When a seaside kingdom is conquered, its dragon gods are made to submit to the conquerers as well. Generations later, the heirs are still struggling with their subservience. There was a lot of high drama—not to mention brother/sister passion--that I might have been really into when I was reading Anne McCaffrey, and it was definitely nice that it was far from obvious that anyone was on the side of Right, but ultimately the characters didn’t move me. ( )

Liked it immediately. Got a little put off by the descriptions of sex and incest but loved the storyline. The ending was anti-climactic. But it may be just to get you to read the next book in the series. And I want to read more.

Some writers, both fantasy and otherwise, have the power to create characters that grab you, that have a life of their own. In this book, Storm Constantine created realistic characters, yes, three-dimensional characters, characters with which I empathized and who I understood, but they never really seemed to live. I could put the book down and not think about it until I picked it up again. The world she created was vivid and imaginative, although it felt frustrating that the aspects of magic and religion and power that the characters were dealing with weren't better defined. I'm used to reading fantasy where the system of magic is well-understood; dealing with characters who were grappling with a lost and fragmentary heritage was a mental shift that maybe I never fully made. On a technical level, the writing was nothing special, and there were a few parts where actual technical errors (poorly constructed sentences, bad grammar) broke my involvement in the story. However, for a light fantasy read (although its subject is pretty dark), the writing style can be overlooked, and the story did a good job of sweeping me up in the sea winds of Caradore... while I had the book in my hand, at least. ( )