a lot of what we’ve learned about Anglish views on dragons, and on their dragoneer-training methods.) It gives me the ick, as I think is the intention.
None of this is flatly told to us, but all of it’s there in the text, ready for us to put together for ourselves. So much of the worldbuilding in this series is like that, and I love it!
(Though on a worldbuilding note, I’m dying to know if Moniquill deliberately renamed this setting’s Loki after our world’s Sumerian god of wisdom. THE IMPLICATIONS IF THAT WAS PURPOSEFUL!!!)
“I don’t need your help to fit in,” I said, “and I don’t need anyone’s pity, either. I don’t need you to be my savior, Marta.”
I already mentioned that we have a number of new characters in TRaRS – including Anequs’ new roommate, who is Jewish and stands as a wonderful foil to Marta, Anequs’ other roommate – but if you’re anything like me, you’re intensely interested in a few particular familiar faces. I was so BEYOND delighted when I realised TSaDR was genuinely giving us a polyamorous romance, and Anequs’ relationships with Theod and Liberty are a quiet but vital part of TRaRS, too. Liberty does get much less page-time than Theod, but that’s inevitable when Theod can come home with Anequs for the summer, and poor Liberty can’t; it means she’s not present for the first third or so of the book, alas. But she shines whenever she is on-page, and TRaRS sees her and Anequs begin to define what they want their lives together to look like, once Anequs has graduated and Liberty has paid off her indenture. Just as great was seeing Liberty and Theod get to bond, particularly over how terrifyingly heroic their girlfriend is! I APPROVE IMMENSELY.
And really, I can sum up all my feelings that way – I approve immensely. I freaking LOVE this series; I think I love TRaRS even more than I did TSaDB, so much that I’ve now read it twice before it’s even published. Anequs remains one of my favourite heroines (and I’m only more convinced that she’s on the autism spectrum, and probably the aromantic one as well) and I could not be rooting for her harder than I am. The worldbuilding and lore manages to be genius and elegantly simple; the writing is so easy to read that the pages fly by; and Blackgoose plays with my heart like a yo-yo from one chapter to the next. (Which is a compliment, to be clear.) On the final page of TRaRS, I made a noise so high-pitched it scared my dogs. I AM NOT OKAY. And yet I am simultaneously so freaking happy – that this series exists, that it’s this freaking fantastic, that we have a Native American dragon-rider story going this hard at everything. That To Ride a Rising Storm so powerfully lives up to the standard set by To Shape a Dragon’s Breath – and exceeds it!
If you loved To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, you will adore To Ride a Rising Storm.
And if you somehow haven’t started this series yet, then it is most DEFINITELY time to do that!
I look forward to reading it. When I finally counted up my 2025 year end lists To Shape a Dragon’s Breath won my most listened to audio book (9 times) for the second year running.
Curious about the Anglish dragons being canonically less smart than horses. When I was growing up my mom had a horse who could open not just his stall but other horse stalls, so he’d let all his friends out and then knock over the grain bins for a midnight feast. But he was smarter than the other horses, most of them would just kind of mill about, and he always had an agenda. He was a wonderful horse but he was also not the norm for the species. Our second horse was very dumb but extremely loyal, you had to watch he didn’t injure himself just trying to make you happy by ignoring his health problems, and we loved him even though he sometimes literally got lost on the way to his own pasture. Every single horse we’ve ever had has been entirely their own person and I’d like to think Anglish dragons might still have that possibility if given the chance.
Humans need to be willing to see intelligence too. One of the folks I dog walk for is an older lady with a border collie who always insists that dogs can’t learn and don’t know anything, even though I can personally attest that hers is just as alert and sensitive as the breed tends to be. He’s developed some bad tendencies because he doesn’t get exercised enough and she’s trained bad habits into him, not because he’s not smart enough to learn better given the chance. It see plausible to me that the Anglish characters could be ignoring their dragons abilities and also ignoring the signals they get from their dragons because of the culture they’ve been raised in. The constant line they’re fed at school is that good dragoneers control their emotions. They’re being taught to ignore their own internal signals, it makes perfect sense they’d miss their dragons’ as well.
Birds left in cages and given no stimulation never develop their brains. Could the Anglish be deliberately doing something like that to their dragons? Studies on birds found that most birds can still experience brain growth even later in life, if given stimulation, there might still be hope for a dragon raised in captivity but I won’t really know until I read the book!
! That’s such an incredibly good point that (obviously) didn’t occur to me! Maybe it’s not that the dragons have been bred to be less intelligent, maybe it’s how they’re raised. I think that would be even grosser, possibly? It would mean that it’s an ongoing issue, not something that the present-day Anglish could blame on their ancestors – every modern-day dragoneer is perpetuating this awfulness. Because every dragoneer gets their dragon right out of the egg, so if their dragons are less intelligent because they’re not getting the proper/healthy stimulation, it’s each dragoneer doing that to their individual dragons. OH THAT WOULD BE SO AWFUL D:
You make another good point that humans have to be willing to see intelligence – but in this book, at least, we are given a few concrete examples of things that Kasaqua, a not-Anglish dragon, can do that Anglish dragons apparently cannot. Which does suggest it’s not that the Anglish are refusing to see that their dragons are equally intelligent (although I wouldn’t be at ALL surprised if that was part of the problem, I’m sure that it is!), it’s that there is objectively some important difference between Anglish dragons and not-Anglish ones – nackie/First Nation dragons, at least, are objectively smarter. (In fairness we don’t know for sure that other non-Anglish breeds are also smarter, but I think Theod’s relationship to his Kindah dragon, Copper, suggests it.)
I would very much love to discuss this with you even more when you’ve read the book! :D I’d love your thoughts!
I wish I had more thoughts but I probably won’t until I get around to the new book. I’d be disappointed with “some dragons are just genetically inferior” as an answer though. I think in realizing the importance of genetics as a factor in health we tend to overemphasize their impact. I think humans also love to categorize and so we believe we’re better at doing things like creating new breeds of dogs when really we’re just good at being selective about what we see. Dogs come out all wrong for “breed standard” all the time but we don’t send those ones to the shows you know.
Based on what I’ve read, I don’t think it’s the Anglish dragons that are the problem I think it’s the humans. In the first book dragons are constantly described as being representative of their partners. Sander’s (I have the audio so I’m guessing at spelling) dragon is timid and reclusive and won’t attack even when provoked but is fascinated by new things that don’t involve interaction with people/dragons. Marta’s dragon Magnus reacts to Marta’s emotions, becoming violent when she’s upset but also betraying Marta’s desire to be friends with Anequs and her crew. Marta has convinced herself she needs to be a proper lady but she’s clearly defying her true nature, Anequs points this out and we see it in Magnus’s behavior. Frau Keiper (guessing!) even talks about how the students emotions get the dragons worked up during exams. The dragons can clearly pick on their partners thoughts and feelings or why the constant demand that Dragoneers control their thoughts and emotions under the threat of their dragons destruction should they fail? It’s the humans who don’t seem to be noticing their dragons needs. I think they learn to ignore the signals they get and the poor dragons learn to resign themselves to expect nothing better than boring empty stalls. Which is sad, but is a state that could be improved by Dragoneers who were willing to learn better.
Sorry you’re just a genetically inferior Anglish person with a genetically inferior dragon and you’re both going to be numb and dumb forever because you just don’t have the midichlorians that let you feel the force would be… honestly kind of unrealistic though that’s a weird complaint to level against a fantasy novel. All humans are related, all dragons are presumably related, traits can pop up anywhere. We can all exercise what we’ve got at least and learn new ways of compensating for what we don’t.
I AM SUCH A TWIT! Once you phrased it like that – “some dragons are just genetically inferior” – you’re completely right, that’s NEVER going to be the answer. That is NOT the message Blackgoose would write into this series, I’m sure!
Somehow I didn’t properly process that all the dragons reflect their owners so well. OF COURSE that must be important to the question of ‘why are Anglish dragons like this’! I feel like such a dope now. I think you’re right, the Anglish ignore/don’t notice their dragons’ needs, and the dragons suffer for that. It HAS to be something along those lines, it’s the only thing that fits the evidence AND the series’ themes.
But that makes Theod’s case extra interesting, right? Because if his and Copper’s relationship isn’t special because Copper is a Kindah (as opposed to Anglish) dragon – then the difference is Theod himself. And Theod wasn’t raised nackie – he was raised like an Anglish servant. He can’t possibly have had an identical experience to a white Anglish servant, but he didn’t grow up with nackie culture and philosophy.
Which suggests to me that it could be that Anglish dragoneers neglecting (or whatever we’re calling it) their dragons is not even a general Anglish thing, it’s specifically a rich/high-class Anglish thing. The mentality leading it is, maybe, not endemic to the Anglish. Maybe ‘lower-class’ Anglish would be more like Theod if they were given dragons.
Alternatively, Theod treats Copper the way he does out of his experience as an outsider – it’s not that low-class Anglish are better about this, it’s that being on the outside all the time can teach you awareness and empathy that Theod has applied to his relationship with Copper. That…actually seems more likely to be honest? It would be nice if it were only the rich Anglish that were terrible, but I think we know that’s not true.
Thank you SO MUCH for engaging me on this, I’m dearly loving this discussion and I really appreciate you writing out such long comments for it! :D
Thanks for saying so. I’ve had cause to remember recently that a lot of folks see long comments left on their websites as personal attacks no matter how I try to couch them. I do try to read over everything I post on the net for length, but even I’m surprised by the giant walls of text after I hit enter. Glad it doesn’t bother you.