4.25/5 Stars
Blood Warrior: Dragon King by Lindsey Piper is the second full book in the Dragon King Series. It deals with the adventures of Tallis of clan Pendray, and Kayva of clan Indranan.
Oh, you haven’t read the Dragon King novels? Then let me back up a step or two. The Dragon King paranormal novels center around five clans of the dragon king. The dragon kings are descendants of the Great Dragon. No, they aren’t actually dragons, but they are supernatural beings with extraordinary powers. There are five clans, Pendray, Tigony, Sath, Indranan, and Garnis and each have their own unique abilities. These beings look human and can blend and exist within our human society. Also each clans lineage and history have become part of worlds mythos. The clans are broken up by regions and the powers they posses.
Tigony, of the Mediterranean region, would be the Greek gods and goddess and the Roman and Greek mythos that surrounds that region of the world. The Tigony control electricity, i.e. Zeus’s lighting bolts.
The Indranan clan centered in the Asian Pacific, and gave rise to the mythos of that region. The Indranan control the mind, and they are telepathic, but they have a violent past. Each Indrana is born a twin and they believe that in order to get their full dragon gift of telepathy they must kill their twin. So as soon as they come into their power usually during adolescence, they hide from each other.
The Sath is the clan most closely associated with the Middle East and would have influenced that region’s religion and mythos. The Sath, dragon gift is mimicry, they are seen as thieves by other clans.
The Pendray are the clan that influenced the Norse, and Celtic myths of Valhalla, and the Ulster traditions of myths. The Pendray are known for their fighting ability, the mythos of the berserker is most closely related to them. They are seen are little more than animals.
The last Clan is Garnis they are so few in number that they are known as the lost, not much is remembered about them. These are the five clans of the Dragon King that have guided and developed civilizations, up until the present. But now they are a people on the brink of extinction because they can no longer bear children.
The second book Blood Warrior, starts shortly after the events of the first book Caged Warrior which set the premise of the Dragon King series and the fringe world that they inhabit. Some dragon kings choose to live among humans, but most prefer to live within the confines of their own communities. Tallis, the main male character in book two, was first introduced in book Caged Warrior. He has been on a 20 year quest for the ‘Sun’, a goddess who has been guiding him through his dreams to influence dragon society by killing certain dragon kings in order to make the world a better place for their people.
But,Tallis has become disillusioned with the goddess and has gone out into the world to seek her out for retribution. The book starts out with Tallis finding the ‘Sun’ goddess in India, high in the Himalayas’. Tallis eventually finds the ‘Sun’ goddess and her name is Kavya, but not everything is as it seems. Can you even trust yourself when dealing with a telepathic society.
What I liked about this book. I liked the way the two main characters have to learn to communicate with each other, as Kavya is used to dealing with Indrana people who use their minds to communicate. Verbal communication isn’t her strong suit and neither is using her body to show emotion or feeling. She isn’t used to having to read body language and pick up on the physical cues of another human being. She is confounded by Tallis, because she cannot read him. She can read anybody else’s mind, but to her, Tallis is a blank slate. Tallis has also lived in human society for the last twenty years and is more animated with facial expressions than most dragon kings. Tallis is tormented by what he has done by the guiding of the ‘Sun’, he thought he was working for the greater good of dragon kind. The realization that he had sacrificed twenty years and countless lives for nothing, has pushed him to the brink of madness. The conviction that Tallis has been living with has fallen like a house of cards, and he needs to confront the source of his manipulation.
Blood Warrior is a heart pounding adventure from the very beginning. The paranormal world that Piper writes is fresh and so multi-layered that stories arcs and characters will be plentiful. The concept that each clan has a special gift and are prejudiced against one another because of preconceived notions is something that will be exciting to explore. How they will survive extinction because conception has stopped, is question that is a series arc.
Book #3 Hunted Warrior is our in 2014, and the preview of it had me on the edge of my reading seat. Piper has written a unique and riveting series, and I can’t wait to read more of her series.