Queen of Dragons by Shana Abe

This is the third of Abe’s Drakon books, and there’s at least one more after it. The first book in the series is pretty clearly the beginning of a series, but is pretty standalone, while the second sets the stage for the meta-arc, which kicks off here.

The drakon (people descended from dragons, which gives them certain abilities, including, for a few, the ability to become a dragon) of Darkfirth have lived in isolation in England for centuries, just another town that most have never been to. For years, their current Alpha, Kimber, has been corresponding with Maricara, princess of a clan of drakon in Transylvania that they never knew existed until she began the correspondence. Maticara’s younger brother is officially the head of their clan, but everyone knows it’s really Maricara who’s in charge. When two drakon are killed, Maricara easily identifies them as spies of Kimber’s, and quickly realizes that there’s a serial killer targeting drakon, and that the killer has most likely learned about Darkfirth, so she decides to go to England to warn them, and to finally meet Kimber face-to-face.

Kimber has also been wanting to meet Maricara for years, and his clan has been planning to eventually invade and combine the two clans for just as long. Kimber and Maricara are also both Alphas, and so it’s automatically expected that they should marry. I can understand the biological imperative involved in mating your most powerful members, especially when that means your clan has someone who can become a flying, armored, 30-foot-long creature that breathes fire. Useful to have around. Unfortunately, Kimber, and the rest of Darkfirth, doesn’t really bother to ask, and just assumes. Similarly, no one ever thinks to actually go to Transylvania to talk to Maricara and her brother about combining forces and forging treaties. The men who rule Darkfirth are pretty much privileged losers.

Shana Abe, IMO, writes some of the best heroines in the genre (and has pretty interesting plots), and Maricara is no exception. She’s confident efficient, and smarter, cleverer, and more skilled than anyone else in the book, and in a believable way. Unfortunately, Abe still likes to pair her heroines with controlling alpha males, and while Kimber is far from the worst (that would be his father) he’s still frustrating. After Dream Thief I had hoped that Abe was getting past that, but I guess not. Though, really, he isn’t nearly as bad as some others. There’d be hope for him if he didn’t have abandonment issues and a dozen men pressuring him to be an alpha jerk. Thankfully, the next book appears to be about his brother, Rhys, and the girl Rhys had a crush on when hormones arrived (Abe loves her unrequited childhood crushes, and so do I), and Rhys didn’t seem to be very alpha here.

I hope that, after the last book in the series, Abe returns to medievals, as I think her plots and characters work better in that setting.

Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn

I read the first book in this series sometime last year, and while I remembered the plot and that I enjoyed it, I didn’t remember many of the details when I started this. I didn’t really need them, as the pertinent information is that the main character, Julia Gray’s, husband died recently, and she worked with Nicholas Brisbane, the enquiry agent investigating his death, only to have him cut off disappear on her just when things were getting good.

After being widowed, having people try to kill her, and then getting dumped, Julia ended up spending six months in Italy with two of her brothers. One acquired a wife, and Julia acquires a young admirer, Alessandro, who she isn’t quite sure what to do with. Summoned home for Christmas by their father, Julia is surprised to find Brisbane there, and with a fiancée. Various other relatives are there as well, along with several other guests.

There’s a murder, one which a relative of Julia’s takes credit for, as well as a theft, but the main focus is actually on Julia’s family and, to a lesser degree her relationship with Brisbane. The extra parties in the romantic plotlines are dealt with far better than I had expected, and all sorts of family secrets (some with dubious veracity) come out of the woodwork. Julia is more assertive that I remember her being in Silent in the Grave (not, mind you, that anyone is going to be at the top of their game when the book effectively begins with finding a spouse’s corpse) and there were a couple times I wanted to set the book down and clap at her reactions to Brisbane’s justifications (or lack of such) or when he and her father attempted to keep her out of the loop. The relationship between Julia and Brisbane is also proceeding pretty well, though I’m worried that it will end up being dragged out. I don’t mind that she pursues him despite his attempts to put her off because it’s portrayed as something that she wants, as opposed to something she needs or is incomplete without, and because she puts up with very little from him, and is just as interested in figuring out what’s up with him out of pure curiosity as she is interested in him romantically.

A very enjoyable book, though I think I still prefer Tasha Alexander’s books that are along a similar vein.