Dragon Soul is the third book in the series by the writing team of Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett, the first two being Havemercy and Shadow Magic. In the internal timeline of the story, Dragon Soul falls in between the first two books and brings back two of the most favored characters from the first book, Rook and Thom. We also get two new characters, the Volstov spy Malahi and the Ke Han trash picker Madoki. All four characters are being drawn together by a similar goal–discovering the fate of the pieces of broken dragons that had not been gathered up and sent back to Volstov city after the war. Throughout the book, as we read each point of view in turn, we realize that they are all going to end up in the same place eventually, as they are all tracking the same clues. However, we do not see them get together until the very end of the book. Until then they are all on independent quests for very different reasons.
Rook, left at odd ends after the end of the war has now found a purpose. He has to find out how pieces of those dragons are being sold, when they should all be locked up in the capital to ensure that the other nations won’t try to recreate them. Thom, desperate to hold on to the brother he thought he had lost, will do anything to stay with Rook. Modoki, thrust into international intrigue against her will, has no choice but to follow the path set for her by the mad wizard. Malahi is a spy, one of the best at what she does, and she sets out at the behest of the Esar. All four will learn about themselves on their journeys.
The final scenes where all four protagonists have converged on one spot tended to get a little confusing, with the constant switching of perspective in order to describe what was happening to each character at the same time. There were several things that I wished that the authors had gone more in depth with: the magician Sarah Fleet’s history, the truth behind Malahi’s odd abilities, what was the purpose for Madoki’s involvement, and other bits that could have fleshed out the story a bit.
There were a few places where the story dragged on, but these were tolerably short. While the two new characters are somewhat interesting, they don’t have a patch on the fun of following Rook and Thom, and they provided a different perspective that gave the story some depth. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t have the fun and adventure and interesting relationships we enjoyed in the first book. It was still enjoyable and worth the read if you liked the first one, but I felt it was the poorest of the three books so far. Overall, though, it was a good read, and should there be more to the story, I’ll be looking out for it.
