There's something about the flow of words in this political fantasy that took me a while to adjust to. A little too stream-of-consciousness on occasion, and it's confusing that some of the names are capitalized and some are not... but that's likely a feature of the advanced reader's copy.

On the whole though, I found it highly engrossing, refreshingly intelligent and very enjoyable. I particularly like that it's a stand-alone book -- there's space for more stories in that world, or even for a continuation, but this story is finished. I also love the romance, and how loving Tam and Corin are. It's a joyful thing.

Advance copy provided by Edelwiess ( )

I picked this up expecting an epic high fantasy tale. The description was promising and I originally found it on a list of anticipated fantasy books releasing this year. Perhaps my mistake was allowing those facts to create some preconceptions about this book.

Unfortunately, this one didn't really deliver. I felt like the world-building was a bit incomplete. There were things that didn't really connect and I found it difficult to become immersed in what should have been a fascinating world. The major relationships seemed rushed (and in some ways a bit too convenient) which made it difficult to really hold onto the plot in any significant way.

I wanted to like this book but I reached the end and just shrugged. ( )

http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2014/03/moth-and-spark/

Prince Corin has been chosen. He doesn’t remember, but the dragons have chosen him to free them, until he is ready however he will not remember that fact. All he knows is that something happened, and his memory is acting up. Upon his return to Caithen he also learns that war may be coming. Actually, war is pretty certain to come, and there is political intrigue and murder to uncover and investigate. But there is also a girl.

The girl is Tam, a doctor’s daughter who has come to court out of curiosity. She has no real interest in romance or marriage, not yet, but she wants to see what is going on. But when the prince passes her he immediately catches her attention. She doesn’t know it, but she has also captured his.

When I started reading this book I was straight away put off because the formatting on my kindle edition was a little messed up. Loads of sentences started with no capital letter, and every now and then there would be a couple of sentences in all caps, for no reason I could see. But it was a free book1 and it had dragons so I figured I’d stick with it for at least a chapter and see what happened.

Pretty soon I was hooked.

Leonard is great at writing characters. Both Corin and Tam get to tell us their stories, not first person narration but there is no doubt as to who’s POV chapter we are in at any time.

If you’re a fantasy purist then I’m not sure you’ll be totally happy with Moth and Spark, I know I certainly wasn’t expecting quite as much romance as there was. The romance drives the story in many ways, as well as being what a lot of the story is actually about. Luckily I have read many a romance and enjoy them when they are as well written and captivating as this one.

OF course, with the romance and the relationship between Corin and Tam taking centre-stage there is less space for the action and the dragons. I’ll be honest I could have done with a bit more dragon, because the hints here were of really interesting dragons, they had been enslaved in the service of the Empire, and are utterly inhuman, but I never really got a clear idea of them. They are right there on stage yet feel a little hidden, which is a pity.

But even if you don’t usually read romance I wouldn’t turn my nose up at this one. It is very well written, you might find your self surprised by how captivating it is. ( )

After finishing Moth and Spark and looking back at the whole thing, I think its huge, overarching issue was that it didn't know what kind of book it was trying to be. Had the author focused on any one of the story's aspects individually, I think my rating would have been at least one star higher. As it was, it tried to do everything and ended up not being very good at any of it.

The basic plot is more or less completely explained on the summary flap; Corin is a prince who was chosen by dragons when he was young and charged with freeing them from an evil king. The knowledge then becomes hidden in his subconscious, and only when the tides of war shift and Corin meets a fiery commoner woman named Tam with powers of her own does he begin to remember the dragons.

This summary of the plot, however, is both everything that the story is and a bit misleading at the same time. First, do not come into this book expecting a dragon story, or if you are a huge fan of dragon stories (like I am). Despite the summary hinting at their active interaction with the characters, the dragons in Moth and Spark exist almost completely as plot devices, and with the same on-page involvement as unusually psychic animals. They have a vaguely sketched history and powers, but everything about their habits, culture, mannerisms, and even relationship with their riders is threadbare thin. Honestly I'm not even sure why an author would bother including dragons as a major feature in a book at all if they were hardly addressed beyond being ancient, untouchable beings with a completely amoral agenda.

The book also tried to be a romance and a political intrigue type story as well. I did, for the most part, enjoy Corin and Tam's relationship, despite its insta-love; they had decent chemistry and some nice exchanges. Tam was definitely my favorite character. But their courting and negotiation of their powers and duties took up a very large chunk of the book, leaving only about the last fourth to the actual addressing and resolution of the plot. That unfortunate pacing made nearly everything toward the end of the book feel rushed, anticlimactic, and inadequately explained. The political intrigue has a lot of hanging threads that go nowhere; concepts and countries are introduced to move the plot along but then are wrapped up too neatly, and are never explored beyond their names and one or two shallow characteristics. It made it very difficult to care about the outcomes, or anyone involved in them.

Woven in among that are tiny little complaints, the kind of things that just bother you a little as you read. The writing is choppy and oddly edited at some points, and it doesn't do very well at communicating emotion or personality. Some ideas have a lot of potential (the wizard valley, the dragons' history, the mad king) but are poorly introduced and fleshed out, which always makes me genuinely sad.

The book wasn't unenjoyable, and in fact there's some places where the writing is very pretty (I especially liked the visions and mythical-type stuff) and some interesting concepts are touched on. I think it just tried to do too much to begin with, and then got indecisive about where it was going. If it was the first book in a series this would be more understandable, but as a stand alone novel it just didn't do any of its ideas or characters full justice. ( )

I thought this was a light-hearted fantasy tale, going by the blurb on the back.

Not so. It is a steamy bodice-ripper romance novel with some dragons thrown in for local colour.

Other reviews have pegged Tam as a too-perfect heroine, and yes, that is absolutely true; and her love interest is much too perfect as well. That said, if you can accept the improbable love story, the making out, and the flawless characters, the story itself is pretty good. It's well written; the inner lives of the characters is believable; the royal family conducts itself more like executives than royalty, but that's ok. The dialogue was believable, if the characters were not. It's an entertaining way to pass a few hours, but it's not high literature, even for epic fantasy. ( )