Jen Castleberry

One from a background of privilege, one poorest of the poor, two young people set out to make their fortunes slaying a Fire Scale.

Every fifteen years, the great flame-scaled dragons emerge for a brief time to mate and eat, before sealing themselves back into their lairs among the Summer Alps. During the last Emerging, Cayda’s home of Ithil, a city of scholars, was utterly destroyed. After that time, Cayda’s father dressed her as a male, calling her Cody, and training her to slay a Fire Scale. Slaying the beast will bring a fortune to raise Cody’s family up, removing her sisters from working in the brothels. An attack in the forest by a Night Beast that leaves her father near death prompts Cody to set out for Yurka, and her sister Hayden further afield in hopes of making money to pay a doctor.

Wolfegang Hande is a favoured companion of Crown Prince Fares, and the Duchess Zoe. Disillusioned with his place in life, Wolfe decides to take his life in his own hands and become a Champion in this Emerging. Crown Prince Fares travels with Wolfe to Yurka, one of the Lair Towns. Along the way they meet up with Cody, and her mysterious companion, Penn. As Night Beast attacks begin happening in daylight, in the heart of towns, the Emerging takes on far more urgency than even Cody or Wolfe know.

I loved Cody and her sisters. I felt for Cody and her struggle between the identity her father has given her as a male, and her own feminine nature. But only a !ale can register as a Champion, and keep their Fire Scale prize. Cody’s ability with animals shows she has a good heart. The scene with her and the Fire Scale was so touching. Despite the poverty, and the need for rough occupation, Cody, Hayden, and Emilia keep their gentle caring. Hayden helps strangers on the road without a second thought. Cody has empathy that allows her to gentle animals, and she is fiercely protective.

I really rather loathed Zoe, and to a lesser extent Fares, at first. Both caused Wolfe to second-guess himself, and neither seemed to be true friends. Zoe was just horrible in her behaviour. She was calculatingly cruel. Fares was more oblivious than anything. As the story went on, however, I came to dislike Wolfe just as much. Away from the privileged life, his behaviours got worse and worse.
Fares proved to have a certain carpe diem attitude to be admired. Nothing at all seems to faze him. Penn, too, though Penn seems more Zen natured. I love how Fares grows through the story, and matures.

This had the feel of an old fairy tale, and the writing made me think of Le Guin’s Earthsea and Dragon’s Winter Elizabeth A Lynn. Penn certainly added to that feel, as did the choice Wolfe must make. I do think that the use of action beats to break dialogue, and the use of other dialogue tags besides 'says’ would improve the writing. 'Says’ was used even when the dialogue was a question. I found this annoying at first, but the story itself was so engaging that I soon put it out of mind.

***This book was reviewed via Silver Dagger Blog Tours… (plus d'informations)

So Cargo is the first in a series, and it's definitely written that way. A lot of books start off as stand alones and then because they are popular, they end up as a series, but this is written as just the beginning. I almost feel like it's a pre-quel because there are just so many unanswered questions and a lot of open plot holes (for example, there is a lot of talk of aliens/ETs/are they human? But that's never explained in any detail and we never meet anyone who isn't human as far as we know. So that drove me crazy because why mention them at all?)

Cassidy, our main character, I did not like at all. I read a lot of dystopian books so I'm used to the same dystopian tropes, and this one had most of them, but at least the main character usually grows on me if I don't like her at first. I never really liked Cassidy at all. Even though she's living in a tough world, because she's so sheltered, she's extremely spoiled (in my opinion) which makes her really immature. She whines throughout a third of the book how she misses the nuns and the world she's living behind. I'm sure any of us in that situation (being dragged/stolen from everything we know) would whine constantly about our family and homes left behind, too, but in a short novella, the constant "I miss my friends" got really old.

The book does move at a good pace, and there are certainly things that happened that make me wonder what else is going to happen. I didn't really like where the book ended, and because it's a novella, it really left me wanting more. I've been reading a lot of "chunksters" lately so this just felt like a short story in comparison - refreshing, really, the shorter pace, but still felt really short.

--
received copy from author in exchange for my review… (plus d'informations)