YA Review: The Shadow Queen by CJ Redwine

I was lucky enough to get this book through the booksfortrade deal with another blogger, although I also originally downloaded it as an e-galley from Edelweiss thanks to Balzer and Bray.  It's one I was really excited for.  I finally got around to reading it a little late though, I got behind on some review books. But when I finally picked it up I really did end up enjoying it.  It's the first book I've read by this author, and I'm also excited that there will be a sequel.  I do enjoy fairy tale retellings and I liked this one that was inspired by Snow White. 

There are two main characters in this.  First is Lorelai, who should really be the princess, but she had to run away to escape her stepmother, the queen, before she was killed.  Along with her brother Leo, and Gabril, the head of the palace guard before her father was killed by her stepmother Irina, she has been on the run.  Trying to stay safe, but also to come up with a way to get back and take her kingdom back, Lorelai is trying to learn how to use magic in a way she can defeat Irina, and along the way she is trying to help out her subjects, hoping to get them on her side when she needs them.

The other main character is Kol, or you could go by his full name, Kolvanismir Arsenyevnek, I think I'll stick with Kol.  He is a prince in the kingdom of Eldr.  His lands are being overrun by ogres.  When we meet him, Kol has just been kicked out of school for a prank.  He's at home partying with his friends, waiting for his father, mother and older brother to return from the battle front where their army is fighting the ogres.  Now there is something unusual about Kol, you see his people are dragons.  At some times they're human, other times they're dragons.  Their bodies change back and forth.  They have two hearts, one for the dragon and one for the human part of them.  Kol gets bad news, and he must now take over as the king of his land.  He can't seem to think of a way to get rid of the ogres without magic, and so he feels he must go and try to make a deal with Irina, her magic for food that his land can provide for her people.

Kol and his two best friends head into Lorelai's land.  They get into one small village, and their nice clothing sets the villagers after them, being poor, they can only see what they might be able to get from these strangers.  Lorelai and her brother and friend just happen to be in the same village, and they end up saving Kol and his friends from the angry villagers.

When Kol gets to Irina, he finds that instead of wanting his food, alls he wants is him to find Lorelai and bring her heart back.  Now Kol never got Lorelai's name, so it isn't until they attack and cause a major tragedy for Lorelai, that he soon learns who she is, and that he cannot kill her.

But Irina has built in wards for just this type of betrayal situation.  And it will be those things that will cause Lorelai and Kol to fight both for their own lives, as well as each other.

There was a very interesting take on the fairy tale in this story.  The dragon parts actually made me think a bit about the Sleeping Beauty Disney movie.  But other than that, Kol became the perfect huntsman for the Snow White story.  Irina was a perfect wicked stepmother/evil queen.  Lorelai was a Snow White more like Snow in the tv show Once Upon a Time, than like the one in the Disney story, because she was pretty kick-ass.  There are some very sad parts, a bit of a love story, but not too much over the story, I like how the author wove the romance through the story. 

Cover Characteristic: Dragons

The Cover Characteristic meme is hosted at  Sugar and Snark.   Here are the guidelines:

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite covers with that characteristic. If you want to join in and share your 5 favorite covers with the weeks particular characteristic, then just make a post, grab the meme picture (or make your own) and leave your URL in Linky (so we can visit).
You don’t even need to participate, just stopping by and saying hi would be great! Don’t forget to stop by the other participants!

I always pick from books I've already read, and as often happens for me, I find more than the 5, so I'm going to pick my top 10 covers.



And my favorite is a newly re-done cover:

Now I haven't finished the Eragon series, so couldn't include the other two books in that series.  And I know there are many more books out there, but these are the ones that I have read.  What do you think of my covers?   Have you read any of these? 

Review: Talon by Julie Kagawa

This was a book I was so disappointed when I was unable to get an ARC at BEA the summer of 2014, but then I believe I was able to finally get it this past year through YA Book Exchange.  I have to say I did enjoy it, it was different from what I guess I thought it was going into it.  And now I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Rogue. Anyone have an ARC of that to trade me?  :-)

The story is told through the view points of two people at first, and then we add a third person towards the second half.  The main character though, I believe, is Ember.  Ember is a member of Talon, which means she is a dragon hatchling. When they reach a certain age, around 16, they get to go out and live with humans and have a "normal" life, since they are able to be in human form.  Ember and her twin brother Dante, have been sent to live near a beach.  Twins are rare for dragons, and so Ember has been lucky enough to have a brother with her in all stages of her life.  Once they get to where they are staying, they find out that their training is going to begin a bit earlier than planned.  Ember and Dante are trained separately, and Ember's trainer seems to be the trainer from hell.  And some of the exercises she is doing remind me of what Mr. Miyagi had Daniel doing in the Karate Kid movie.  Although her trainer is nothing like the kindly old Mr. Miyagi.  And after they are done training, or during their training, they will find out which sect of the Talon they will be training to join. 

The 2nd person is Garrett.  He is a member of the Order of St. George, soldiers who hunt and kill dragons.  He has been put on assignment to try to catch a hatchling that they know will be in the same town where Ember is.  And Ember is one of the possible suspects since she is new to town.  He is sent to infiltrate the groups of teens and determine who is his target.  And while he has always been loyal in all ways, after hanging out with Ember for awhile, and getting to know her as a girl, without finding out if she is a dragon, he wonders if dragons are all as bad as he has been told. 

And towards the end a character that we do meet early on, a rogue dragon named Riley, begins to get his own chapters.  Any dragon who does not want to follow the Talon's rules and fall in line in one of their sects, well they have to go into hiding and are called rogues.  Only Riley lets Ember in on some things that she's never known about Talon, and even shows her proof of some of the things he tells her.

In the end Ember must decide if Talon is still where she belongs, and Garrett must decide if he will follow through with his mission. 

Another great, and unique, story by Kagawa.