I had never read anything by Kagawa before so Talon was my first jump in! Having heard of her upcoming book, Shadow of the Fox I knew I wanted to try a few more of the books before hand. I have no idea what I was expecting in Talon. But what I ended up reading totally exceeded my expectations.
Summary
To take her rightful place in the Talon organization, young dragon Ember Hill must prove she can hide her true nature and blend in with humans. Her delight at the prospect of a summer of “normal” teen experiences is short-lived, however, once she discovers that she’s also expected to train for her destined career in Talon. But a chance meeting with a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught.
As Ember struggles to accept her future, St. George soldier Garret Xavier Sebastian is tasked with hunting her down. But when faced with Ember’s bravery, confidence and all-too-human desires, Garret begins to question everything the Order has ingrained in him—and what he might be willing to give up to uncover the truth about dragons.
Review
I’m going to give you 5 reasons why I ended up really enjoying Talon!
- I am all about these really long wars. So basically there’s this huge conflict between dragons and dragon killers: the Order of St. George. Basically between knights and dragons – so it’s like a more updated medieval story. I loved this fact. The only thing I would have loved more is between mermaids and humans OH WAIT. There is one – Seafarer’s Kiss.
- Multiple perspectives. I am such a huge fan. At first it was just Ember and Garett and then as soon as Riley got thrown into the mix, I started loving this way more. I love when multiple perspective books are carried out well and I liked it here.
- A relationship situation I still am conflicted about. It’s one of those things where you hate to love them, or you love to hate them? Like I have so many conflicted emotions about the relationships in this book. Read it. Then I can spoiler you all and we can all sign and yell together.
- I love when people have to learn about their ‘enemy’ and actually realize that it’s all a bunch of bologna. I am a huge fan of boundary hopping. In some ways, many people have done this before – hello Pocahontas – but it’s tried and true. And while it can get old, it has to be really really good now for me to like it. And I liked it, but it could have been because of #1.
- Such potential for the next book(s). At the end of the novel I thought, wow. I knew what I wanted them to do and I wanted to see them do it! There’s so much potential, which you can tell because this series is like 4 more books!
Make sure you check out Talon on Goodreads!
Your reasons are why I’m reading the series. I’m reading Legion now and holy moly I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Kagawa keeps tossing in twists and different plot directions. I hadn’t read her other books either but started here because DRAGONS.
OH I need to download that one RN
This book sounds fascinating. I adore multiple perspective books! Especially for fantasy and historical intergenerational novels. I hope that’s what the latter is kinda called.
It’s definitely fun!
Multiple perspectives are hugely important to my enjoyment of a novel; after all, not everything is black & white or good vs evil in life, why should I expect it in a story? The ripple effect of one persons’ actions can affect a large number of people so the more opinions and input the better!
Such a great point! I love when I get multiple POC novels, esp if they have a different take on the same scene
I think I tried reading this when it first came out but couldn’t get into it…my brain had a hard time accepting a dragon as a teen girl 😛 But your #1 and #4 points appeal to me…
HAHA yes, I think audiobook helped a lot. I think if I was reading it physically it would have been harder