The Seer’s Dragon by Brittany Fichter
Fantasy. 620 Pages. 4 Stars
Synopsis:
A Seer explores her Sight.
A Dragon comes into his power.
New friends and enemies push and pull them apart.
But none of that will matter if they can’t cross Solevar.
Eirin, Drystan, and their renegade friends have escaped Torbaine for the last remaining haven city in Solevar, Mhaedin. They’re welcomed and promised training, shelter, the chance to break the Time Stones’ curse, and are even reunited with an old friend. And at first, everything goes as planned…until Eirin begins having visions.
Despite the hope their arrival inspires, Solevar is already beginning to crumble. Time to break the curse is running short. As failure and difficulties arise, friendships and alliances grow strained, and confidence wavers. Even Eirin and Drystan, who have become inseparable, find that their new roles in this world might not be as compatible as they’d hoped.
It all comes crashing down, however, when a brilliant discovery by Eirin is met with betrayal. In desperation, she turns to the one man who might be even more dangerous than her betrayers. As Mhaedin falls, Eirin, Drystan, and their friends must choose. Will they honor the bonds they’ve forged? Or will they let doubt and fear tear them and Solevar apart forever?
My Review:
I was so excited for this book after the first one, The Seer’s Secret. And I’m definitely looking forward to the next one.
But this second one wasn’t exactly what I expected. We left off in the first book learning that the world is broken and Eirin and co. need to fix it. They start out this one traveling to the city of Mhaedin to learn what they need to learn to go fix the thing they need to fix. And we kept hearing how difficult the journey to the other city was (where she needs to fix the thing), but it took a lot longer to leave on that difficult journey than I expected. And even then, we didn’t reach the other city (I can’t think of the name right now) by the end of the book. I guess I just thought the majority of this book would be that difficult excursion. But it turns out not. So, now I’m wondering what we’re going to do in the conclusion. How much will it be the journey and how much the fixing? The pacing just felt a little off to me.
That all said, I did still enjoy the read. I loved the introduction of phoenixes! And I liked the new phoenix character a lot. And getting to see more of Qeb and Nuru, too. Thane kinda went AWOL, which seemed odd. And Drystan and Eirin had a little back and forth tug and pull with the romance that was partly cute and partly part of the pacing feeling off perhaps. I just wanted to shake them both and bop them on the heads. No one was playing nice! But seeing more dragons and more of the other creatures was fun. We got to see a little of the culture in Mhaedin and did a lot of training and researching. But the last parts of the book were my favorite. Going on an excursion to find a crabby wizard was definitely cool. Tension began to rise toward the latter sections and it did draw me in.
One cool thing about this sequel was that it felt like we were unwrapping layer by layer of new information about the ultimate task of fixing the Time Stones. I didn’t really feel the pressure or stakes or need to hurry because the book felt kind of relaxed and, like I said, slower. But we learned more context and history and at some point I imagine it’ll come into play in the climax. And the way the magic developed was really neat too. I want to learn more about some of these pieces to see how they all fit together.
I also must add, there was a twist I wasn’t prepared for. A few actually, but one in particular felt kind of left ball field at first. The way it layered in with some of the others made it a pretty neat surprise, though. And it made the ending sections even more interesting.
One of my favorite parts is the themes. I don’t think we have the whole picture yet, but there is some groundwork for some neat thematic development with our faith and trusting God’s plan. I love Fichter’s work and how she blends epic fantasy with deep, meaningful themes. Looking forward to the conclusion! Loving the many fun critters, curious to see how it all plays out, and hoping to see more of the characters for sure.
Content: some fantasy violence, no swearing, a clean romance (though it had some middle school petty moments where you wanna thwak people sometimes XD). I’d say it’s probably fine for early teens.
More:
Book 1 in the Time Stones Trilogy is The Seer’s Secret (4 Stars)
Book 3 is The Seer’s Sacrifice
This trilogy should be read in order. Check out the links above for more info!
On GraceBought
Discover more from Coralie Terry
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.