Quick Take: An adventurous fantasy that follows Kyla’s journey to fulfilling her destiny as a warrior, but suffers from repetitiveness and lack of character growth.
Series: Kings and Sorcerers
Release Date: December 22nd, 2014
When Kyra comes of age and the local lord comes to take her away, her father wants to wed her off to save her. Kyra, though, refuses, and she journeys out on her own, into a dangerous wood, where she encounters a wounded dragon—and ignites a series of events that will change the kingdom forever.
15-year-old Alec, meanwhile, sacrifices for his brother, taking his place in the draft, and is carted off to The Flames, a wall of flames a hundred feet high that wards off the army of Trolls to the east. On the far side of the kingdom, Merk, a mercenary striving to leave behind his dark past, quests through the wood to become a Watcher of the Towers and help guard the Sword of Fire, the magical source of the kingdom’s power. But the Trolls want the Sword, too—and they prepare for a massive invasion that could destroy the kingdoms forever.
With its strong atmosphere and complex characters, RISE OF THE DRAGONS is a sweeping saga of knights and warriors, of kings and lords, of honor and valor, of magic, destiny, monsters and dragons. It is a story of love and broken hearts, of deception, of ambition and betrayal. It is fantasy at its finest, inviting us into a world that will live with us forever, one that will appeal to all ages and genders.
• BIPOC characters
• LGBTQIA+ characters
• characters with a disability
And doesn’t address fatphobia
• No abuse
• Not OTT sad parts
• No descriptive sex scene with OW/OM
• Does not have the Hero and Heroine pushing away
•Does have a separation between the Heroine and Hero
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Rating: 3/5 stars
Note: The review includes discussions of the second and third book, therefore the review may discuss spoilers from the first book.
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I really loved the idea of Kyla and her destiny; it was awesome watching Kyla being shaped into the warrior she was always meant to be. However, the reason for this series only being 3 stars is that while Kyla’s narration was amazingly written, the books were filled with over-development in some parts, while others were grossly under-developed. The most prominent example was Rice’s choice to have a revolving perspective in each chapter. The story of the Great War was told by all sorts of warriors, including the three original perspectives introduced in the first book (Kyla, Merk, and Alec). However, increasing the number of perspectives left Rice little room to further develop the original main characters. The most prominent example is when Alec and Kyla find the people they love. It’s the definition of insta-love (I know a lot of people complain about how in some romances the Heroine and Hero’s relationship doesn’t seem to develop enough for the ‘I love yous’ so that’s why it’s equated to insta-love … but in this series, Rice took it a step further by it being literally instant ‘I love yous’). Both Kyra and Alec see the person they love, are mesmerized, and then think, I love you! It was incredibly annoying because I would have loved the couples’ relationships being incorporated into the story.
Another reason for the three stars was the constant need Rice felt to repeat information. In some cases, this was taken literally where characters would mention something in a chapter, only to repeat it a few pages later (to the same characters) as if they had never mentioned it before. This was extremely annoying and significantly diminished the development of the characters in the story. Another form of repetition was that Kyla never seemed to learn her lessons: she was told if she saved her father, she would die, which would mean her kingdom would die. Did she care? No, she went to fight for her father… and she ‘died’ (kind of complex how it occurred, but she was saved, at the risk of someone else’s life). And once again, Kyla is told to go to an ancient temple to continue on her quest, but she knows her father is in danger and still knows if she goes to her father, she will die… and what does she do? She puts the kingdom at risk AGAIN (the same person as before saves her by putting their own life at risk, and Kyla, injured, is taken to where she should have gone in the beginning). I get the fact that she was only looking out for her father and that the warriors in this series don’t fear death, but as the ‘saviour’ of her kingdom, she really should have:
- Learned her lesson the first time, and
- Recognized that everyone – including her father – needed her to finish her quest.
Throughout the whole series, Kyla was constantly asked the question, “who are you.” This question was posed in a philosophical way that was more to prompt Kyla to think about who she was rather than to simply answer the question, creating a theme of self-realization in the series. However, perhaps the most annoying of all was when Kyla would have a moment of self-realization and accept her powers… only to repeat this process every time she faced adversary for (I think) the last 3 books. The constant repetitiveness of Kyla realizing ‘oh, hey, I have powers and I need to stop being afraid of them’ completely disillusioned her character. Don’t get me wrong, I still like her and admire her, but there comes the point where you need your main character to be strong in mind and just plain smart enough to understand strength doesn’t just mean brawn.
I finished this series in less than 24 hours, so of course, I liked it… I just feel like it could’ve been so much better.
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I’m halfway through the second book and so far there’s no story just a bunch of individuals getting in and out of trouble miraculously where does it go from here does it ever start a story