Naava roared, her cry reverberating through my entire body. But when the fighting is over and the smoke clears, who will be left standing? Excerpt With the final battle for Zefed looming, Maren must set aside her fears, draw upon all she’s learned about her dragon-touched abilities, and face her destiny once and for all. If he’s to survive, he’ll have to strike first-or hope Maren reaches him in time. With more people joining the rebellion, whispers of a rogue dragon mistress spreading, and escape seeming less likely with each passing day, Sev knows that it won’t be long before the emperor decides to make an example of him. After a daring rescue, they’ve finally been reunited, but Maren’s life is still in pieces: Kaia seems more like a stranger than the lover Maren knew back home Naava, the mother of all dragons, has retreated into seclusion to recover from her wounds, leaving Maren at a loss for how to set the rest of the dragons free and worst of all, her friend Sev has been captured by the emperor’s Talons.Īs a prisoner of Zefed, Sev finds himself entangled in a treacherous game of court politics. Maren’s world was shattered when her girlfriend, Kaia, was abducted by the Aurati.

(Nov.Maren and her girlfriend Kaia set out to rescue Sev and free the dragons from the corrupt emperor in the explosive finale to the journey that began with Shatter the Sky.

Wells swings for the fences, ambitiously conceiving a take on fairy tale magic that leans into fast-paced adventure. A first-person, RPG-style narrative results in thin characterizations and subsequently weak relationships, but Wells’s straightforward handling of bisexual Lena’s sex-positive attitude is a breath of fresh air. Though the forest is known to be deadly, Lena accompanies her to the Gather, a city of magic within it that may hold the secret to both lifting Lena’s deadly curse and finding the key to her heart. Having spent her life running from the witch who cursed her, as well as the memories of her own unintended victims, Lena is lonely and sheltered until a mysterious woman stumbles out of the Silence. Ten years after her mother abandoned their family, Lena and her father must flee their home for the town of Onwey they’re charged with keeping villagers from entering an ominous, bewitching forest called the Silence.

Wells (the Shatter the Sky duology) reinterprets “Sleeping Beauty,” centering light brown–skinned Lena, 17 and cursed since birth with the power to kill through a single touch.

Shatter the Sky by Rebecca Kim Wells