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I love Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, so I was interested to see her writing something else. While the book is a little slow to start out, there is a rich world here and the way magic works is a bit different from other books. Agnieszka and Dragon have a very snarky relationship, but it's kind of fun to see them squabbling with each other.
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“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Releasing this book as part of the Calgary BookCrossing wrapped book exchange.

Got at the wrapped gift exchange! So excited!

Loved this story! The writing style was great and had a storyteller quality to it. I loved Agnieszka. Also loved the Dragon and Kasia, as well as their relationships with Agnieszka. There was a lot of other well written characters too. It was quite a comprehensive fairy tale adventure which I found really hard to put down.

Thanks for the amazing read!

Taken to coffee

I picked this up at the mini-meeting today. Thank you, Eri-Cherry!

Taking to the Bookcrossing meeting at Cravings to find a new reader.
Happy Reading :)

Picked this book up at the monthly book crossing meeting at Cravings Market Restaurant.

I absolutely LOVED this book!! Such an amazing fairy tale style book! It wasn`t one of the fairy tales that I was familiar with, and I`m not completely sure if it was a retelling or not. But honestly I don`t really care because I couldn`t get enough and immediately afterwards I went to the library to take out the other book shes written.
Side note, it was also amazing

Releasing at Cravings Market Restaurant at the monthly Book Crossing meeting.

Picked this up at the September Calgary BookCrossing meetup.

I loved this book! It was all very familiar yet fresh and new.

I need more standalone fantasy like this!

Brought to the February Calgay Bookcrossing meetup.

Brought to the February Calgay Bookcrossing meetup.

Picked this up at the February meeting.

Engaging enjoyable story and characters

To be read - picked up at March Book Crossing meeting