Julie Kagawa imagines a world in which dragons living in Talon can take human form and infiltrate modern society in this suspenseful and romantic adventure, the launch to a new series.
Twins Ember and Dante, age 16, leave Talon for the first time, to assimilate as humans in a California beach community--only to have their training cut short by reports of rogue dragons. Instead, they are sent off each day separately for individual training. Two dragon slayers from the elite order of St. George (think Navy SEALs) also show up, searching for a female sleeper dragon. Riley, one of the rogue dragons, introduces himself to Ember and implies that there's more to Talon than she knows. Garret, a soldier of St. George hoping to hone in on the sleeper dragon, endears himself to a group of female teens--one of whom is Ember.
Kagawa builds tensions within the Ember-Riley-Garret triangle and adds a level of urgency with Dante's efforts to keep the twins together. As romance blooms between Garret and Ember, each realizes the dangers such an alliance introduces into their respective missions. Meanwhile, Riley's "nest" cells of rogue dragons begin to die out, and he wonders if Talon or St. George is responsible. Kagawa's description of Ember's fight not to shift into dragon form aptly describes her conflicting feelings of carrying out her deception: "my human body suddenly had felt very tight and confined." The larger theme of decoding male-female (St. George-dragon) miscues will hit universal notes of recognition for readers. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness