Thanks to Orbit & NetGalley for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is the final book in a trilogy, following Queen Talyien as she navigates the complexities of her world's politics as well as learning more about her deceased father's true plan for her.

Wow, wow, wow. What a stunning end to the series! I can't imagine how difficult it must've been to wrap everything up. With all the struggles Tali went through, how does one give her an ending that leaves the readers satisfied? Well, K.S. Villoso, a brilliant writer, found a way.

I actually thought this was more fast-paced than the first two books with how many emotional beats there were. It was really fun to read, honestly. All the characters are so fascinating, even the ones that are just jerkwads. (Looking @ you Yuebek) so they always keep it fresh and interesting. I also liked seeing more of Rai in this book, it was great to see him kind of leave his shell and be more honest with Tali.

I'm looking forward to re-reading this series a million times in the future! :)

Now that Queen Talyien is back, many memories of her father started to resurface. It spanned from being a loving, caring father to someone who Tali cannot imagine would have sold her out to a foreign prince. As she uncovered the extensiveness of Warlord Yeshin’s plans, she’s stuck with forging her own path and continuing down the one that her father has sent her out for.

Tali’s filled with flaws which made her so real. Her fear of being her father’s daughter, of being queen, of being a mother had suffocated her for ages. Tali’s growth is phenomenal. She’s such a complicated person who holds the title of a queen but cannot use it.

Talyien’s world is in shambles. Thanh needs to be found and his DNA checked, Jin-Sayeng’s internal politics is in disarray, magic that caused madness in dragons starts to affect people, and a vile prince adamant about marrying Tali. Everyone is vying for power, power, and more power. Moments of respite are few and far between. Violence and death and blood are in abundance.

For most of the book, Jin-Sayeng is in war. As she desperately finds her missing son, Tali hopes to rally people who still believed in her rule but all she got were betrayals and greed. She slaughtered people and seen others get slaughtered. Despite everything, Queen Talyien tries her very best. Her love for her people, her country, and her son is palpable.

The legacy of her father continues to weigh down on Talyien. Every warlord and every citizen has their own expectations of how Talyien should rule and what her next actions should be. Revelations upon revelations about Yeshin’s long-term schemes continued to stun Tali silent and render her helpless. Sins of the previous generations are now passed on to their children. Not only does Tali have to carry that burden, but the rest did too.

Feelings between Khine and Talyien are more drawn out and obvious in The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng. I’m so glad that they finally got that little small window of happiness before she went back to the violence. The only man who deserves everything is Khine who consistently supported Talyien.

While he loves her, Khine recognized the burden on her shoulders. Though he loves her, Khine understood that whatever they feel for one another cannot truly be acted upon. Talyien has her responsibilities as queen and he wouldn’t stop her from doing what needs to be done. His selflessness and awareness of the situation make Khine the best.

I came to terms with my feelings towards Rai. He isn’t a bad person but was often misguided in his opinions and swayed by his surroundings. The things that he put Tali through in The Wolf of Oren-Yaro and The Ikessar Falcon are still eye-roll-worthy and unforgivable but he has definitely become a better character. I liked that Tali and Rai had multiple conversations about their past and their son, Thanh.

I didn’t know what to expect from The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng except that I needed to be mentally prepared for war and death. I cried during the “Chronicles of the Bitch Queen” chapter and then continued to be teary-eyed until the very end. K.S. Villoso made me feel something for a dragon that I barely just met.

K.S. Villoso concluded the Chronicles of the Bitch Queen trilogy beautifully. For the amount of mess the characters are in, everybody got their own ending and every problem was wrapped up nicely. A skillful storyteller, K.S. Villoso managed to balance character developments and world-building. Tali got to confront the truth of her father’s actions, wrote her stories with her hands, and still had so much room for love in her heart. I’m in awe of this brilliant trilogy. What an epic journey.

I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING. I have to admit, I wasn't a big fan of The Wolf of Oren-Yaro. The second book was a good improvement in my opinion, so I was hoping that since this is the series conclusion, things will finally get more intense, action-packed and wrap-up beautifully. And I got that. Boy, did I.

Tali really grew on me in this one. She was sassy, bitchy (definitely deserving of her title as the bitch queen) and determined. It was thrilling and bewitching to witness how far she's come since book 1. Another character that I was most looking forward to reading again was Khine and I looooved every page that involved him. His relationship with Tali took in a very respectable and acceptable direction and I'll take it any day.

Overall a great finale! Highly recommended for AAPI month.

This is my most anticipated book of the year and it did not disappoint.


To be honest, I'm so anxious for this novel because how can Villoso tie all of its end so seamlessly in just 400+ pages?

Spoiler: She did and more!



One of the best finale books I read ever!

The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng is the third and final book in K.S. Villoso's epic fantasy trilogy, "Chronicles of the Bitch Queen." The Filipino-inspired epic fantasy trilogy, which began with "The Wolf of Oren-Yaro" and continued with "The Ikessar Falcon." It's been one of more interesting epic fantasy series I've read over the past few years, with at its center a heroine who is utterly a mess, screwed up by expectations of others, the machinations of her father, the acts of her arranged husband, and a world that is perhaps as harsh at times to its rulers as its peasants. The first volume, which I loved, dealt with themes of class, imperialism, sexism and double standards, but the second volume expanded the setting tremendously and instead seemingly focused upon the impossibility of doing the right thing when everything's against you, and the struggle against fates that everyone, from your father on down, seem to have set up for you. It was an interesting winding book that I didn't quite love as much as the first, with it perhaps being a bit too ambitious in how much it was trying to setup at once.

And for its part, The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng absolutely pays off all of the many many plot threads setup by its predecessor and in the process creates a really interesting conclusion to the trilogy. Its a really really dark book, for an already dark series, especially in the book's final act, as it follows our heroine, Talyien, as she struggles first to save her son and then to save her country from monsters, from magic, from a madman, and perhaps most of all, from the ambition of her father from beyond the grave. It's a story of a woman desperately trying to do the right thing while not having her life be defined by what others believe her fate to be, and of a woman who doesn't know if there's any possible love or happiness for her to feel on her own. And the result is a book that's damn hard to put down, even as I'm not 100% sure I loved where it wound up.

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape (not depicted on page, but it happens to a side character), Animal Cruelty, Torture, Suicide, and possibly more I'm missing. This gets really bad in the book's third act and honestly....it's excessive and kind of unnecessary and I wish the book hadn't gone there.

Spoilers for books 1 and 2 are inevitable below. Note that this book, like the 2nd book, contains a recap of book 2, so there's little need for a reread if you haven't read book 2 in a while.


------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Talyien of Oren-Yaro, Bitch Queen of Jin-Sayeng may finally be home, but she is absolutely not in control. Her son has been captured by a power hungry warlord and is out of her hands. Her people are alleging that her son is a bastard and the warlord in charge of Oren-Yaro's greatest forces is acting against her, keeping her imprisoned until a farce of a trial can be held over her infidelity. And of course the Ikessars, led by her husband Rayyel's prideful and powerful mother, are coming for her blood.

But none of that really matters, as Talyien knows full well - for the land of Jin-Sayeng is beset by chaos, with a magical rift in the sky turning the populace into monsters at an ever increasing rate. And to make it worse, Talyien's worst enemy, the mad and magically-powerful Prince Yuebek, is surely coming for her and her father's plans from beyond the grave to betroth her to him seem impossible to thwart.

With only a few friends left to her - her husband who has betrayed her so many times, a con-man for whom she has clear feelings but can't afford to let be harmed, and a mage once loyal to her husband and to a foreign god - Talyien has few choices left as to how to proceed....and her desperate need to save her country prevents her from simply running to freedom. But how can Talyien save her country if doing so only leads her down the dark path her father set forth for her, a path where Talyien has no power except through her blood, where the prospect of her own happiness seems impossible to even think about?
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Like its predecessor volumes, The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng is told from the first person perspective of Talyien (Tali), as if the volume was written at some point in the future. Unlike its predecessors, this book actually explains how that's possible, which was a nice touch, but really isn't that important. What is important is how it centers Tali, whose journey is what makes this trilogy, and this book, so special as it finally comes to its ultimate end.

When we first met Tali in book 1, she was a brash, angry young woman, who believed that she deserved to rule based upon her father's teachings and her warrior skills among her people....and who was still heartbroken by the husband Rayyel she had convinced herself to love before he fled from her. But in her time in that foreign city, she learned her how little her birth could mean and how her husband had fled due to her one moment of weakness (never mind his own) and that her father, far from proudly preparing her to rule in peace, had perhaps instead been preparing to sell her off to a monstrous foreign prince in order to obtain power. And that knowledge broke her of her haughtiness, leaving her with nothing but her need to get home to save her son from potential assassins.

But in book 2, Tali was forced to journey across her own country and to discover how the peace she thought her marriage had bought was itself a lie. The warlords that ruled her country, supposedly under her rule, were still sparring for power, the country was cursed by a magical rift despite their historic hatred of magic, dragons were going mad, and people were even turning into monsters....and so it seemed like the country was falling apart. And meanwhile, as Tali began to be convinced that she had to do something to save her land, it seemed like more and more of the warlords and her trusted allies were secretly acting on her father's behalf to manipulate her, and Tali began to believe she had to throw away any chance of happiness or of love in order to save everyone...if that was even possible.

With this finale, Tali begins seemingly crushed, with her in the power of those who would seemingly want to follow her father's plans of marrying her to the madman from abroad...just seemingly for the sake of power. Tali may still be a deadly warrior, but she finds that everywhere she turns there are only reveals and more secrets that were hidden from her, secrets which suggest her father was right to use her in this way, and that she has no value as a person instead of a tool. And the only persons seemingly there for her are the man she once thought she loved and Khine, the con-man she knows she could and might be falling for...except to do so can only result in his death. And so Tali spends so much of this book trying to find a way forward that won't get him killed, that won't result in her father being right, that might allow her to save her people without giving in to what others want for her.

It's a really tough plot and the answers are not always easy to take, as Villoso does largely suggest that it is pretty near impossible to become something different than what our fathers and others have planned for us, even if they're already dead. And Tali's struggle between her duty to her people, a duty installed by that father whose will she's fighting against, and her potential to have some individual joy and love is tremendously well done. Oh and I should add that the plot works here for the most part really well, managing to tie in all the disparate plot elements from the last book - the blood magic, the dragon with a human mind, the rift, her father's plans, Yuebek, etc. Even the side characters - most prominently Khine, but also a number of other lesser ones we barely knew of in the prior books - work really well here. It's a hell of an epic fantasy conclusion, even if it's got a pretty grim perspective on how it all can end.

The biggest problem with this book honestly lies in the trigger warning above - in the third act, Tali is faced once more head on with Prince Yuebek and his madness. And while Yuebek never gets his hands on Tali's body (oh thank god), Villoso gives him scenes of rape, animal cruelty, torture, and more....and the only purpose it serves in the narrative is to reinforce how mad and evil Yuebek is. But we knew that already! We've known that for two whole books!

I guess the justification is basically - Yuebek is meant to represent the imperialist neighbor begged for help, all the while knowing that to do so will likely devastate one's own country and culture, and so the schemers put in a massive amount of planning to try and limit his damage....but his madness and power-hungriness is beyond the scope of even the best of schemers to limit, resulting in rape death and destruction (again, that's the symbolism I'm guessing). But it's still just too much and unnecessary given how much we've already seen from Yuebek and I wish an editor and told Villoso to take it all out.

If not for that, I'd wholeheartedly recommend the trilogy, but that's a pretty big negative to get over. Readers who enjoyed the first two books will be able to get over it probably, but if you were looking just to start this trilogy, it might be a thing to worry about. It's worth getting through it....but it really shouldn't be a thing that a reader should have to get through, which is just argg so frustrating.

So, this is it. The End.

I’m obviously not going to spoil the end for you, so I’ll make this fairly brief: Talyien has gone through hell and back to try and save her nation from chaos, and the chaos has caught up with her and her companions. Now it’s time to use every shenanigan possible to avert disaster.

This book, like its predecessors was fantastically written, and left me with so many highlighted quotes that I had a very hard time choosing just the one for this review. Talyien has many thoughts about life in general, life as a queen, life as the daughter of a vicious warlord, and others. As we see this from her POV in the first person, we get a real good look into her mind. The POV does change once in this one, and the way (and time) it happens was a brilliant use of tense, in my opinion. We’ve seen the whole thing from Tali’s POV and suddenly it is not, for reasons (no, I’m not telling you the reasons but it’s probably not what you’re thinking).

This book broke my feels. But, not in any way that I didn’t ask for. I don’t cry for a lot of books, or media in general, but there were actual physical tears here. More than once, even. There were gasps, there were a couple out-loud exclamations that may, or may not have been in the middle of the night and may or may not have disturbed either a spouse or a dog. It was an intense read, but nonetheless a fantastic one that I will never forget.

All I’ve got to say about this book that won’t spoil any of the numerous twists, turns, ups, downs, and crazy revelations for you is: READ THE BOOK. THIS IS A BOOK AND YOU SHOULD READ IT – but, and this is very, very important: read the two before it first. 6/5 stars!~

It feels like just yesterday that I had finished The Ikessar Falcon and yet here I am (8 months later) fawning over book three. Just take a moment to admire that cover! Definitely the most gorgeous of the three, and I’ve adored them all.

Now back to the book. WOW! Amazing! Stunning! Magnificent! Brilliant! The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng, and Tali’s story, end with a bang and I don’t think I’ve ever been so satisfied with the ending of a series. Just a phenomenal story!

I admit, I was a little concerned with how Villoso was going to end this series. Ikessar Falcon ended with what seemed like a whole new world, the warlord and political factions of Jin-Sayeng just introduced. External threats in Yuebek lay on the horizon, and even Tali’s own family secrets had barely been explored. And to my awe, my heartbreak, and my amazement, Villoso manages to pull all those threads together into one magnificent conclusion. Everything just…falls into place. It all fits. Nothing felt like a stretch, there were no major plot holes, and all those little details from books one and two get brought back to play. Villoso seriously knows how to bring a story together and it really shows here.

The pacing of book 3 is similar to its predecessors. That is to say, pretty slow. The Bitch Queen trilogy is still first and foremost, the story of Queen Talyien. And with it, all her internal musings, worries, and daddy issues. Which she has a lot of. Through this series, I think I’ve finally decided that being in Tali’s head is one of the more discomforting things I’ve read, largely due to how relatable I find many of her internal monologues. Through Tali, Villoso directly addresses themes of racism, colonialism, and sexism through the lenses of one who ought of have power, but often finds herself powerless within her own realm. The antagonisms Tali faces are ones that mirror antagonisms faced by marginalized groups today (though perhaps sans the dragons and hot sidekicks), and I really enjoyed how Villoso uses such a blunt character like Tali to directly challenge those themes.

As always, I must give a quick shoutout to my personal favorite of this series, Rayyel Ikessar. Even if you are even more of a two-faced bastard than I initially thought, and even an entire Discord chat gives me strange looks every time I bring up his name, the nerdy scholarly types hold a special place in my heart. Especially in book three, Rayyel’s calm, thoughtful demeanor serves as both foil to Tali’s brasher, stab-first-ask-later behavior, and somehow also as the deadpan comic relief. Rayyel fans will be very happy with where Rayyel ends up at the end of book 3.

Perhaps my biggest fear going in was how this series was going to end. We begin this journey with Tali as a bull-headed queen to a relatively backwater country, on a journey to hunt down her estranged husband. Tali herself suggests that she may not have been the best queen and the second half of Ikessar really solidified to me that ‘dear lord Tali should not be allowed on that throne’. But with forced political marriages looming, a good look at the less-than-desirable alternatives, and Tali’s own pull of filial piety to honor her father’s desire to see her unite Jin-Sayeng, I really couldn’t see a way out. Without giving spoilers, I will simply say I’m immensely happy with the ending of this series and Tali’s own fate.

Overall, I rate this book a 4.5/5. A stunning conclusion to the Bitch Queen trilogy that that so cleanly wraps up every plot thread and gives us an extremely satisfying conclusion. I’ve loved reading Tali’s growth as a character through this two-year journey and I’m certain fans of this series will absolutely adore this installment!

This was my favourite instalment of the trilogy. The writing has definitely improved a lot since the first one (where it was already good) but I really felt like it flourished in this novel. Like the first two books, the plot is full of twists and turns and it really is a roller coaster. I especially liked the direction Tali's character took in 'The Dragon of Jin-Saying'. She's a great protagonist and her development really hit its peak, combining her strength, perseverance and resilience with a new, softer side of her. Excited for everyone to read this!

Just amazing. I can't think of a better way to conclude this trilogy! The characters development and the overall plot fall out perfectly. The writing continue to improve from book to book and this is one name in the fantasy world that I will, and you should, keep a close eye on! I highly recommend it, of course start with the first book of the trilogy!!