Lawless

What I liked best about this story was its sense of fun. It did get serious in places, but it had a lot of great lighter moments. It never became dreary. I've been trying to decide how I would describe this book. I think I would call it a dragon-shifter adventure/mystery set in a steampunk universe. There is almost a dystopian flavor about the human and dragon governments as well, which I liked.

World-building was pretty good, though I feel that it took a little more work than it should have to get my bearings in the beginning. I thought the use of book-inspired curse-style words helped with the world-building quite a bit. The relationships between the three main characters were well done. Kesia was a likeable character. She was an interesting mix of strength and vulnerability. Zephryn was strong and stoic, but very emotionally supportive. Don't see that every day. And Shance was a little softer and more fun, which was great. The dragons could have just as easily been aliens, they were so unused to human...anything. Watching them explore and learn with Shance's help was a big part of the story.

There were only a few things that might have made the story a little better to me. The ending felt rather bland after such a good story. Also, the focus shifted away from the action a few times right when things were getting exciting. Lastly, this book was mentioned by another author whose work I enjoy, which is why I immediately requested it when I saw it on NetGalley. I'm very glad that I did, because if I had only based my choice on the cover, I probably would have missed it. The cover is colorful, it just felt a little flat to me. Maybe it has to do with the pose, or the eyes. I'm sure I'm in the minority there, however.

All in all, this was a lot of fun and a really great book to start a series. I expect it would be about a PG-13 as a film. There is limited sexual content, but it is not described in detail. The violence and foul language were limited as well. I really did enjoy this book and look forward to continuing the series.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first started this book. I'm generally a huge fan of anything involving dragons, but I didn't know how it would play out with the shape shifting element. And I'm happy to say that, overall, I think it worked out really great! I had a lot of fun reading this book.

Fair warning: there was a little love triangle going on. Normally, love triangles are a great way to ruin a book for me. But in this case, it didn't bother me too much. I think one of the reasons I was less annoyed with this particular triangle is that not a lot of time is spent focusing on it. And the overall story was so interesting that I was able to overlook it in this case.

I loved the differences between the two cultures. Everything from the cultural norms, to the words they use is unique to each culture. It made the characters and the world they inhabited so much more real and dynamic. I would have liked to learn a little more about the history of the world and the two cultures, but the stuff that was there was really great!

There were a few plot holes and spots where I think things could have been explained better. But overall, I enjoyed this book so much. It's definitely worth a read. And I'm interested to see where the story goes from here!