Oh my! I really enjoyed this book, sequel to [b:Dragon Bones|123408|Dragon Bones (Hurog, #1)|Patricia Briggs|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1239563618s/123408.jpg|118820] and I was pleased to find it available in the Kindle store at Amazon. While there aren't any dangling threads and this could be the end of the story (and certainly appears to be as the two books are being referred to as The Hurog Duology) I would dearly love to read more stories set in this fantastic world. ( )

I enjoyed this more than I expected from the first book. It continues to follow the adventurese of Ward, Oreg and Hurog, against the evil of bad kings and bad magic. I like Ward and he remains true to himself. He is imprisoned in the awful asylum and that felt real and painful. Some of the other characters lacked depth - Kellen and his half brother whose name I can't even remember - they weren't drawn well. So it's still a more rough around the edges kind of fantasy, not one you fall into totally, but it holds its own well enough, and I wanted a happy ending for Ward. The ending of the book felt a bit rushed, after all that plotting, then it was all over, but I imagine battles can feel like that.
I do like Patricia Briggs as an author and am happily making my way through her backlog. ( )

This is just the second book by Briggs that I have read and it's very different in setting from the previous one. However I did enjoy this fantasy and will probably look for other novels by Briggs. The second book about Ward of Hurog it stood up pretty well without my having read the first one. A nice but not exceptional fantasy, I did find the dragon to be unusual and interesting. There was also a bit of romance for those who want it.

Equally magnificent. Ward's grown up a bit, and the problem now is less simple and clearcut than in Bones (which wasn't all that simple!). Ward has to outthink his enemies - and some of his allies as well. His courtship, running through this, is funny and fascinating and just neat. And the climax is very like him - do what needs doing, as best he can, stretch beyond his limits to do it - then joke about it and relax, the problems are all solved (for the moment). I wish she'd written more - it would be interesting to see what happens next - but it would be hard to find a problem to stretch Ward and his allies. His next set of problems are all politics. ( )

I have been a lump today. All I did was read these two books. They are set in a fantasy world of the Five Kingdoms. Our hero, Wardwick, is son and heir of the Hurog, rulers of one of those kingdoms. He has survived to reach adulthood because after his abusive father beat him senseless, he pretended he had been turned stupid, and thus no threat.

The second book takes place 4 years after the first, and addresses the larger problems of the Five Kingdoms, which is being ruled by a king who does not care for his people. Will there be rebellion? and if so, how? More magical artifacts and mages appear. Ward has friends all over, it seems, and it is not clear if he wants to take the throne for himself.

"Hurog means dragon." Those words are repeated at several key points, and each time it reminds, the story reveals new layers of meaning. It is no accident that Ward means "guardian", either. There is a dragon in each story, too, but the emotional core of the books are the relationships between the people and their reactions to the situations.
Wow that sounds dull. But wow it was not. ( )