I’ve began to read the sequel to Zahara’s gift fast after the fist book – and while the second book is double in length, it doesn’t relent from its pace.

The second book starts where the first ended – just after the battle.

As I said in the first book, this series took a slightly different approach to the dragonrider story, by having the rider and the dragon bond only at the end of the first book – in the heat of battle, pretty much.

And that battle had left questions to answer – the elves were waylaid for whatever reason and lost the two riders accompanying them – in a move the enemy shouldn’t have known about.

Anders then has a vision of one of the lost riders – and his small team sets out to search for them, with a less-than-satisfactory but expected result.

At this point, the situation looks bad and the group splits: the Rollo clans sailing home along with Anders’ cousins and the friends he found while he heads towards the elven land with Ivan and Maija – to get through the typical training. This part of the plot will eventually lead to investigating the suspected betrayal – as well as Merglan’s past.

On the other hand, Merglan tightens his grasp on the human lands, which bears dangers and challenges to the other group (and I can’t share more on this without spoilers).

The second half of the book the mostly follows the hastily-woven plan of action for the main group, so the other groups aren’t really seen until the end – and I hope they’ll have more screen time in the third book.

As for the final battle, that one has some twists, though they haven’t felt as major as the mid-book ones.

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Read date: 15.-18.8.2020
Published: 16.4.2019
Goodreads/Amazon rating: 4,06 / 4,6
My rating: 90% (same as book one)
Length: 524 pages (Kindle edition)
My highlights

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As this book is twice the length of the first one, I did not get this read in one day, but half-week read is a decent result for a 500-page book in my case. Onwards to the third book I go.