I loved this far more than I thought I would from the prologue. I almost put it down because I found the opening derivative, but it quickly grew on me as it changed into a heist novel, and a political intrigue, and a brief detour into a magical school, and well, it barely stops to take a breath. As I was reading I realised that why it felt so familiar at first was because it’s very much in conversation with Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series, which I devoured when I was a teen.

Lyons takes many of the ideas from Pern but plays them out differently, looking at dragons and telepathic bonding from a perspective where dragons have more power than the humans and play a more complex role within their society. They also have more complex personalities and relationships with humans and between dragons than Pern.

I would have liked a bit more character development and introspection; this is an action heavy novel, and character growth often seemed to happen because it needed to in order to support the action, not because the character was actually in a place they were ready to change. That’s a minor point, really, overall I devoured this book, and it was a great read!