DRAGON BLOOD (HUROG DUOLOGY, BOOK 2) REVIEW

AUTHOR: Patricia Briggs

PUBLISHED: January 28th, 2003

MASS MARKET PAPERBACK: 275 Pages

SUMMARY: Ward, the ruler of Hurog, is striving to restore his lands and people to prosperity, wanting nothing more than a quiet life. But when an old friend, escaping from High King Jakoven’s torturers, seeks refuge in his keep, Ward can no longer ignore the growing rebellion against the tyrannical High King. He realizes that he cannot stand aside—he must join with the rebels.

However, Jakoven has a secret weapon with which he intends to crush the rebellion: Farsonsbane, a magical artifact that has destroyed entire cities. But first, Jakoven needs blood to awaken it. Dragon’s blood. The very blood that courses through Ward’s veins…

MY THOUGHTS:

NON-SPOILERS:

This book is as beautifully executed and exciting as the last book. Ward is more of a hero than he was in the last one, he has become a grown man and a leader to his people. Oreg is as awesome as ever, even more so in this one to be honest. Tisala makes a comeback and Tosten is as fun as ever. This is not something you wanna miss if you loved 'Dragon Bones'.

SPOILERS:

The story takes place 4 years after the events of the first book and this one is as exciting as the last one and different in a sense that Ward is now a well-established hero, and a renowned mage, as people believe him to have brought down the whole Hurog Keep with his magic to kill the Invaders. Ward has grown into a remarkable man and a leader, His people respect him and some are afraid of his magic, but even the people who believed him to turn out like his brute father, after getting to know him are in awe of him. Ward has spent most of his time since the events of the first book peacefully rebuilding the Hurog Keep.

The Hurog's relations with the Tallavenish High King are still precarious at best as they hate him on account of killing one of their own, Ward’s cousin Beckram and the king believes them to be a threat, even though they have no interest in ruling the five kingdoms everybody knows that if the people of Shavig ever were to declare themselves an independent kingdom and decided to choose a King of their own it would be a Hurog and that is enough to make The High King uneasy.

This book was much darker than the last one and straight out disturbing at some points, including disturbing elements such as child abuse, rape, and sexual assault, and all of them mostly done by the High King and Ward’s Father. So, yeah, this is much darker compared to 'Dragon bones', the author may not have gone into visceral details about things but there was no doubt about what conspired.

Briggs has deftly woven an intricate storyline in a compact space much like the first book. With most of the well-developed and familiar characters that we got to know so well in 'Dragon bones' and a few new ones, this really makes for an excellent read. Seeing Ciara completely transformed into a Lady and a mother from the teenager who preferred wearing Boots to shoes was a nice surprise.

The romantic side of the story between Ward and Tisala is much more defined, in a sort of way that “We know you’re in love and all but we can’t spend half of this already compact book exaggerating your romance cuz people got some world-ending shit to deal with out here” kind of way. But the romance is definitely much more defined than the last book, which I would guess according to the Briggs fans would be called nonexistent in the first one.

In this one, The High King really steps up his diabolicalness by finding and trying to activate a potential civilization-ending magical staff called ‘Farsonsbane’. Ward gets captured tortured and aided by a Minor God to keep his wits about him through all of it. So the whole story is focused on overthrowing the High King, and getting his Younger brother on the Throne, destroying or dismantling the 'Farsonsbane' or render it dormant somehow, but if you know Briggs you also know that that’s not all there is to the story and her talent for creating intricate and layered characters has been skillfully employed in this book, so in my opinion, anyone who enjoyed 'Dragon Bones' would enjoy this one as well. My only complaint about the series is that it shouldn’t have ended with just two books, there is so much potential to the story, so much left undone, my only disappointment is that there are no more books in this series for me to jump into.

CHARACTERS:

1. WARDWICK OF HUROG

Aidan Turner.