Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros Five Stars June 2023
My first dive into fantasy was with JK Rowling and the Harry Potter saga. Never in a million years would I have done so otherwise, but who couldn't love the genre after reading Harry Potter? Her stories so rich in character development reign supreme with me for world building and settings. Reading those books fanned the flames of my own desire to craft stories. I wrote my first book, Dawn of the Defender for that reason. I have written in different genres since, but had not delve into fantasy again as a reader. I’m not sure why . . . but my oldest daughter read Forth Wing and suggested it to me.
The story is about a war college where young adults learn combat and eventually are paired with a dragon. Not everyone gets the opportunity and many of the young people lose their lives in the pursuit of completing their first year. This book was never intended for the Harry Potter crowd. It is violent, spicy and slings four letter words as part of the narrative. It was these reasons I left it on the table without cracking the cover until I was in a book dry spell. I usually have my next book cued up and ready, but there was a short but uncomfortable few days without book in hand. I succumbed to the thick copy my daughter left for me.
The characters are rich, the world building is great and the storyline is compelling. Violet’s mother is the general of the whole college and of her three children, Violet is the least likely to go into combat on the back of a dragon. Although her two siblings were “dragon riders” Violet is more suited to being a scribe. But her future is decided by her mother, and despite everyone’s confusion over the decision, Violet is thrust into the Forth Wing and begins her first day trying to stay alive. Along with her fragile body, she has a target on her back because of who she is.
What kept me reading was Violet’s harrowing daily existence, and the shocking plot line when Violet actually excels and surpasses most of her peers in the Forth Wing. I did end up enjoying the book. The battles were exciting and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. The fantasy world created by Yarros is amazing. -Kim Luke
Book Blurb- Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die
