"But you're right about one thing, Pendragon. Why should I fight so hard to leash the monster inside when you're so determined to bring him out?"

The Story
Medra Pendragon thought she'd died, going out in a blaze of glory to save her Camelot. Instead, she wakes up in a separate world, where vampires run the show. In her world, everything from her red hair to her pointy ears mark her as a half-fae member of the royal family. In this world, it means she is a rare, valued creature - a dragon rider. There are no dragons left, but the ruling vampires don't want to risk letting such a prize get away, so Medra is forcibly betrothed to the arrogant, awful Blake Drakharrow as his consort, and sent away to begin her training at Bloodwing Academy. Despite her rare status, it will be a miracle if she survives her first year.

The FMC
Medra Pendragon is a great FMC. She's capable and strong and skilled, with great reserves of loyalty and goodness that are a bit hidden under a fairly prickly exterior. She commits to her decisions and doesn't waffle, but is willing to revise her plans and opinions when presented with new information. Also, redhead supremacy forever.

The MMC
Do you really enjoy the romance/romantasy trope of "You're mine"? Boy, do I have the book for you. Blake Drakharrow uses that phrase and every possible variant at every possible point, and it thrilled me each time. Even while they still despise each other, he takes 'touch her and die' very literally from pretty much the first page. Blake is very Draco Malfoy-coded (and the Bloodwing Academy is Hogwarts meets Basgiath meets every depraved thing from Game of Thrones) - very arrogant, possessive, violent, etc., but he does seem to like dogs and dogs like him, so maybe we'll let him stick around long enough to find out if he's our new book boyfriend, yes?

The Spice
Spice was not frequent, but boy did it pack a punch! Their connection was palpable throughout the whole slow burn.

The Other Thoughts
I was generally captivated enough by the story that I would forget for long periods of time, but the one thing that kind of bothered me was how rarely Medra thought about her previous life in Camelot, or had much of her backstory come into play. That's not to say it had no impact, and if I had to guess it probably will play a major role in future installments, but right now it seems like the whole 'I'm a princess from Camelot who died to save my world' could have been just as easily replaced with 'I woke up with no memory of my previous life.' But really, that's just a personal quibble, and not any reason to not recommend what was a very engaging book.

Despite being a pretty lengthy book, I took this down in one day and never felt it was dragging on. In fact, as I reached the end I was sort of freaking out that there were only 30 pages left and I knew from the prologue that we still had Big Things left to come. And then it actually managed to end on not one, but TWO cliffhangers, one of which was heavily foreshadowed (but still devastating to read and see how it actually played out) and one of which took me by more surprise than it probably should have.

Tropes:
- Enemies to lovers(?)
- Vampires
- Dual POV
- Dragons and dragon riders
- Magical academy
- Touch her and die (like literally from the very first scene)
- Chosen one
- Arranged marriage
- Bully romance
- Slow burn spice

Rating: 4.5/5
Spice: 2.5/5 (again, limited in amount, but bumped up an extra half a point for being high on the Scoville scale)

Thank you to NetGalley, Briar Boleyn, and the publishers for sending me an advanced copy of On Wings of Blood in exchange for an honest review!

This had such a cool premise, but for some reason it seemed to fall a little flat for me.

I mean, it has dragons AND vampires! And I do feel like that's a super rare combination to come across. I really don't think that I have read another book that has had both dragons and vampires. So that was super cool and unique because I am a fan of both.

I think my biggest problem with this book was the characters, I think they are what made this book fall flat. I just couldn't connect to them or care about them as much as I feel like I should for this kind of story. Our main character is essentially the last dragon rider, I should be obsessed with her! But I was not.

And, of course, because I am a Howl's Moving Castle lover, I loved that our main character's last name is Pendragon. Just had to throw that in here.

This also takes place at a school, so if you're craving the school element of Harry Potter or Fourth Wing, I would give this a try.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.

This read as a strange mish mash of fantasy tropes and everything that is popular at the moment, including vampires and dragons. The concept was interesting but the world building was quite lacking and I didn't feel pulled to root for Medra or Blake. I also felt like they fell into stereotyped roles of main characters (not like other girls was mentioned a couple of times). This book was not for me, sadly.

3.5⭐️

I read the Blood of Fae series and really enjoyed the world a lot so when I heard briar was doing a spin off series from one of the characters I knew I had to sign up. I went into this book without reading the synopsis. Immediately I picked up on the Harry Potter and Fourth Wing inspiration. The world building was intriguing. I felt that we came to a little bit of a stagnant pace towards the middle of the book, but it picks back up towards the end. I had a good time getting to know all the characters and their layers.