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Series: The Empyrean #1
Publication date: May 2nd, 2023
Synopsis:
Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general--also known as her tough-as-talons mother--has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away... because dragons don't bond to "fragile" humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond the cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter--like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda--because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
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Review:
Violet Sorrengail had never thought that her life would turn out the way it had. She had thought that she would follow in her father's footsteps and join the Scribe's Quadrant in the Basgaith War College. But when her General mother puts her foot down she had no choice but to join the Rider's Quadrant. With joining up with the riders Violet is put through her paces starting with a precarious excursion across a slim parapet that stretches across a deep valley and raging river hundreds of feet in the sky to entering a valley of hungry dragons to try to find the one that wishes to bond with you. Violet has everything stacked against her. She is the smallest and most frail of all her first-year classmates. She is seen as a liability and a danger to her squad and wing. She faces challenge after challenge but that may not be the worst of it. Perhaps the worst thing is the fact that the man who cost her brother, Brennan, his life is her new wingleader and he seems to know they are connected even before Violet can understand how. He is the offspring of the leader of the rebellion and a traitor for all intents and purposes. Violet can't fall for the enemy. But will she have a choice? And when all that she thought was real turns out to be a rooted in secrets and betrayal, can she figure out who to trust?
I had heard from a lot of people who read this book that it was a hit or miss. There were more hits than misses, of course, but it was still one of those you didn't just find mid. I was glad to find out that it was definitely a hit for me. I was engrossed from the moment I started reading to the 4am time on my computer when I finished the last of the Graphic Audio audiobook. I sympathized with Violet and was rooting for her. I was even rooting for Xaden to get his head out of his own ass and start wising up to the fact that there was something there with Violet he couldn't deny. The push and pull of the romance made it all the more exciting whenever there was even an ounce of progress. The groan that would follow when there were a few steps back would be swallowed up by cheers not long after.
The mysterious world that Rebecca Yarros created for her dragon riders was reminiscent of How to Train Your Dragon but without all the childish fanfare that the kids franchise dictated. It was like if you took Hogwarts, made it as deadly as possible, and then threw some tough-as-nails Viking college kids into the mix, with just a sprinkling of dragons on top. I gobbled up every morsel of story I could get as fast as I could as I feverishly listened for hours on end to the dramatic rendering of the Empyrean series' first book. I am so glad that I have the second book already and the third pre-ordered because I am locked in.
Yarros knew what she was doing and this book deserves all the hype that it has received and I look forward to reading more of her fantasy stories as well as finding out what happens to "Violence" and her Wingleader.
