This had such a cool premise, but for some reason it seemed to fall a little flat for me.

I mean, it has dragons AND vampires! And I do feel like that's a super rare combination to come across. I really don't think that I have read another book that has had both dragons and vampires. So that was super cool and unique because I am a fan of both.

I think my biggest problem with this book was the characters, I think they are what made this book fall flat. I just couldn't connect to them or care about them as much as I feel like I should for this kind of story. Our main character is essentially the last dragon rider, I should be obsessed with her! But I was not.

And, of course, because I am a Howl's Moving Castle lover, I loved that our main character's last name is Pendragon. Just had to throw that in here.

This also takes place at a school, so if you're craving the school element of Harry Potter or Fourth Wing, I would give this a try.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.

This read as a strange mish mash of fantasy tropes and everything that is popular at the moment, including vampires and dragons. The concept was interesting but the world building was quite lacking and I didn't feel pulled to root for Medra or Blake. I also felt like they fell into stereotyped roles of main characters (not like other girls was mentioned a couple of times). This book was not for me, sadly.

3.5⭐️

I read the Blood of Fae series and really enjoyed the world a lot so when I heard briar was doing a spin off series from one of the characters I knew I had to sign up. I went into this book without reading the synopsis. Immediately I picked up on the Harry Potter and Fourth Wing inspiration. The world building was intriguing. I felt that we came to a little bit of a stagnant pace towards the middle of the book, but it picks back up towards the end. I had a good time getting to know all the characters and their layers.