House of Dragons by Jessica Cluess | ARC Review

Here There Be Five Dragons

I would like to think it’s impossible to dislike a book with dragons and I’ve yet to be disappointed by one, so I’m happy to add House of Dragons not only to my “Read” list but “Recommended” as well!

I adored Cluess’ Kingdom on Fire series and was so excited to hear that she had a new fantasy with DRAGONS releasing. This YA fantasy features five characters, each with their own point-of-view chapters spread throughout the book. I have a love/hate relationship with multiple perspectives. There’s always (at least) one character I like and want more of, and at least one I’m annoyed or bored with. The rest tend to fall somewhere in between.

In this case, I found Emilia’s character and her internal struggle the most interesting, the one I wanted to follow the longest. She’s been taught that her power is wrong. Evil. And it’s not something she can control either. Watching her grow and shift her view of herself and her power was my favorite of the character arcs.

I liked Lucian and Vespir’s perspectives as well, but always felt a bit distanced from them. Lucian’s scenes often centered around his past as a solider or Emilia, and started becoming a bit one-note in that regard by the end, but still enjoyable. Vespir offered a different perspective than the others and I found it refreshing, and her romance with the noble daughter of the family she had served was the sweetest. But I didn’t get as strong a sense of her goals and so didn’t make that connection.

Then there’s Ajax and Hyperia. The former is the bastard son and one of many, and he makes a lot of bad decisions. The one thing I loved about his scenes were his obvious love of his dragon (and there’s a scene near the end with said dragon that had me cackling). I just wasn’t as interested in him as a character. Same with Hyperia. Each time I thought she had a bit more depth it was back to the same old thing. Rather than grow as a character, I felt like she remained steady, if not regressing, by the end until she’s forced through a huge change.

All that said, I didn’t hate any of the character perspectives (which has happened for me before) and actually look forward to another book that hopefully features the same individuals. Some of that is because of the cliffhanger ending which was set up quite nicely throughout, and some of it is the characters themselves.

As to the story, this is a competition. Each dragon rider is fighting to be chosen as emperor or empress, called forth by the Great Dragon to compete in a series of challenges. I was all there for the fantastical challenges. And the dragons. The world itself wasn’t terribly special as far as fantasy goes but I liked the glimpses of the magic system we got (beyond the dragons themselves) and hope more of that is explored in the next book.

I will say this book doesn’t pull its punches when it comes to violence and abuse. There are a few fairly graphic scenes in terms of gore and torture, whether described or visually depicted. And at times the story gets a bit darker. This might not appeal to all readers. I think it only added to the story as a whole, but something to be aware of.

Despite its size, House of Dragons moves quickly. The shifting of character PoVs combined with a fairly action-heavy plot made it a quick page-turner when I was reading. I like Cluess’ writing style, I did in her last series too, but something about this book in particular left me putting it down fairly often. I would read a few chapters, then find something else to do. And thinking back, after I finished, while I had favored some characters over others while reading, I still felt distanced from all of them. It wasn’t a book I was up reading into the early hours of the night. A great first book in a series, but missing that extra something that hooked me from start to finish.

All that said, I would absolutely recommend House of Dragons to fantasy fans, especially any looking for books with a competition or race, and/or multiple points-of-view. I can see this book appealing to a wide variety of readers, and it’s definitely worth checking out!