As good a middle book as one could ask for. Plenty of cliffhangers at the end of chapters that remind me of the great stories I read as a kid by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Lots of action and an ending that screams for readers to grab book three. ( )

Perfectly serviceable but not polished high fantasy. It does suffer from second-book syndrome in that the story really can't stand on its own in any way. The story moves quickly and this book is a breezy, light read, with a bit of action.

However, it would have benefited from a professional editor and another few rounds of revisions. There are multiple typos and typographical errors, missing spaces, and sentences/similes that run on and on. And on. There are also storytelling mistakes - For example, Petra's relation to her brothers changes over the course of a few paragraphs, with her being stated as Cvareh's older sister one moment, his younger sister the next. Its really jarring and takes you out of the story to figure out if this is just convoluted world-building I'm not following or if the author doesn't know her own primary character's family tree well enough. Imbibing is crazy dangerous and sick unless you're in loooove and then its just like having a couple glasses of a nice moscato.

Arianna does a lot of ass-kicking, but a significant amount of it occurs off-screen and not treated with any real seriousness. Arianna just eviscerates a bazillion dragons, all of which are among the most fierce fighters, while restraining her hands to maintain a disguise. Yet, there's no sense of urgency or threat. I'm still not wholly satisfied with Arianna, trained her whole life as essentially an engineer, is also a fighting savant that can't be beat by even the most talented, magical fighters. It doesn't feel earned. I was relieved that she and Cvareh finally fucked, but the love between them also feels unearned. There's no real chemistry or reason for them to love each other, other than 'well we ran around for a few weeks, might as well." Although its nice to see the man in more of a fawning/subservient position in a fantasy romance. Nice change of roles for once.

Flor feels more fleshed out....but also less integral to the plot. There's several chapters in which she's just sort of carried along, and she doesn't have much of an arc. Maybe this is due to her arc in book one - she evolved a lot already and didn't have much development yet. I'm interested to see where she goes in book 3 because she felt pretty superFLORous in this volume.

Other characters, like Petra, are really inconsistent, and seem to do stupid, out-of-character actions just to move the plot along. Yveun and Coletta have perhaps the most interesting relationship in the entire series....but Yveun by himself is a very one-dimensional villain. ( )

I love, love, love the writing style, and Ari as a character. However, it is hard to read about the disturbing realities of mutilation and organ harvesting which accompany the creation of Chimeras. ( )

Let me first say that I really enjoyed the first book in this series - ALCHEMISTS OF LOOM. The world building and characters were like nothing I'd ever read before -- I loved the fierceness of Arianna, the wit of Cvareh, and the endearing nature of Florence. So when that book ended on a virtual cliffhanger -- I reached for DRAGONS OF NOVA immediately!

I loved this book even more than the first. The world building intensifies -- we get to picture the world of Nova in our minds eye. We are given a whole new host of characters to love or hate (some I loved, like Cain!), and most of all, the relationship between Cvareh and Arianna intensifies and becomes an animal all it's own. My mind was whirring with the descriptions of the buildings and islands suspended in air! I also loved watching the battle between Petra and Yveun play out between their various points of view. Overall, this book gets 4.5 stars from me and I cannot wait for the final installment : REBELS OF GOLD! ( )