Review: Strong Sequel Introducing a Different Dragon Kin in a world teeming with Intrigue and Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 18, 2012
In this sequel, the Dragons Saga continues with the focus shifting from the Oceina dragons to one of the other four dragon kin, the Inero.  The story overlaps in time line and portions of the story even cover the same scenes from a different perspective with Legend of the Oceina Dragon, but this one should probably be read after the first one where much of the dragon world is explained.  This is a good series that can be enjoyed by teens and adults alike.Each dragon kin have their own traditions and ways in governing their individual territories and this includes the way of taking a bride.  The Inero custom is to gather human girls of age and bring them before the dragon lords who then pick one to be their bride.  Love is not a consideration, but producing little dragons is.  However, on rare occasions a dragon lord will come along and choose his bride for love.Favored son of the Inero Great Lord, Matthias, has been in love with a girl for years and it is his great joy that his father has her rounded up with the other Elite- women marked to be a dragon's wife.  His twin brother, Jason, on the other hand, knows that he must take a bride, but has no real desire to do so.  He has a gentle spirit though and he recognizes the fear and confusion in one girl's face so he chooses her and, against the norm, chooses to give her space and time to get used to her fate.Even while these two young couples adjust to each other and their new lives, plotting and intrigue are going on within their kingdom.  Their father, Lynx, is planning to conquer their dragon kin the Oceina and take over their lands.  Matt is on board with the idea, but Jason is kept in the dark.  Jason suspects things and starts to realize that he will ultimately have to make a choice- family or the right thing.The driving force behind the planned invasion is an old prophesy.  A mysterious individual referred to as the Prophet has come along to steer the Inero Dragon lord and needs his twin sons known as The Touched because of their greater powers to further his end game.Tension and danger ramp up toward the end and there is a decided cliffhanger feel to the ending.  Fortunately, the next few books in the series are already out so the story need not remain suspended indefinitely.The dragon world that this story is part of conforms with the first book, but the plot of this one has a different tone to it.  It emphasizes the difference between the Oceina dragon kin of the first book with the Inero dragon kin of this one.  The Oceina are a more open, generous group governing almost in a democracy and making decisions for the best of everyone who lives in their territory both dragon and human.  This is not the case with the Inero.  The Inero lord is a law to himself and hung up on his power. He bleeds his people of their resources to meet his own needs.  He doesn't really care about the humans in his lands other than to use them to serve him.I found this one much more plot driven than the first though there is still a great emphasis placed on character.  The dynamics between all those connected is intriguing.  There are lots of little subtleties going on some are obvious and some are just barely in the scene, but all are important because this is a transition story leading to bigger things like many middle books in a series tend to be.The characters themselves are written with some depth and I thought the twins were especially well-written.  Jason is the obvious good guy in the story and he's easy to like and root for, but Mattias is a complicated character.  I wasn't fond of what he was changing into, but he has reason since he is being manipulated by almost everyone around him with the exception of his twin.  I include his wife in the aforementioned group because not all manipulation is evil sometimes its just out of selfishness.  I wasn't fond of Matt's wife Kat though theirs was the relationship that started out of love.  Jason was right about his twin's wife in his assessment that she is not mature enough.  Gwen, Jason's wife, was a character that I enjoyed because she was a gal who could take the lemons and make lemonade.  She might be homesick and angry about how she ended up where she did, but she never took it out on Jason and she was willing to trust him which led them through the back door into love.  But all that being said, my favorite character was Navi.  She was a spunky thing.  She really had a hard row to hoe because she was plucked out of her happy little existence to become Lynx, the dragon lord's flavor of the month until he tired of her.  Navi made the most of her situation using it to nose out that there was a plot in the making that was not a good thing.  I hope she reappears along with the more prominent characters in the next book.The book is a sweet fantasy romance with no bad language, no sexual details and very little violence.I recommend this book- well the series- to those who love dragon shifters or those who enjoy fantasy romance with a dash of intrigue and danger to make things interesting.