SPELLCAST

A cursed woman is saved by the dragon she fears.

As a teenager, Arden suddenly becomes invisible. After running away in a fit of anger, she wishes she could disappear, and discovers when she returns home that she has done just that. Ten lonely years pass in this way, bringing tragedy after tragedy, while Arden stays close to the friends and family who can’t see her, and tries to find and confront the witch who cursed her. But her mundane, unseen existence is upended when she comes back from a walk to find that her entire village has been razed by dragons, and then confronts the four she finds amid the ashes. These dragons claim that her town’s destruction was not their doing, and insist on taking her back to their den so she can’t reveal their secret. It’s here that Arden starts to feel attraction for the pack’s alpha, Tage, even as she dreams of running away from them to finally reverse the curse she lives under. But even though it’s clear that Tage is just as attracted to Arden, their situation becomes more complicated than either could have imagined when they first met. The third volume in Jordan’s Fire in the Sky series is, unfortunately, disappointing in comparison to her other books, due to overwrought prose and an uneven plot. The first third of the book is entirely focused on Arden’s miserable solitude, and Tage doesn’t even appear until Page 125; from there, the story progresses unevenly, with most of the action saved for the final chapters. Fans who remember Jordan’s Firelight series fondly may enjoy the story anyway, thanks to Arden’s interesting character arc and her steamy insta-chemistry with Tage, but they’ll need to make it halfway through the book to get there.

A dragon-centered romantasy that doesn’t take off until it’s too late.