Daughter of the Serpentine by E. E. Knight

As a young dragoneer moves through the ranks of the prestigious Serpentine Academy, her challenges grow greater and her time grows short to draw out a series of deadly threats, in this thrilling coming-of-age fantasy novel.

Sixteen-year-old Ileth is now an Apprentice Dragoneer, with all of the benefits and pitfalls that her elevation in rank entails. But her advancement becomes less certain after a she’s attacked by an unknown enemy, and Ileth begins to suspect that someone deadly may be hiding within the walls of the academy.

Outside of the walls there is a different challenge. The Rari Pirates are strangling the Vale Republic. What they lack in dragon firepower, they make up for in the brutality of their ever-expanding raids, making hostages or slaves of the Republic’s citizens. Surrounded by enemies, Ileth will need to learn what kind of dragoneer she wants to be. And as she makes decisions about her future, Ileth will have the chance to uncover the secrets of her past. Both will irrevocably change the course of her life.

Going into this book I somehow didn’t realize that this was the second book in a series or that E. E. Knight was the author of the Way of the Wolf, which is the first science fiction book I can remember reading and easily one of my favorites. So the first thing I did was buy Way of the Wolf so I could experience the joy of rereading it for the first time in almost 20 years and to buy the first book in the Dragoneer Academy series so that I wasn’t too confused when I read this book. Daughter of the Serpentine was a fantastic book with an amazing cast of characters and a great story that I managed to read in a single sitting because I kept telling myself that I would read just one more chapter. 

I don’t think it would surprise anyone that knows me to hear me say that I love pretty much any book that features Dragons in it, whether they’re sentient being or just wild animals of some sort. So one of the things that I loved about Daughter of the Serpentine and the Dragoneer Academy series as a whole is that it gave us both of those things in a way. We get dragons who are wise and knowledgeable as well as dragons who seem little more than wild animals with no sentience or sapience to speak of. I don’t think it’s often that you see both of these types of dragons in one book and I loved that we do with this one.

One of the other things that I really enjoyed about this book was Ileth and the rest of the characters. I often struggle to get into a book if it doesn’t have characters that I find engaging or can empathize with and I’m lucky that I could do both of those things with a lot of the characters in this book. I found Ileth to be a wonderfully realistic character with understandable goals and desires who I loved reading about in both this book and the previous book in the series. 

I don’t want to spoil the series with just what the story is about as I think the synopsis they provide for the book is more than enough. I will say that the story was great and I can’t wait to find out what happens to Ileth, her friends, and all the dragons in the next book whenever it comes out. Things are really starting to get interesting!

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.