From the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series comes a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land...
A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village's debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world.
A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference.
When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement.
But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets...
(cover art: Kelsey Liggett, cover design: Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein and Melanie Ujmori)
Another stellar offering by Bodard. Her signature intensity is on display in this tale of people (and dragons) struggling to survive in the ruins of an alien conquest. Emotionally complex relationships interweave with richly drawn and deftly nuanced world-building.
A transformative experience. With dragons.
I was completely blown away by how much I loved this book: romance, worldbuilding, characters, everything. Behind everything, there are themes about motherhood and letting one’s children go and become their own person, of feeling like an outsider and trying to fit in. There is just so much crammed into a short 145 pages and it’s easily become one of my favorite books of the year.
Gorgeously atmospheric queer fantasy (…) Like Jane Eyre if Rochester was a woman plus a dragon.
