Dragon Steel by Jodi Kendrick

Published on April 14th, 2022

247 pages

Back cover

The world is changing and Kolina Steelscale must learn how to bend with it, or risk breaking her chance of a stronger future.

Kolina Steelscale dedicated her life to the Queen of Draconia and her people, serving as a guardian of the hidden archipelago and as a member of the queen’s personal Honor Guard.

The king of an enemy tribe is dead and the two Draconians who had been his prisoners are still missing.

One of the missing Draconians is Kolina’s pregnant daughter, while the other is the queen’s long-lost ambassador.

The queen charges Kolina with finding out what happened in the mountain lair of the dead king, and bringing her subjects home safely.

Kolina travels to Blue Creek, grudgingly, to seek out Odson Blackridge to tell her where the mountain lair is.

While awaiting his return, she spends time with Blue Creek’s wolf pack matron, Barbara Wolfe who instigates a slight detour in Kolina’s mission, which results in a journey she never could have imagined.

A journey that opens her eyes and her heart to accept a different way of living. To re-examine her past choices and learn how to heal old heart aches.

For herself, and for her people.

My review

First, I would like to thank the author to choose me as one of her arc readers. It’s the second book I read from her and I really start to like her writing. If you like books with a little of romance and lots of action, I recommend it to you. The romance is mostly between Kymri and Jori which are main character in another of her books. I might put it in my to be read pile really soon. Even though, there are not the main characters in this book, they are my favorite.

I have the tendency to have a preference for secondary characters lately and I think they are the ones who bring the action with Kolina who tries to protect her people with the help of many other characters. I admit that I have to read the book twice to truly understand the story. There is so many characters that I was sometime hard for me to follow. I suggest that you read Dragon Heat before this one to fully understand the world.

I do not often read shifter’story, but this one was interesting. You don’t have to like dragons to enjoy this story because they acted like humans. Except for the part where they were talking about flying (which is one of my favorite part) , it could be a novel about two families going to wars. I also like the antagonist, I wanted to know what was going to their mind.

The planning of the war was the biggest part of the story. Family came in second since there is a lot of conversation between Kolina and Kymri who is her daughter. I could say the antagonist are friends, but I doubt they will not betray each other.

This book is part of Milly Taiden’s world. I read three of her books, but it’s the first time I have read a book wrote by another author and I like the experience. I might give a chance to other people who did the same thing than Jodi.

My interview with the author