Emberclaw by L.R. Lam
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Summary from Netgalley:
The final book in a lush and inventive fantasy duology with a slowburn romance, in which long-banished dragons, revered as gods, return to the mortal realm—a perfect read for your next book club!
Arcady faces their greatest heist yet: posing as a noble student at the arcane University of Vatra. When the University announces the reinstatement of archaic trials of magic, the ever-penniless Arcady seizes the chance. If they win, they not only prove their worth, but the scholarship will give them more time to unlock secrets and reveal, once and for all, that their grandsire was not the Plaguebringer. Yet grief still leaves Arcady broken, and when they close their eyes, they dream of a certain dragon.
Everen, once the hope of dragons, is now hated by his kind. When he is eventually released from his prison, the Queen is clear: while he may help protect the island from wraith attacks, he is no longer a prince of the realm. As he struggles to find his place in Vere Celene, visions of the past, the future, and tantalizing glimpses of Arcady still haunt him. If he steers the wrong path through fate’s storm, he may never be able to create a future where both humans and dragons live in harmony.
Arcady soon realizes that to survive the rising threats from both their old life and their new one, they must use every trick at their disposal—even magic stolen from a dragon they thought dead. And as time runs out before an ancient danger awakens, Everen must fight his way back to Arcady, earn their forgiveness, and learn what it truly means to be an Emberclaw.
ARC provided by DAW via Netgalley for an honest review.
Confession:
This is going to be a hard review to write, because while I liked the story and the character development, there just seemed to be something missing from this one that kept me from really connecting to it. I often found myself being distracted by little things while I was reading and never felt compelled to pick the book up, except for the fact that it was an ARC that I needed to read. But I don’t think this is a reflection on this book. Lots of people loved it and thought it was great, I think this one is more on me and I really feel kind of sad about it.
One of the things that I loved about the first book was the slow burn romance which was broken at the end of book one. The author did a great job of showing how Arcady and Everen were able to rebuild their trust and the bond slowly, while dealing with all of the fallout of their bond being broken. Arcady’s growth in this book was strong, she finally is able to be at the academy and wants to just keep her head down and work, but finds herself making friends and building relationships with them. Everen is busy earning not only the trust of Arcady but also of the dragons he betrayed. He is walking a fine line between his world and the human one.
Sorin’s story was the best part of this book. Her character was well developed and had many layers to it. Her motives were clear and multilayered and I loved how she came into her own as the story progresses. She too is at the academy, mostly to keep and eye on Arcady, but she also finds herself making friends among the students, especially Arcady. Her inner dialogue was great and really showed her struggles and her angst about being manipulated most of her life by others.
Although I love this world and found the world building just as well done in this story as in the first book, I also found it to be incredibly slow paced. (again that could just be me and my mind state at the time) The plot was well done and I liked the way it ended. The writing and the descriptions were beautiful, although I thought the dialogue could use a little work at times. There is one chapter from Magnes point of view that I found really interesting, but his villain speech near the end went on a bit long. Otherwise I liked the ending and did feel it made up for the struggles I had reading the rest of the book.
If you read Dragonfall and enjoyed it, certainly give this book a chance. Take what I had to say about it with a grain of salt. There are many glowing reviews for this book by people who really enjoyed it. Read those before making your decision to pick this one up. At some point I might decide to reread both of them and see if my opinion changes.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 
Great review. I found exactly the same thing in the first half of the book and it was easy to put the book down and do something else. I did feel that it picked up in the later stages though and loved the ending.
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