The mermaid departs her former husband's ravaged kingdom and travels the land with a strange but gentle plague doctor, seeking a new story - but it may prove to be even more harrowing than the one they left behind. In this story, a king takes a mermaid as a wife and their children are born with a ravenous hunger. I can only hope that there will be more stories set in this engaging new world. Le Guin's Earthsea and Anne McCaffrey's Pern. I tore through it, caught up in an enthusiasm for dragons that I hadn't experienced since I was a teenager obsessed with Ursula K. To Shape a Dragon's Breath is also a very entertaining and fun read, full of loveable characters and intricate, original worldbuilding. The idea that a creature like a dragon is also something that could be colonized, and that there is power in honoring Indigenous ways of knowledge keeping and working harmoniously with the forces of nature rather than seeking to dominate them is a brilliant approach that brings something truly current to the genre. To Shape a Dragon's Breath cuts right to the chase and is about that, offering a scathing rejection of the idea that there is one right way for a person to be educated. Magical schools have always been a staple of the fantasy genre, but these days, I find that it's hard to read a boarding school setting without considering the inherent colonial undertones of such institutions, even when they're imaginary. But it soon becomes clear that there are many people who want Anequs to fail, and she realizes that shaping her dragon's breath and her own sense of self based on Anglish values could destroy everything she cares about. With her community and her dragon under threat, she has no choice but to enrol at an Anglish school for dragoneers on the mainland. She soon finds out that the Anglish settlers who have colonized the lands around Masquapaug have rules about who can have dragons and how they must be trained to shape the dragon's breath and hone its powers. But when a dragon hatches among her people for the first time in recent memory, it chooses her to bond with. To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill BlackgooseĪnequs has grown up on the Island of Masquapaug with her family, and would have happily stayed there forever. Ink Blood Sister Scribe stands out as a stellar and original debut novel. The characters are all delightfully warm in their own weird ways, despite being traumatized and frazzled, and the plot zigs and zags along with just the right amount of twists and reveals. Elements of many different genres entwine to form the cleverly paced narrative as we travel from Antarctic station thriller to new England murder mystery to the secret society intrigues of Europe's magical elite. Soon they realize that the spells controlling their lives go back further and have much more complicated origins than they could have imagined.Ĭonfident, compassionate, and incredibly engrossing, Ink Blood Sister Scribe grabbed me with its first pages and put me completely under its spell - despite not being written in blood. But almost immediately, magic catches up with her, putting her, Joanna, and their family's books at risk. Tired of living on the run, she decides to risk everything and remain at the Antarctic station where she spent the past year and finally began to put down roots. Esther fled years before when she found out she was endangering her family with her presence. Now Joanna tends to the collection, alone and isolated. ![]() They grew up together, hidden away with their family's collection of magical books. You could say that sisters Joanna and Esther are estranged. Spell books, dragons, mermaids, fairies and a magic circus all take on new life in the pages of these five enchanting tales hitting shelves in May and June. The fantasy genre is known for its standard motifs - the magical elements derived from lore and history that turn up again and again whenever such tales are told.
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