When I first came across this book it sounded right up my alley - dragons, alchemy and politics? Sign me up! - but I left this book disappointed and wanting something more. The best way I can describe how I felt reading this was that I was told rather than shown. There are such wonderful and interesting concepts in this book yet none of them feel properly explained and developed. The titular dragons appear only a few times, and despite being told their scales are made of glass - an incredible concept - we are never once given a description of what they look like. Glass is an ongoing theme in this book, with scaleglass frequently being the cited as the strongest material in this universe, and one of the main characters starting the story as a glass making apprentice. Despite this, we still learn very little about the role glass plays in this universe.

I also felt this book tried to do too much and therefore fell short. The three main characters split the story up too much, and overall I didn’t feel like I learned anything about them, their personalities never really developed despite being written in first person. I also felt that the romance was forced and out of place for all three characters, with certain scenes feeling completely out of place and ruining the flow of the story. None of the characters are particularly likeable or hate able - they just seem to exist.

As well as an overall feeling of just being told what was happening to these characters, the book has a habit of “fading to black” during scenes that are important to the plot. Odd choices were made in terms of which information was withheld throughout the story, and I found many of the plot points were resolved for too quickly and easily, with very little suspense built.

I think the overall world the author has built was really intriguing, and I wish they had spent more time world building, rather than diving straight into the plot which I found predictable and rushed.

Thank you to NetGalley and LittleBrownBookGroup_UK for sending me this to review.

Thank you to author and publisher for the arc!

Okay, 2024 is the year of the dragon for sure. So many dragon themed books are coming out yet this one was so incredibly unique, I loved it! The magic system was so cool, I loved the whole theme with glass and scales and the characters were so well written. You either loved them or hated them, which was for sure the point!

Loved loved loved it

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. This is epic fantasy written in multiple POV's. I did enjoy the very different perspectives and experiences that each character gave, and they all felt like realistic people. A couple of minor gripes would be that they are several elements that I would have liked to be explored/discussed further and is that the ending did not feel much like one, it kinda just stopped. Regardless, I am looking forward to the next instalment and I would recommend this to those that like epic fantasy with lots of political drama and dragons.

Between Dragons and Their Wrath is the first book in a new series. Despite dragons being in the title and being present in initial chapters they are soon just mentioned and left, so don’t expect them too much. The dragons are absolutely amazing when featured, they are fearsome and interact well with the humans. There is use of wit and I enjoyed the dialogue throughout the whole book as well as just with the dragons. The book is well written and immersive, the world is fantastic with alchemists, social discord, dragons, monsters and seas of sand. The only thing I would say is that the book felt like a middle book where you have that set up for something bigger coming. The plot is good, there are plenty of moving parts and the main characters are distinct and interesting. I’m definitely intrigued to see more and get some answers. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It had a lot of potential but felt short. I didn't mash with the writing or the plot.

4.5 stars rounded down.

I really enjoyed this! The characters are great, likeable and fun to follow. The dialogue is sharp and witty, and the writing in general is very good. The world, though fairly small, felt real and was well set up without too much exposition. The plot set up the political intrigue and mysteries well enough for me to really want to know the answers.

I only have one criticism, which is that it felt like most of the book was in the set-up phase and the story didn't properly take off until the very end. This would have been much more of a problem if the writing hadn't been as good, but fortunately it was, so I am still looking forward to the sequel.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

'Between dragons and their wrath' is the first book in a trilogy (I think?), setting the scenes for the rest of the series. It is more heavily leaning on the political fantasy side of things, which I did not expect (my bad), following three distant but interconnected point of view, told in a first person narrative. I am not, I must say, a big fan of that combo. Multiple POVs are fun to me when they are more directly interconnected, first person POV are complicated and mainly political plot are quickly annoying to me.

That being said, Madson manages to tell this story well. There is a lot of details, interesting world building, intriguing plot full of mystery and old secrets. She tackles a lot surrounding imperialism, loss of culture and traditions, domination and so on, and does it well.

The characters are rather interesting, with thei own voices, though there are a lot of similarities too. I had a bit of a struggle with the hard mind set of one of the character but she evolved a bit, and has enough awareness to be cautious after a while. Ashadi's pov was the one I loved most, because of his relationship with Mana, a dragon and his overall personnality. The two other pov's deal a lot more directly with politics, so it might be a factor for my difficulty with them.

Besides the main characters, I must say there are quite a lot of interesting secondary characters, some of them I would have liked to see more, to know more about them and their goal. There are a fair share of hints, it works really well.

The book is a tad long, especially after a while, once the first discovery is done. Having three POVs help to keep things moving, in various ways, and trying to piece things together is fun. There is a lot and yet not that much things happening, it's a peculiar feeling. The ending was a bit abrupt, left hanging there.

Lastly, I would have liked more dragons, even though they are at the center of the story and intrigue, they have not that much space on page.

Between Dragons and Their Wrath is the first book in a new series by Devin Madson. Tesha is a glassblower’s apprentice and ends up becoming a bride in the Reacher’s court to sabotage him. Naili is a laundress who is sleekly gaining abilities that are making people take notice of her. Ashadi is a dragon rider who protects the basin from the monsters of the sands beyond.

This had some interesting concepts such as colonialism and power but overall I struggled with this book. I haven’t had the best luck with fantasy new releases this year and I just struggled to get into this. The characters were all distinguished from each other and it was easy to follow who was who but overall I just didn’t love it.

TL;DR:
Positives: dragons, politics, good characters, very gay
Negatives: The first chapter is a little hard to get into

OH BOY okay wow.

So, as is the theme for my reviews of ARCs so far, I won't be giving any spoilers even under spoiler warnings. I'll try to take you on the journey I went through reading this book.

I won't lie, it starts off slow. I got half way through the first chapter and I didn't like the writing, I didn't feel connected to the story, and I was concerned I'd have to read the entirety of a book I really didn't like. I'm already a much bigger fan of third person than I am first person, and so I was not looking forward to the rest of this.

BUT then chapter two started. I still wasn't wholly convinced, but the writing itself seemed to improve exponentially, and I found myself a little more hooked than I was before, but still a little apprehensive.

Then the third chapter came along and all bets were off. I LOVED this book. I expected this to be maybe a 3 star at best, but the more I read, the more I wanted to know.

It's got dragons, secrets, politics, spies. Everything I really love in a novel. I do also have to appreciate the sheer amount of queerness in this book. Often authors will include one, maybe two side characters as "token gays", but this book was SO queer it made my little gay heart sing. I loved the worldbuilding in the end too, despite a shakey start.

I do also really appreciate the fact that the main characters were all competent, but not "chosen ones". Their skills were realistic, they weren't prone to very obvious bad decisions, and they felt like real people instead of 2D cutouts.

What made this a 4 star read instead of 5 for me is the ending. I won't give anything away, but it wasn't my favourite way to end a story. I understand why it was done, and realistically I don't think it could've been done any other way with the enormity of the story being told, but it's still not my personal preference. That being said, I will absolutely be reading the next one and however many more come out after that. It's well worth a read. I had a lot of fun with it, there were some really cool concepts explored, and it's really gay. All positives in my opinion.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me an ARC for this book!