“and all that remains is the faces and names / of the wives and the sons and the daughters”

[larryhammer]

It’s been a while since I posted about reading on Wednesday, but I just finished a book I wanted to mention: To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. I don’t remember who mentioned it (skygiants? If it wasn’t you, I think this is up your alley) but thank you.

This is a YA fantasy by an Indigenous (Wampanoag) author, set in a steampunk-ish AU of New England. Our teenage heroine, Anequs, is from an island off the coast (our Nantucket) that’s been ignored and dismissed by the Anglish colonizers (who are fully Norse) that control the region—until, that is, she impresses (that’s not the word used, but humans totally impress Pern-style) a dragon hatchling. To learn the skills to control her dragon (the first in two hundred years for any local) and avoid repercussions for her people, she must attend an Anglish academy for dragoneers. As an oppressed and dismissed native of uncertain legal status, because that always works out smoothly.

The plot hits all the expected beats for a YA fantasy, but it does so well and the worldbuilding is deft (especially the magic: dragon’s breath is “shaped” using alchemy). I especially like the relationships that develop—neither Anequs nor her two love interests (both also marginalized people) are in a safe place for romantic entanglements, but she does negotiate agreements to start courting them both when they can achieve safety. (For one, safety will be tricky, as homosexual relationships are firmly outlawed by, and scandalous to, the Anglish.)

That said, it’s not a complete story, but the first installment of a series, and this affected the slightly wonky pacing of the last third. Still recommended. I await the next book.

---L.

Subject quote from The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot.

Comments

[leecetheartist]

That sounds *cool*!

[larryhammer]

It is! I hope you can get access to it in your parts.

[skygiants]

I did indeed write about this one, though I think genarti did first! Either way, I'm glad you liked it. :D

[larryhammer]

I did! Thanks for the heads-up.

[genarti]

Yes! Isn't it fun? Very much within its genre, but doing it well and interestingly.

[larryhammer]

All that.

I did regret that Marta pretty much disappears during the second term, given there's not enough room to wrap anything related to her in the space remaining in this installment. Ah, well.