This book was everything I expected it to be - a heartwarming and beautiful story. I loved it sooooo much and I'm so grateful that I got to read it in advance, I can't wait to recommend it to everyone haha. It was even better than the first book. Elizabeth Lim is such an amazing author and I love her work!

Dragon’s Promise

I had high hopes for this book, and I was not disappointed.

I really enjoyed the character building and the writing is just beautiful.

The Dragon’s Promise is a great sequel. It improves on the storytelling from the first book and I really enjoyed both the character and world building from and world building from Six Crimson Cranes.

Wonderful read.

What happened to the pacing in this one. Six Crimson Cranes was a pleasant enough book, a slow burn that found its pace in the second half but Dragon’s Promise seemed to meander off its path multiple times. I found myself wondering what the point of a certain dragon in book 2 was as he is barely mentioned and the ending felt almost, quick let’s put him back. I spent most of Dragon’s Promise wondering if we were getting a third only for it to end. It was enjoyable enough but I wouldn’t read them again.

First off, thank you to Netgalley and Hodder Stoughton for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to read this having finished Six Crimson Cranes recently. This book picks up pretty much where the last book left off with Shiori and Seryu travelling to the Dragon Realm to present the broken pearl to the Dragon King.

I loved Shiori's relationship with Takkan in this book, though Takkan is so stupidly brave and endlessly patient. I would have liked more interactions with her brothers in this book, but they were great for the parts they were in.

The romantic scenes in this book were my favourite ones. This book had me crying more than I was expecting, particularly when it came to Shiori speaking about Raikama.

Bandur, the villain in this book was kind of annoying and quite disappointing when compared to Raikama in the previous book.

The dragon stuff at the start was interesting, though felt almost like a separate book to the rest of it. The rest of the book, with Shiori attempting to find the Wraith and defeat Bandur just seemed to drag in comparison.

The ending also just wasn't it for me, which is a shame. Just isn't how I like my books to end. The epilogue didn't fix it that much for me either.

The book was beautifully written, and overall I really enjoyed reading this. I have to say though, in my opinion Six Crimson Cranes outshined this book. Though having seen some other reviews, I may be in the minority there?

This is an excerpt of my full review, which can be found here: https://thebooksintheirhands.wordpress.com/2022/05/15/six-crimson-cranes-the-dragons-promise-elizabeth-lim/

The Dragon’s Promise rejoins Shiori in trying to fulfil a promise she’d made by Raikama’s deathbed in Book 1. Shiori will now return the broken pearl only to the dragon with the strength to make it whole once more. Once inside the Dragon Kingdom, Shiori and Seryu realise that a shard of the mirror of truth must be stolen from Lady Solyaza to find the long lost half-dragon (the Wraith) and return the pearl to him. From here, the plot forks out into multiple adventures: keeping the dragon pearl safe, finding the Wraith to return the pearl, and trapping the Wolf to truly prevent a demon uprising in Kiata.

I found that, much to my relief, the Shiori-Seryu-Bushian Takkan love triangle was dispelled almost as quickly as it was implied: whilst in the Dragon Kingdom, Shiori is almost forced to marry Seryu but refuses him by declaring: “I’m no concubine, Seryu, especially not yours.” I was really pleased to see that Seryu remained a respectful friend to Shiori after she had refused his hand, as this made their parting bittersweet.

In The Dragon’s Promise, Lim upholds the endearing romance between Shiori and Bushian Takkan which was set up in Six Crimson Cranes. Takkan is a respectful character with both the patience and strong loyalty to make his blind love for Shiori believable. It was definitely a suprise to see Takkan be unbothered by Shiori bringing an abrupt end to their betrothal for the second time, however, this makes all the more sense when you realise just how Takkan understood her intentions (she ran out of the wedding with him, not from him). Overall, I enjoyed the rosy shade of hope and comfort which their romance brought to the adventure. And I’m glad that Lim achieved this without overwriting the development of Shiori’s independent and headstrong personality.

The Dragon’s Promise, like Six Crimson Cranes, is rooted in all kinds of love: not just romantic but platonic, familial and even self-directed love. It’s love which is found in Seryu’s strong bond to Shiori, their great friendship put to the test when he plans for her success against the will of his own family in the Dragon Kingdom; it’s in Shiori’s love for her brothers, a believable motivation which propels the princess’ fight forwards throughout the story; and finally, it’s in Shiori’s paper bird, Kiki, with her huge presence and humorous comments which speak as if straight from her unconscious. Undoubtedly my favourite element of the story, Kiki felt like the most apt physical manifestation of Shiori’s own belief in herself and her power.

The Six Crimson Cranes duology strikes a perfect balance between imagination and traditional mythology. It was a thrilling adventure – I’d often found myself on the edge of my seat, wondering how Shiori would save herself from trouble (bless her reckless act-now, think-later mentality…!) Where the plot unravels into multiple differing quests, romances and identity plots, be assured that all threads eventually twist back together into a satisfying and beautiful resolution.

Written with huge thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the eARC of The Dragon’s Promise.

I read the first book in this series only a couple of months ago and I couldn't wait to get into the next one. And I wasn't disappointed, My favourite character is still Kiki and the paper bird was a great relief from some of the darker themes in the book. This book did feel slightly like it was two separate books as the first half was in the dragon realm and was about Shiori's week with the dragons and the second half was about her and the demon from the first book and the dragons were barely mentioned in the second half which did put me off a little bit as I loved the dragons and the dragon realm sp much and wanted more form them.
The writing in this book was also amazing and I was never drawn out of the book and was always rooting for the characters and was sad at times when they got hurt.
I did think that it dragged on a little bit at the end and thought that some of the parts that happened at the end did come out of nowhere I loved every second of reading this and will definitely be getting the physical book to go with my first book.

I nearly started ugly crying before I even got to the first page, so I think that summarises how I felt about this book.

The imagery and world building, once again, was beautiful, and it was easy to visualise everything from the dragon realm, to the food dishes. The world building was a lot better than six crimson cranes and the plot flowed easily, despite a lot happening.

The story introduces us to new characters almost immediately, which I was very excited by, as I loved the entire portion of the story that was set under sea in the dragon realm, and thought the new dragon's would be interesting character's, however it was short lived and most of the dragon's didn't seem to have major roles, even though it was insinuated they would. We saw Seryu, very briefly for the first few chapters, but then he was dismissed and wasn't seen again for the rest of the story, as it mostly focused on Shiori and Takkan's romance and the demons. The newest character Gen, a boy Shiori saves in the dragon dungeons was a great addition to the story, and added a lot of light and humour.

I wasn't a very big fan of the focus changing from the dragons to the demons, but I understood why it happened, I just personally would have loved to see more of Seryu, his appearance was brief, the story line of him growing as a dragon felt rushed and there was a hint of a love triangle which I am glad wasn't continued from scc.

Shiori didn't have much character growth, and became even more reckless and impulsive than the first book, and that at times became quite annoying, and repetitive. Due to the story focusing on the romance, which was cute and had great chemistry, I felt the story lost the strong familial bond that I loved so much in scc, as the brother's were not the focus of the story.

The writing redeemed the minor problems I had with the book, and the small moments where Shiori was surrounded by love and support were very sweet. I thought the plot was great, and wrapped up nicely, and had a nice balance of magic and action.

Overall, the story was beautiful, and as one of my most anticipated reads of the year, I was not disappointed.

This story was just excellent and such an excellent continuation to Six Crimson Cranes (which I also loved). I also adored this book and gave it 5 shiny stars!
The story picked up right where the last book had left, with Shiori about to embark on an epic quest. I was instantly brought into an adventure.
I loved the character growth and enjoyed all of the characters from the first book having their time to shine. I also enjoyed meeting new characters. Kiki was as bossy and hilarious as always and I think may be my favourite character. She was far more vocal in this book and I loved it!
I feel like so many of my questions from the first book were answered. I absolutely loved getting more backstory, I think that was my favourite part.
I really enjoyed getting to know more about the world and the different environments.
During the last 15% of the book I could barely read the words as I was crying so hard (full on ugly sobbing!), but I persisted and was rewarded with a beautiful ending.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ebook in exchange for an honest review. I have this book on preorder and cannot wait to own a physical copy!

The Dragon’s Promise is a great sequel! It only improves on the gorgeous storytelling and world building that we’re introduced to in Six Crimson Cranes.

Six Crimson Cranes used to come on my amazon shopping page more times than I can remember. I would open the book description, stare at the beautiful cover, add it to cart, and then not buy it because the second part wasn’t out.

So imagine my eagerness when I saw ‘The Dragon’s Promise’on NetGalley. I couldn’t not request it. And I was over the moon when my request was approved.

I loved reading ‘Six Crimson Cranes’. It is a fairytale retelling which binds a beautifully story with threads of love, family, and magic. And for once I didn’t have to wait for the next part when I finished it.

‘The Dragon’s Promise’ was a little less impressive than my expectation but it has still done a brilliant job of continuing Shiori’s story and tying the different threads together. It combines the world of dragons, demons, humans,and Gods and I love how they are all given representation and a chance to live out their true selves.

It almost felt like reading three books. Shiori’s journey to Ailong, to Lapzur, and her struggles in Kiata. It felt stretched at times but it had big shoes to fill with Six Crimson Cranes.

I don’t want to give too many details in case it spoils the fun for those waiting. But the world is much more vibrant and wide and full of surprises. Shiori’s character for me grew selfish(not always a bad thing) but someone who took her family and brothers for granted. But, I loved Takkan’s character. Even Seryu grew on me a little more. And Shiori’s brothers are the most selfless bunch ever.

Overall a great duology to pick and add to your collection. I am dying to get my hands on the book once it comes out.

The beginning was full of action and commotion, which I enjoyed, particularly when Shiori ventured into the sea, which the author beautifully depicted. Despite the quick start, the pace started to slow around halfway through. The plot becomes multi-layered; apparently, Shiori must complete many tasks, so it feels jumbled, disconnected from the rest of the plot, and rather boring.

I kept pushing it despite my exhaustion because I adore the characters, particularly Takkan 😭

Shiori was much more reckless and tough here; her bravery in returning dragon pearls many times made me worry about the safety of the people she cares about, but what I like best is her loyalty to someone she loves remains strong despite the fact that this book implies a love triangle.

Although Shiori's underwater adventure with Seyru was a lot of fun, Seyru appears ineffective here. However, one character's appearance caught me off guard. This character was in the author's previous duology, and their brief meeting helped to heal my longing for him ♡

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC ♡

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. It is a beautiful and immersive experience full of twists and turns and provided a great conclusion to Shiori's adventure. I am very grateful to have been given the chance to read it as an eARC since I was so curious to find out what happened next!

The pace of The Dragon's Promise felt much faster than that of Six Crimson Cranes and much more adventurous. We are thrown right into the action and it rarely ever slows down (which felt really great). I love how Shiori grows and evolves throughout both books but especially in this one. Also, and without giving a lot away, really enjoyed finding out more about some of the characters that were introduced to us in the first book - it's a great way to allow for proper character exploration (testing the waters in book one and delving deeper in book two). I think having it as a duology was a good decision for pace but I do wish we had gotten longer to explore certain relationships and regions of this gorgeous world!

The ending was very satisfying too (I feel like not everyone does their characters justice in this genre so I am very appreciative when this happens) and I am very much an Elizabeth Lim convert - certainly an automatic buy author from now on!

PS: Im the future, I will be found campaigning for more Seryu stories.

I'm sad to rate this so low but it falls flat in comparison to Six of Crimson Cranes. I was so excited to read this book and am left somewhat disappointed.

Lim's writing style was as beautiful as always and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about shiori again I just felt the story took a turn from what I expected. Six of Crimson Cranes would have been better as a stand alone . This felt like a different story with the same characters.

Six Crimson Cranes was my favourite book of last year. The prose was wonderful, the setting was fantastic and the characters were so fun to follow.
The Dragon's Promise didn't live up to the first book for me. The pacing was all over the place - I frequently thought I was coming to the end of the book only to find I was barely halfway through. There were so many plot points packed into it but it felt like very little development happened.
Lim's world-building is exquisite but we just didn't get to see enough of it. She flashed through so many plots and areas there just wasn't time to flesh it out properly and it lost the meandering fairytale feel of Cranes. I was hoping desperately it would slow down so we could explore the new places, characters and developments but the pacing was almost manic in its brevity.
I honestly believe it would have benefited from being a longer series, with extra space for the world and characters to breathe.
The Dragon's Promise was fine and enjoyable, but slightly missed the mark for me and lacked that captivating spark that Six Crimson Cranes had. I still want more from this world and it's characters and it feels like there's plenty more behind the scenes we never got to see.
It is still a duology I recommend, though perhaps with slightly less gusto than before.

I was so excited to see more of Seryu in this book, and that was truly the highlight for me! He is a stand out character with loads of personality.

The romance in the book was also really sweet, and were my favourite parts of this story.

Unfortunately, I do wish we’d seen more of the brothers and the other characters had more development. They still felt a little flat to me, and left me just wanting a little more all round.

If you loved Six Crimson Cranes I don’t think you’d be disappointed!

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to start by saying that Six Crimson Cranes was one of my favourite fantasy releases of last year. Action, Romance, Dragons… What more could you ask for?

This sequel is not quite as spellbinding as the first novel. For me I found that a lot of the pacing was off. In the first book I was far more interested in the plot than the romance, so I was expecting that to be the case in this book too.

Boy was I wrong. I really enjoyed exploring Ai’long - the worldbuilding was excellent and exciting - The romance was the main driver of the book for me. They were very much in puppy love (and no love triangle!)

Outside of that, It felt like a lot of the characters from the first novel were left behind in the plot (not unexpected but a little dissapoinintg) and there was much less of the sibling relationship that shone in the first novel.

Bandur, the villan was much more stereotypical and therefore less interesting than Raikama who’s twisted motivations made the plot more compelling.

Overall a little underwhelming, but still a solid fantasy book. I can’t help the feeling that SCC could have become a much more satisfying standalone.

**Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for this eARC. All thoughts are my own.**

I started this just after I had finished Six Crimson Cranes, wanting to still be in the world and to continue it properly.
I do like the story of Shiori and Takkan, and her journey to fulfill her stepmother's wishes.
I felt this story lacking compared to the first installment though. I felt that this part of her journey was filled with so many obstacles and a lot of information was thrown at you in quick succession that it made it hard to follow at times.
I adore Takkan and their bond together, and also her brothers, Hasho mostly.
Kiki is a breath of fresh air throughout this story, and I think her sassy remarks make everything better.
I sympathized with Seryu, and his feelings for Shiori, but in my eyes as well as hers, there is no one else for her but Takkan.
I had such high hopes for the conclusion to this story, and I felt that everything was wrapped up too neatly in the end. after all the hardships she went through, suddenly everything was okay and she got her happy ending. I mean I am glad she got her happy ending, I just thought it could have been done differently (not sure how though)
However, I am glad to have delved into this world of magic, dragons, and demons and been given the chance to fall in love with many of the characters.

The Dragon’s Promise picks up right after the end of Six Crimson Cranes. This book was action-packed and super fast-paced. There’s something happening in every chapter! I would say there is more action than in Six Crimson Cranes. This book contains beautiful descriptions of life under water. The descriptions were very picturesque and better than I have ever read before!

This book contains a lot more political aspects than the last book did. At times I found it hard to keep up with all the names and the politics both in the Dragon’s Realm and in Kiata. But for fans of this trope, I think their needs will be fulfilled.

I really enjoyed that the communication between Shiori and Takkan was so good! I really dislike the miscommunications trope, and there was absolutely none of it in this book!

My only two small issues with this book are that I don’t really understand why the dragon was so interested in Shiori in the first place, and I also felt that the book was a little too long. I felt like there were three endings that could have been the ending, but the book just kept going.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and the whole duology!

The Dragon's Promise could be written by any average white man obsessed with the 💫Asians💫 without actually having any knowledge about Asia outside stereotypes. I liked the plot in Six Crimson Cranes enough to not throw a book with a full cast with Obiwan Kenobi-like names out of the window and to give TDP a try. But it gets worse and I dare to say that Lim doesn't have any knowledge about the Japanese language and culture (have you watched her pronounciation guide of the names?) or have sensitivity readers who actually speak Japanese.

A) The main character, Shiori, said literally in the book that her her name 'literally means a knot'. But IT DOESN'T and I felt embarassed for the author. (imagine getting the important symbolist *big reveal time* of your book wrong.. )
Shiori is one of the few actual Japanese name and still Lim managed to get the meaning wrong. Shiori is a Japanese word that means bookmarks, but in girl names it can mean MANY different things depending on the kanji chosen to make up the name. One of the possible kanji that can be chosen for the name Shiori means 'thread'. But that's a long stretch to mean a knot.
The word thread is used 69x the the book and the word knot 28x... (no not in an omegaverse way💀). The name explanation part, while symbolically meant, was unnecessary and inaccurate.
B) I complained about the abundance of Obiwan like names in SCC but at least they don't immediately give me bad associations (*just* orientalist vibes). In TDP there's a respectable, mysterious shaman named oshri.
Oshiri means ass in Japanese.
If it's not Lim's intention to make him juicy (which I seriously doubt), then it's another moment as embarrassing as finding typos on the title of a published book.

C) Minor characters with Korean names and vaguely Chinese names..what are they doing here?? Is this what the Japanese dreamed about when they invaded China and Korea? Is it the well-known Great East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere?

I find it hugely problematic that a book blurred the lines between various Asian folklores.
The book used MANY uniquely Chinese elements: smaller elements like the peach of immortality, the elixir of immortality, but also bigger, more problematic ones. The worldbuilding is a mess.

The Four Seas - It's a Chinese concept (like Seven Seas to other cultures). Metaphorically there are four oceans that make up the boundary of ancient China. There's one dragon king residing in one sea. Just like in TDP.

The dragons- while the dragons can be found in Korean and Japanese folklore, they are not as fundamental to Chinese people, who literally call themselves 'descendent of the Dragons' (Jackie Chan's Chinese name literally means Become a Dragon..). Most Japanese dragons have Chinese loanwords as names. But in TDP, they have names like Nahma, Solzaya. Another choice I don't understand.

So to summarize, everything in this book points to the direction that the worldbuilding of this book is mainly inspired by the Dragon King of the Four Seas, and not the Japanese dragon counterpart.


But there are zero Chinese names in the book.

I've seen people praising it as an ownvoice story.
No. It's not. It's a Chinese American author viewing East Asia through an Orientalist gaze, generalizing East Asian countries, giving all characters Japanese names while the story is mainly Chinese. It's just a book that uses Asian aesthetics to stand out in the publishing industry. It's not the rep I want to see.

A beautifully written book. Really enjoyed reading this. An excellent sequel. Thanks to publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read