Part Dragon, part Human, part Pirate, part Noble, can Lisette de Lille accept who she truly is in time to save the people she loves?
**I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the author and Reedsy Discovery. Receiving a copy for free did not affect my review in any way. This is an honest, spoiler-free review, and all opinions expressed within are solely my own.**
Volume two of G.S. Carline's Dragon Shadows Series returns readers to the heart-stopping, page-turning adventures and trials ofLisette de Lille, a noblewoman who lost everything and had to forge a new life for herself in book one, walking away from the first step of her journey as a noble by blood, a pirate by circumstance, and a dragon by fate.
After discovering she is pregnant with her true love's (and fellow blood dragon's) daughter, Lisette has transformed from a blood dragon into a new moon dragon. Pausing her life to seek the guidance from Lamya (who trained her to adjust to her dragon lifestyle in book one) once again, Lisette must drill down to the core of who she is, who she was, and who she wishes she could be. Her daughter is coming sooner than she realizes, and if she is to raise an unknown type of dragon child, she must first complete her own growth.
Everything is put at risk, though, when old and new rivals try to steal her love from her, plot to marry her off to another, or kill her. With friends and enemies both so close she can barely breathe, it's hard to know who Lisette can trust, and who is waiting to stab her in the back.
Moon Dragon Falling does not fall into the 'boring interlude' traps many trilogies struggle to avoid, delivering an even more exciting, higher stake epic fantasy journey than the first book. While there are some returning themes that pick up force with a vengeance, and old scores that will be resolved from book one, there are also new antagonists, new hurdles, and new dangers waiting around every corner.
My love for Lisette as a main character grew immensely in book two. Her growth into a woman who knows who she is and what she wants is done so well; it's believable and heart-wrenching and heart-warming all at once.
While the storyline itself is well written throughout, there are a couple main reasons I am giving volume 2 a four-star review. The first is my personal opinion on the story-long 'forgotten lovers' trope/theme, which I know many readers enjoy (and if so, you will LOVE this book). This trope has been done so many times, though, that it stretches my believability, though the author does go about it in a creative way and with more creative consequences than 'my love has no memory of me... let's fall in love again.'
The second reason spins off of the resolution of that trope in the very end, opening up a key plot point (which I won't mention here, as this is a spoiler-free review) that read (to me) as a large plot hole just before the cliff-hanger ending.
Finally, this is a blatant cliff-hanger ending. Book three is in the works (yay!), but certain key plot threads from this book (book-specific, not series-wide) are not quite wrapped up by the end.
Overall, this series is so much fun to read, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for epic fantasy where heroines don't always get rescued by knights, where mom-life can overlap with adventure-life, and where magic has good and bad aspects to it.
**Trigger Warnings: Amnesia, SO/Child Abandonment, Murder, Torture mentioned (but not shown on the page), Manipulation (including attempted coercion of LGBTQ+ character to marry according to cis-gender/religious norms), Traumatic Childbirth**
