3.5 out of 5 stars
When their father dies, the younger siblings feel cheated out of their inheritance. The two young sisters, Selendra and Haner, have to rely on their wealthy relatives to support them, but the younger brother Avan decides to sue his relations in an attempt to get back the inheritance. Their older brother Penn is caught in the middle because he is a parson and heard his father’s last words on his deathbed. Selendra goes to live with her brother Penn and his wife at the parsonage, but the noble lady who controls the estate doesn’t approve of her son’s flirtation with pretty Selendra.
The world-building for this polite society of dragons was really fascinating. It has all the social rules of Victorian England, but adapted for dragonkind. They gain physical power, growth, and health by eating the flesh of other dragons. So if there is a runt in a clutch of dragon babies, the nobility of the estate have the legal right to kill the dragonet and eat the body. Part of the family’s inheritance is to eat the dead body of their parents. The more dragon flesh they eat, the larger and stronger they will become, and then they will be better able to fight to protect their own family and their treasure. Everything revolves around this.
It’s an interesting parallel to how human society behaves, greedily amassing wealth and power at the expense of those who are helpless and poor. Every character is afraid that they will be too poor, too friendless, and too weak to protect themselves, and might get eaten by some bigger, more influential dragon. All their decisions revolve around survival in this cut-throat society with a thin layer of polite manners on the surface.
There are quite a few descriptions of blood and gore and violence. There are instances of sexual harassment, rape, and kidnapping that were really disturbing to read about. To see exactly what was described, you can check out this book on the Screen It First website. https://screenitfirst.com/book/tooth-and-claw-1154842
The only two characters that I liked were Selendra and her sister Haner. They are innocent and sweet and kind. Although they face some terrible situations that are really scary, they find courage and resilience.
Almost everyone else is horribly selfish or just downright evil. Most of the characters are conniving and greedy and self-centered, which is an accurate reflection of society, I suppose.
The only ones who are really complex are Penn and his wife Felin, since they have both good qualities and some foibles as well. Penn is sometimes very thoughtful and kind to his family, and other times he is ridiculously obtuse and thoughtless. Felin is usually the peacemaker between the noble estate and the parsonage, so she has become very clever at managing difficult people. But I also liked that she has certain boundaries that she won’t cross even if means that a conflict arises.
I can definitely see where the author got inspiration from Anthony Trollope. The writing has that kind of old-fashioned style and it is very focused on personal relationships between the characters with lots of details analyzing each personality. And the plot does take some themes and plot points from Framley Parsonage.
Luminous Libro 