Princess Shiori made a deathbed promise to return the dragon's pearl to its rightful owner, but keeping that promise is more dangerous than she ever imagined.
She must journey to the kingdom of dragons, navigate political intrigue among humans and dragons alike, fend off thieves who covet the pearl for themselves and will go to any lengths to get it, all while cultivating the appearance of a perfect princess to dissuade those who would see her burned at the stake for the magic that runs in her blood.
The pearl itself is no ordinary cargo; it thrums with malevolent power, jumping to Shiori's aid one minute, and betraying her the next—threatening to shatter her family and sever the thread of fate that binds her to her true love, Takkan. It will take every ounce of strength Shiori can muster to defend the life and the love she's fought so hard to win.
Six Crimson Cranes was one of my top reads last year. I love a fairytale retelling, and Elizabeth had kept the feel and tone of fairytales while crafting something very new. I was really looking forward to reading this second volume.
The problem - and you can probably say it along with me if you'd read many of my reviews - there's no recap. Cranes had a lot of revelations and status quo changes right at the end, and while I remembered the major one, a lot of the smaller ones had vanished in the year since I read Cranes, so I was quite lost for a long time. Everytime I thought I had a grip on the story, someone would mention a person or situation I had no idea about.
That aside, I enjoyed the story. Elizabeth clearly has a wonderful imagination, as while Cranes was based on The Raven Brothers and other fairy tales, this one seems much more original. There was some repetition in the middle - Shiori got stuck in a loop of 'sneak out of the palace to do A Thing, return to discover her situation has worsened, apologise to her father/Takken/her brothers, learn some new information, sneak out of the palace to do A Thing'...the beginning and ending of the book are definitely much faster paced than the middle, but I'm glad I hung in there with it.
If you're planning to read the book, I advise a reread of the first one - at least the last few chapters. I enjoyed reading this, but I would have liked it much better if I'd had any idea what was going on! I look forward to seeing what else Elizabeth Lim writes, and I really look forward to reading it.
The Dragon's Promise publishes on the 30th of August, 2022, in both the UK (top image) and US (lower image). I received a free copy and am giving an honest reveiw.
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