emvdw's Reviews (341)

There is a lot I liked here: mysterious knight with a bad reputation but a strong sense of morality, atmospheric world building, fairy tales long forgotten, things that aren't what they seem, ...  But nothing that made me fall in love. 

Even though the book is a collection of short stories, the framing story does a good job of pulling it all together. 

Absolutely beautiful book.
The language is very atmospheric. The characters are lovely. Prepare to cry both happy and sad tears...

Exactly what you'd expect from a book written by 'the xkcd person'. Fun read with lots of great tidbits😊

Quick, fun read

It took me a while to really get into it, but about halfway through the pace picks up and it gets really great. The ending comes together beautifully and everyone get's their just deserts (desserts?). 

The premise is over the top ridiculous (What if Bridgerton had less sex and more dragons?), but somehow Walton makes it work. 

Two nitpicks:
1) I was weirdly grossed out by the description of the dragon's eyes as 'whirling' 
2)

I did not like that the reader is supposed to feel good about a 'cold' female character ending up bethrothed to the rapey parson

This was a fun read, very original and expansive worldbuilding. However, the last third/quarter of the book feel a bit less well though out, maybe because this is a debut novel. In particular, I thought [mild spoiler]

Havenstar was a bit too "magical" to jive with the tone of the rest of the novel, and the mechanism to make Tromplieri maps, and how to use them to defeat Chaos, a bit "easy".

 

Still, a lovely little forgotten novel.

Not my thing and nor very well-written