Diverging Opinions: The Dragon's Promise - #FantasySeries Conclusion | Book Chat - Shelf Addiction Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, booklovers, Welcome back to shelf Addiction, the podcast where
we dive deep into the pages of thriller and fantasy reads.
I'm your host, Tamar, and today we are discussing the
conclusion of the YA Fantasy duology six Crimson Cranes. But
first a quick heads up. If you create the full
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(00:24):
after shows, and other bonus content as well. If you
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and exclusives are now available there. If you want even
more bookish banter, join our community round the book clubs
app and don't forget to subscribe and leave us a
review wherever you're listening. Speaking of community, I'm thrilled to
welcome back my fantasy series bestie and co host Casey

(00:46):
from Heart full of Ink. Welcome back, Casey.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hello, Hello, I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yay, I'm ready to do this. U Oh see how
anyway you can find links to find both me and
Casey in the show notes, click around do all the things.
We appreciate you for doing that. But before we begin,
I'd like to remind you that, as always with book chats,
we talk full spoilers here, so you've been warned. Today

(01:15):
we are discussing The Dragon's Promise, written by Elizabeth Limb.
The audiobook is narrated by Emily wu Zeller. It was
published August thirtieth, twenty twenty two, by knof and Listening Library.
The hardcover is four hundred and eighty four pages and
the unabridged audio is fourteen hours and twenty six minutes.
Casey which you kindly read.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
The synapsis Princess Shiori made a deathbed promise to return
the Dragon's Pearl to its rightful owner, But keeping that
promise is more dangerous than she ever imagined. She must
journey to the Kingdom of Dragons, navigate political intrigue among
humans and dragons alike, fend off thieves who covet the
pearl for themselves and will go to any lengths to

(01:56):
get it, all while cultivating the appearance of a perfect
and says to dissuade those who would see her burnt
at the stake for the magic that runs in her blood.
The pearl itself is no ordinary cargo. It thrums with
malevolent power, jumping into Schiori's aid one minute and betraying
her the next, threatening to shatter her family and sever

(02:17):
the thread of fate that binds her to her true love.
It will take every ounce of strength Shechori can muster
to defend the life and the love she's fought so
hard to win.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Okay, when we finished, what did you think?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I liked it better than book one. That's my high level.
I liked it better than book one. I think it
gave us everything we wanted from book one. Now I
do have critiques about it, but high level that's where I'm.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
At, and I'm the opposite. I liked it less than
Book one. Really all those we did get some of
the things, but there were other things always, And to
be quite honest, I was like at the end, I

(03:14):
was satisfied. You know, with the ending, I was kind
of hoping they would actually kill her, but I knew
they wouldn't. I knew the author made to do it.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
She kind of died. Well, it's magical and mystical. Well, yeah,
of course the series magic.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, so she's alive, Well, she's alive in one place
and not in another. I guess, yeah, the deal. But
I wanted her like dead dead. I wanted her to
die and that would have been like, wow, she has
has I don't know. I just felt like that would
have been so impactful, and I thought the author was

(03:51):
going to do it, and I was like Nope.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
For a hot minute there, I was like, Okay, is
she actually killing her off? Like I got really close there,
and then the gods showed up and I was like
I was waiting for the dragons to show up and
save her, but.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well he did, but he was off the page.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, off the page.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
But so I got I don't know, I didn't really
love the ending, but I was satisfied with it. I
also thought it was kind of boring in the beginning, believe.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
It or not.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
It was just so slow moving for me.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Even with all of the dragon world building, and.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Ye, I just wanted it over. I just wanted it over.
And I don't know why, because I think I had
a misconception after we talked about maybe a love triangle, right,
and so I kind of felt like, oh, there wasn't
and I was okay with it, but then I'm like, well,

(04:53):
how long are we gonna stay here? What's happening. And
then I actually thought about the name of the title,
and sure you was like in thirty percent of the book,
twenty five thirty percent of the book, so I kind of,
you know, I was nitpicking. I was like, Okay, we
always do that, and that's yeah, but that's ultimately which

(05:13):
led me this whole thing. I just kind of was
not loving it.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
So sorry, yeah, sorry, no, I mean yeah, I thought
the dragon part was really cool. I thought she very
rushed past that possible love triangle. And I was like, Okay,
this feels weird because it's called the Dragon's Promise, and

(05:41):
like it feels like we should have more about the dragon,
but you just like, nope, we're friends. Yeah, we're gonna
smile at each other like we're friends. We're gonna banter
because we're just friends. And I was like, okay, weird, okay,
and then the rest of the story. So last time,
we talked about in book one how boor it was
and how slow it was, and how she was, you know,

(06:02):
constantly just cooking in the kitchens and everything centered around her,
like making soup constantly. So for this book we had
the opposite. I think she was in a kitchen once.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, which I would think based on our previous conversation
one would think I would like it. I mean, I
didn't hate it, but I also found myself being kind
of not impressed with how the author wrote her action scenes.

(06:35):
Some of it, I was honestly confused, like who did what?
What happened? What the fuck?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Ever?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Next, there were.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
A lot of characters she was trying to keep shrack
of in a fight scene like it did get and
to be fair, she was also keeping it very bloodless
for the most part. We almost lost a brother this time,
which again was something we kind of criticized with book one.
And he's still not dead, but at least he's part

(07:05):
bird forever.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Lord have mercy. I'm like this, poor kid, he got
a bird, he got a wing, and.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
It's not only just a wing, but it's like black
and burn or like demon.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Fied or something. It's a mass it is, And goodness
she brought magic back, or he would have been untolerated there.
He wouldn't have been able to stick around.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
He would have been thrown out, cast out, burn at
the stake. Yeah whole nine yards h.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah. I So I felt like almost this book was
two different stories.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
It really was even the duology, like it was the
same characters. But again, so last time we talked about
how it felt like it was for twelve year olds.
At least for me, book one felt very middle grade.
This one felt like more young adult, like fifteen sixteen
year old, not twelve year olds.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
I wouldn't even say that to me. It still felt
very disney esque.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Oh absolutely, but it felt a little bit older to me.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
The hilarity of them like trying to wait for this
first kiss, like it was supposed to be like the
world ending kiss of the you know century.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
There had been Disney songs about that.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, and I just could not. I and to be
fair everything, you know, we read stuff. Sometimes life gets
in the way, right, So maybe I'm not enjoying it
how I would have had I had a different life
situation happening to me during this read. But as it is,

(08:46):
I kind of was like over all of it, like
it wasn't bad, it wasn't good. I could nitpick it
to death. I still think the best thing about the
book was the damn paper bird Stammy.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
She was cute, she was really really cute.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
I'm like, she's the one that will tell her stop girl,
Stop lie to your.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Man, girl, why are you doing?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
You know? She had the most common sense to me,
and I liked her attitude. Kiki was really cute. If
it weren't for her, this would have been so bland
to me.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
I mean, yes, Kiki was Adorable's the best.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, she like she offers up like witty commentary. She's
like on point with her you know, evaluations of things.
I mean, she could talk to birds, she could talk
to snake, she could talk you know. She's still like
really helping her a lot. Mm hmmm, as far as
you know, just getting through this what the girl do?

(09:55):
If she couldn't didn't have Kiki, she wouldn't be able
to talk to anyone barely.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
No, I mean she doesn't tell her brothers anything. She
lies to her one true love way more than she
should ever lie to anybody. But he just puts up
with it.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, and her father, and her father doesn't know shit.
He calls her all kind of liars, like I know,
you lie, I know, mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
And she does. I mean she does lie to her
dad constantly.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's weird. I don't love that. I don't love that
for this character. It's not endearing. It's not she's lying
for a good reason, because while I guess ultimately she is,
I feel like there's a better way to do it.
She feels reckless. Still, she doesn't feel anymore mature too.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
I felt like she matured a little bit, but was
still very much a teenager. Right, So if we think
back to like the very very first chapter of book one,
she's like, you know, runs away from the wedding procession
because of her bird and jumps in the lake and
lies about all the stuff to her brothers. Like that

(11:11):
was very young. She's not quite that way anymore. Like
she's a little more grounded, but again for a week
in the water. Yeah, she's still a little more or
she's still very much a teenager, is what I'm trying
to say.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, no, shit, like she yeah, she So it's funny.
Of course she is in love with her the prince,
right we know, to con to Khan, she loves him,
and so she's like, yeah, let's do the betrothal again. Okay, Sure,
So that happens. She's all dressed up there doing their thing,

(11:48):
and the demon guy kind of just takes over and
starts like getting interrupted her business. And she did not
like it, but instead of somehow communicating that, she up
insults the man's land like I am and him to
his face, I'm not doing this, and I'm like, what

(12:08):
the hell are you doing? And then she was very
much yeah, and it just goes along. She's like run
and they run. It's like, well, I guess she ran
away with me, so it's okay, No, honey, no, her
immaturity it just comes out. I just feel like there
was some other kind of way she could have expressed

(12:30):
what was happening or dealt with it instead of like
doing this.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
No, this still felt like book one shit that she
should have outgrown, that she should have moved past. But
to be fair to her, at that time, like she
was felt like she was going crazy. The demon was
pretending to kill people and possess people. And then all
of a sudden she was like, I don't want them
to think I'm crazy. I don't want them to think

(12:56):
I'm a witch, so let me be the person who
I used to be. So that was her thought process.
I don't agree with it, but like the thought process
was there, Yeah, And I get you know, the author
trying to make it interesting and maybe a little bit
of drama, you know, heightening the drama of it all.

(13:16):
But it didn't hit for me, I think the way
she wanted it to. Instead, I was just kind of
annoyed by it and all these little things happening in between.
I just felt like this went on and on and
on and on, and I'm like, okay, can we please
figure this out? Mm hmmm, because I'm freaking tired. I'm

(13:39):
tired for you and everyone You're dragging along on this
little shenan again because it's just so painful. You don't
tell anybody anything. You're telling people, I'm gonna turn you
back into a crane and it be okay? What that one?
I was like, wait a second, can we at least
like brainstorm other ideas?

Speaker 1 (13:59):
And she didn't even know if the shit will work.
As they're trying to escape, I'm like, what, that's so
half aast you gotta be.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
It was like less than half ass. It was one
brain cell, and I was like, please do some planning,
please do some processing, please brainstorm other options first.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
I really wish the author had worked a little harder
to make sure even more likable. M m just a
little more m hm.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Same. You can forgive some teenager bullshit. But at some
point you're like, okay, no, yeah, she needs to grow up,
she needs to move past this.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah. And because the world is magic, everything is magic.
It's not even like you need to be so deceptive.
Like if you were in a world where this magic
was hidden and only you and a small group of
people knew about it, then yes, you're lying to everybody,
right because you have to keep whatever hidden. Yes, But

(14:57):
in this world it's just magic everywhere. It's just this
little place, this one county or town or country that
your dad runs, where magic has been spanished, spanished. But
there's no need to just do all the things you're doing.
Because if you say, hey, I was in the water

(15:17):
for a week and it was six months for you,
people will say damn, bro, welcome back. Especially if you're like.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Hey, you know how we all worship and like worship
dragons and they bring us good luck. While I met
one and then I went with him to his world
and lived there for a week there, but six months
here like that, I feel like, yeah, you're right, that
would have been better received. Because they worship dragons. They
love dragons like dragons are part of their like happy mythology,

(15:50):
whereas demons the evil demons. Yeah, they're evil, they're hidden away.
We need to blood sacrifice every generation. Yeah, But that
was the other thing. There was so much going on
in this book. It was hard to keep track of
every single plot thread, Like there was way too much.

(16:11):
And that makes me mad, just for the fact that
book one was so slow and didn't have any of this,
Like I wish she had taken some of these plot
points and put them in book one, yes, because I
know it all led up to the stepmother and her
pearl and all this other stuff going on. But I

(16:32):
was like, there's so much that it feels lopsided, where
book one was just way too slow and this one
was just way too fast.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Oh, I still think it was slow, but it was
a lot of stuff. It was a lot of stuff,
and I think even the stepmom being around and helping her,
and I'm like, it's just too much, too much m hm.
Of everything in the kitchen sink.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yes, it was everything in the kitchen sink except for
her cooking in the kitchen. There was like, yeah, one
of those things that time, thank god.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, which I also okay with that, so, I you know,
with a large brush. You know, the book was fine,
and we'll.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Leave it there.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Okay, what else you got, because you know what, if
it's my way, I'd be like.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
We're done. Shortest podcast history.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, I'm trying to think, Like I keep saying that
we were so much going on, Like we had the dragons,
and I was really intrigued by the whole dragon world
and I kind of wanted the whole book to be
down there, like I wanted to learn more about all
of that, but of course no, she had to leave, So.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, didn't get as much. His family is wild cousins,
the his mother.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
His mother assassins to kill his cousin because she wants
her son to be king, except he's going to be
king when his grandfather dies. It's like, is she trying
to combine the kingdoms or what is she doing? She's
just being a dumb mother. Yeah, and then like so
all of the mermaids and the mr people and how

(18:20):
they keep people around there and then the magic down
like it was so interesting. Yeah, I wish that there
had been like a whole book about that.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
I thought we were going to spend the whole time
down there China too. I thought it was going to
be all about that.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, but no, all of a sudden, like she has
to leave because again she lied. She's like I said
I would bring him the pearl. I never said I'd
give it to him, which is such a.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Ugh.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
I hate when people are like that name. I hate
that so much.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, and even though she's doing all that lying and stuff,
you know, SIRIU still looks out for her. He's still
love Why does he like her so much?

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Like what is it about her that makes these two
different princes just fall in love with her and then
be jealous of each other? It felt very Edward Jacob
coated and again like she picked the wrong one. She
should have gone with the dragon. You think so, I

(19:27):
think so. I think I think she would have had
much more fun with the dragon because she was always
wanting these grand adventures and doing all this fun stuff
and like, yeah, she gets to live on the moon
for six months out of the year now, but like
if she was down in the dragon realm, she would
have gone on all kinds of amazing.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Adventures, adventures and near death experiences. I feel like under there,
it felt like game of throws down there, Like they.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Definitely was like he was ruthless and violent, except she
had a prince who loved her and said, you'd be
my equal. Like you're not gonna be my slave or
my subservient wife or whatever, You're gonna be my equal.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I was like, he seems perfect. Why are you
saying no?

Speaker 1 (20:11):
I mean her life would probably be hard until the
king died or until his mom mother in law.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, Queen was insane.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
It was insane.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, but honestly, knowing her, she probably would have instigated
something that killed them both within the year.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Like I can see that.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Like, yeah, no, I if I wrote fan fiction, that's
what I would write for her.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah. And the new character. I liked the addition of
the stone boy, who was like a sorcerer. Oh yeah,
I can't remember what his name was, the bee, right,
let's see if I can find it.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Oh, he was cute.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Ban doors at him. Nope, that was the bad guy.
So you said, I start with a bee.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
I think so I could be wrong mentally, I just
wanted to call him Bernard. I don't know why. I
know that's completely wrong. Yeah, but you know how sometimes
characters' names are just like, I don't know, you're gonna
be Bernard.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
In my head.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, that's who he is in my head. Don't ask
me why.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
That's fine. I think you know, he was a fun addition,
Oh absolutely, she just sent.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Him off comedic relief.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
But also I'm kind of glad he wasn't there for
the last however many battles there were, because she was
trying to keep track of the seven brothers and the
Prince and the Princess and Kiki and then all of
these birds and then all of these other stuff's going on.
He would have just been like too much in all
of that.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, I agree, But he was a good character while
she was down there. She needed some assistance, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
And even like he came back when she finally got
back home, and it was really cute to see them
together in the human world.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
It's like, I'm only here because you lie to me.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Because she's a liar. She lies about everything.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
I don't know how, Cat can you have a good character? Uh?
You know that it's so good and everyone loves and
she is like a chronic liar.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Cat from Cat and Bones.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, she lies a lot, she does.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Bones usually stops her from lying to him, but it
takes a couple of books.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
At least she's good at it. Yeah, at least she's
good at it though, but I feel like her Okay,
So to me, maybe Kat's reasons for lying were more
acceptable reasons for lying.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yes, she always lying. Well, I don't even know this girl.
She she needed mother, step mother, she needed a.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Mother, yeah, her speaking of mothers. So her relationship with
that made me think of her relationship with her father,
which is odd as well. So you know, they do
a whole lot of bowing because he's king and you know, oh,
I'm so sorry, you know whatever you say, yes, you know,

(23:23):
bowing and scraping. I don't know what kind of relationship
they have. I'm not really clear on that. And then
at some point she actually does call him a name
for father when they're talking about her mother. You know,
he's kind of papa or papa or something something like that. Yeah.
So I'm like, we really didn't get to see him
acting like her dad, you know that often up until

(23:48):
that point, he's like cursing her out, like you're back,
you're late, you interrupted this wedding ceremony, you know, go
to your room. I'm like, your daughter was gone for
six months.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Well she was gone. For a full year for him,
because remember he was asleep when he came home, and.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
So your whole little region was knocked out for a
quarter of the year. And then your daughter is gone
underwater and you just reprimand her like she was late
from a party out.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Dad.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Why he reacted like that.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
I just because dads sometimes react with anger instead of
emotion because they don't want to be emotional. I guess,
I mean that's what my dad would do. How dare
you a rut? YEA, yeah, seriously, it's not a good thing.
It needs to be a better dad, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Like I I'm back, hey, but yeah, noh.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
So it doesn't really track with you know, in the
last book, she talked about how she was his favorite,
and you know, she was like, sometimes I give Hi trouble,
but I just give him my big dough eyes and
then it's all good.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
And that doesn't track, like you said, because he should
have been like, my daughter's back, yay, that's what he
should have did, and then been like, you know, you
was rude interrupting that. So I don't know, maybe that
was the second thing he said instead of the first
thing out of his mouth. Even my brothers were excited
to see her. They were like, hey, you know, I'm happy.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Which can we say? Like, thank goodness two of them
are now married.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
The last time.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
That bothered me so much. Oh, she had six brothers
and she was gonna be married first, and I was like,
this does not make sense. Thank goodness. Yeah, thank goodness
they're married and having babies.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
That's what they should have been doing the whole time
because they're older. Oh yeah, they're all older. So yeah,
that was odd that she was the one that was well,
it was just a betrothal, right, she wasn't supposed to
actually be getting married.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
I thought she was getting married at the beginning of
like I thought she ran out of her wedding in
chapter one of book one.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
No, she ran out of her betrothal ceremony.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Oh, I thought they got the wedding way back when
they were ten or whatever, and this was like the
wedding or pre wedding ceremony or I don't know.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Maybe I don't know. I'm not going back, so I
don't know. Maybe I don't. I'm gonna say no because
he never saw her again. So yeah, they were younger
when they had that ceremony that she skipped out on.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
No, no, no, no, I'm talking about the ceremony in chapter
one of book one, right, like the very first thing.
I thought that was like her because they'd already been
betrothed and they like hadn't met each other yet. I
thought this was like, so this was like the official
starting ceremony. Maybe not the full wedding wedding, but like,
I don't know, Hey, we're getting married. Let's do like

(26:57):
a pre engagement ceremony something.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Oh, I don't know, I'm not sure I do. Remember
she had to make it, you know, she had to
sew or something because she had to be sology right,
But I didn't know that was a wedding.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
I thought it was like close to the wedding because
they'd already been betrothed and like it was set in stone.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Well that's crazy. Yeah, why would she get married before
her brothers exactly?

Speaker 2 (27:22):
That's why it was bothering me.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Hmmm. She should have been six weddings down before she
had to worry about that, because it's not like she
would ever be the queen. She's so far down the
totem pole. She is like nothing.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, no, she's definitely the political pawn paid for strengthening allyship,
which oh.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, I don't know anyway, Actually, this is a good
time to take a break. She got these commercials. By
listen to those, you are supporting the podcast, and don't
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(28:12):
so definitely hop on over and give that a view.
Pick up something bookish, and we'll be right back. Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yay.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
What else should we discuss? As I am misremembering the
first book, It's okay, let's.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Focus on book two. I mean, there was just so
much going on. We learned all about her stepmother's past,
which was interesting. It was a little darker than I
thought it was, and I don't know why I assumed
it wouldn't be that dark.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Well, we knew that she had got her sister's body
her face, yeah, her face, which was that was also
something weird. That guy who Surey was talking to said,
you know, when she he was trying to figure out
whose body it was or something that was kind of

(29:14):
a murky to me. I'm like, what is he saying,
so he knew it was then, or he thought it
was the sister. Is he saying he thought it was
the sister or he thought it was.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
I think he thought it was her, but with her
sister's face, But he was really confused about it.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
How I was confused about that session. I'm like, what
is he saying exactly? And I I was on a
time cr crunch. I couldn't, like, really, you know, short
out exactly what they were saying. But he seemed to
be confused, and I was confused. Did you understand that section?

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Honestly? No, Like it was just very confusingly written, but
it was the whole thing was confusing. So it was
the demon came killed her sister. She wounded him, banished him,

(30:13):
took his pearl.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
And then.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Took her sister's face.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
But how did she I don't think she actively took it.
Didn't she have to, Like something happened that made her
get it, Like she didn't say I'm gonna take my
sister's face.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right, I don't remember, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Because she didn't want it, so she miscarred her face
so she would remember. I don't know. It was weird.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
It was weird.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
I don't even remember her name, so I know her
made up name was Rakama, right, I don't even remember
what her original name was right now. That whole part
was kind of murky to me.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah. No, I thought last time, like they focused on
making the stepmother nice, just to be like, yay, you know, kids,
love your stepmother's it's okay that she's not your real mother,
just you know, love her because she's trying to do
the bet she can. And then we got here to
her home, her home actually, and yeah, the whole thing

(31:18):
was just really confusing.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah, and then we hear later from Shorey's dad that
you know, she really didn't even want him.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
She's wanted the family. She's like, I just want kids
to love me.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
I just want a family, you know. And he's like,
I'm still in love with my deceased wife, so I'll
never love you. And she's like, I'm fine with it.
Let's get out of here. And that's how we began.
That was so weird to me. I don't know, he's
and she had all these suitors and.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Stuff because they wanted her sister.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, because they thought she was the sister m hm hm.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Honestly, I would probably scar my face too though.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
But then there was some kind of spell as well,
because when she went away, everyone kind of just forgot
about her.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Well, that was her magic that she was, you know,
performed on Shorey and her brothers to like make them
forget everything. So she just made everybody forget she existed.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, that means she was ultra powerful because she did
that a large amount of people, and even after her
death that was still holding yep, with exception of that guy,
probably because he loved her.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yep, which means she is crazy powerful.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Or maybe it was just that she used the Pearl,
and because the Pearl was still alive, inactive, it was
still doing the magic it gave.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
I don't know. And then the Pearl was almost like
its own character.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Oh it was. There was a line in the blurb
about it being its own character. Yeah, it was weird though,
I don't know. There was just so much going on
and I was like, I wish half of this had
been in book one.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Spread it out, share the love, like.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Seriously share the love, explain the stuff, don't don't stuff
it all and rush it through.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
In book two, the Pearl acting like sometimes he sometimes
it wanted to help sometimes it didn't. She's constantly threatening
the pearl, do you want to get back to where
you belong or not you're gonna help.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
But honestly, like it didn't, like once they got there,
it just kind of like went whoop and disappear. Yeah,
and she had to like call it back and force
it to the dragon half dragon race guy.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, so you supposedly a demon, but it was a dragon.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
So a half demon half dragon.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yeah, like that other character, but he was half dragon
half human demon. M h. That was so stupid, so.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Weird, so weird.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, So the pearl did eventually come back to the Dragon.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
He eventually got it, and like it took a weirdly
long battle that was actionable and very slow at the
same time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
And so then after the battle, that's when the brothers
went back to human.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
It took them a while, no, because they had to
get back home, and then she had to beg him
to release her brothers from the curse. And that's when
he told her, like, well, why do you want me
to release your brothers but you won't release my brothers
the other demons. That's what put it in her head
that she's like, Okay, now I actually have to go
release the demons.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
But do you though?

Speaker 2 (34:50):
But do you though? But do you?

Speaker 1 (34:55):
And why would you think some demons would keep their word,
I'll let you have my blood, you promise not to
hurt anyone. Why would you just think they would tell
the truth of all things? They're not beholden to like
their promise, like dragons are their demons. So that could
have went left, but you know, in this book it
went right and went they didn't agree.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
It was very Disney happy, yea, even though this character
has proven time and time again that if you don't
use the right word, she can easily break her promise
because she's not lying because you use the wrong word.
And I hoped at some point that like a demon
would turn that around on her, like you said don't hurt,

(35:40):
but you didn't say don't kill. And if they're dead,
you know they won't hurt. Yeah, but no, like technical technicalities.
I was waiting for a demon to pull that on her.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah. I think this was such an odd combination of
like Disney and darkness. It was very strange. It's like,
you know, like you're saying, why can't we have some
stuff happen with the demons? Why couldn't we have some
twist of words? Why can't we have something? I just

(36:15):
you know, at the beginning Underwater it felt more dark
in stuff, but then it was like it was this, yes,
this really strange combination where it's not exactly one thing
or the other, but it kind of gets like it's
in this murky water that doesn't it's not enjoyable for me.

(36:37):
Why is this like this?

Speaker 2 (36:39):
So this book, to me, this book felt darker than
book one, Like, yeah, the battles were a little darker,
the brother almost died. There was some violence, like more
violence on page than book one. So it felt a
little bit older but still very very ya and you know,
like could have been a really strong adult book with

(37:03):
some very heavy themes going on, but no, like she
was just kind of towing that line but kept it
all Disney.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Happy, yeah, which just I don't think those two things
mesh well for me. Either it's Disney or it's dark. Yeah,
not Disney dark.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
If it could be dark Disney, that might be okay,
but Disney dark is not.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yeah, that's just it's like she wrote us a check
that bounced at the bank and could catch it.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Okay, So to talk about the ending because we haven't
really touched on that. Uh. She already is dying. Everybody's crying.
She like feels her body breaking and dying, and she
sees the literal god of death walking towards her, and
I was like, oh shit, the author's actually like going here.

(38:04):
I assumed, you know, she would walk off with a
god of death and then like maybe come visit as
a ghost or something like. I was not rooting for that,
but I thought I was gonna be like a dark
ending despite all the Disney five of it. I was like, okay,
like we're going for it. But then all of a sudden,

(38:27):
his sister, the Goddess of Moon, appeared and was like, nope,
I want her to live because the dragons told me that,
like we owe them and they want her to live.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Yeah. Uh, you know what, that reminds me of a
little bit. And I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but
it kind of reminds me of Sandman a little bit.
So I didn't read the books or the comics, but
I did watch the show, and literally, death is a character, okay,

(39:02):
And all of these gods are like other gods and
they all interact with each other as siblings and interject
on human's behalf when they want to. So that kind
of fell us like, oh, this kind of feels like that,
But I'm sure it's just a coincidence. And you know,
it's kind of generic, I guess as well, because a

(39:22):
lot of stories write about gods in that way.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
So and I mean there was a lot about mythology
in this story, and I mean, we have dragons. If
we have dragons, then we can have gods. I just
thought it was a little on the nose for them
to appear in the last chapter at the last scene
to save the day. If we had split this book

(39:45):
up into two books and like made this the duology
and like had the gods interacting and showing up earlier,
then I think it would have made a lot more
sense and felt more realistic rather than them just like, hey,
let's save the day. Let's disneyfy this ending.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Right, Which is why I think I would have been
perfectly happy if they actually killed her, because the god
just appears, like, never seen this dude before, So I'm like, oh,
this is the end for you. It's do this for
you now.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
It's fine if the god of death doesn't appear until
somebody's dying, Like that makes sense, right, but the fact
that like, Okay, her brothers have been in battle so
many times as birds and almost killed but always survived
by like the hair of their beak and like never
really horribly injured, like nobody got maimed or anything. And

(40:39):
then all of a sudden, the god of death is here.
It was like, oh, you were saving up all of
the death for now.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
I still kind of wish one off her brothers had died.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, I think that would have been good, Like we
need somebody to and I always say this, you can't
have like these big epic showdowns and everyone survived.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
I mean honestly, one of the brothers was dropped off
a freaking cliff, I know, and he survived.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I was like, wait a second, without even.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
He wasn't even messed up or anything.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
That was frustrating.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
And then we have like, yeah, so between those kind
of saves, no, you know, no, no one's injured, everyone's fine.
And then you know she's hanging on by hoping a
prayer and a dress or some shit that they're flying
her around in like that one scene.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Oh god, yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Disney yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
I feel like this book would have been better if
one of her brothers had died, if she had maybe
actually died, or they had brought in the gods earlier. Yeah,
and or if like the Dragon had showed up and
saved for himself.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah. Instead, he gets a stupid cameo in the epilogue
as he's like swimming right, like, you gotta be kidding me,
And all I could see in my mind was like
she's kind of like stepping down from the sky and he's.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Like, hey, you.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
This to the princess way for it was so ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
It was. It really was.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
I just oh no, you know that means oh no,
oh no no. I felt like this is awful, Like
this ending, it just turned the potential was there. I
prefer a sad but like legit ending because that would
be like, wow, everything she did, you know, she made

(42:57):
the ultimate sacrifice.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, I hate said endings, but I would have been
here for that, Like.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
I'm okay with it.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
It would have been fine.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, it needed I mean supposedly, but but why did
that surprise me? It shouldn't it because this whole time
it was supposed to be very, very high stakes, but
nothing ever happened, so I shouldn't have been shocked by
that at all.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah. Again, if you don't have consequences, your high stakes
feel like nothing because okay, you're going to go into
battle again, but nobody dies in battle, so you're fine.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
I'm glad this was only two books.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yes, I wish this book had been the two books.
I kind of want to get rid of book one
and just like split this one into two books book one.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
We could have actually ended it there with her Oh yeah,
it didn't even need to go on.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
We could have just ended it like that. Could have
been a standalone, could have gone off to marry her
prince and done her thing, and then this could have
been a totally different series, different duology set in the
same world, but it didn't need to be tied together
like this.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Yeah. And I do want to ask you since you
actually listened to the audiobook.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Oh yeah, I listened to it for the first time.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
I enjoyed Emily Wuzeller. How did you like her?

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah? I really love like her range of voices. I
thought she was fantastic. Her kiky was a little high
pitched and a little annoying, but.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
She sounded just like this she didn't you want to
be like.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Ah, but like her male voices sounded kind of masculine.
It didn't sound like a woman trying to be a man.
And each each voice sounded very unique and very different.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, she's a very good narrator.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, she was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
She stopped match. Dare say she actually helped the story.
She added something to.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
It as some personality.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Because audiobooks can go either or either the narrator drags
it down or they help it, you know, give it
a little oof, you know, because it's all in delivery.
So yeah, I liked her. I'm glad you listened to audio.
Yeah that's fun.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I've been very busy, and I was like, we're just
listening to audio.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
You like, I got at Yeah. I did not want
to read five hundred pages, so hell, I barely want
to listen to sixteen hours or whatever the hell this was.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
I thought it was like fourteen fourteen.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
It felt like sixteen hours, fourteen hours and twenty six minutes.
If she's like it just went on and on and on,
I just oh geez. I even listened at two x speed. Wow,
So usually I listened at one point five. But I
was like Emily Cadence is a little slower, so I
was able to get it to two and it didn't
sound like mice to me. It still sounded fine to me.

(46:09):
And it usually just takes a couple of minutes to adjust,
you know, and then it sounds normal because I would
have never got it done in time if I didn't
speed it up. This morning when I woke up, I said,
fuck two X, speed it up, speed it up, speed

(46:29):
it up. And I'm telling you, y'all, I finished this
book audiobook fifteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Before we recorded hit record.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
It's been a while since I it took me that
close up to the line. It's been a long time
since I've done that. But I'm glad you finished. Yeah,
let's go ahead and rate it. Should we rate the book? Okay,
So what did you think of the finale? Thedons promise.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Honestly, I think I'm just gonna give it four stars
for the vibes, Okay, I mean okay, so like it
gave us everything we wanted from book one. It had
more action, The romance felt a little more realistic than

(47:24):
it did last time. She wasn't wearing the stupid bowl
hat anymore. There was a lot more world building. I
was excited about the dragon stuff. So like with the vibes,
it was good. Okay, so fatiking wise, yeah, not so much.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
But well, I guess i'll give it a three for
the vibes because this was almost a two.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Oh damn.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
I'll officially make it a three for the vibes because
you know, it was not the worst thing ever. So
I don't like. But it's like, I am not excited
to read anything else by Elizabeth Limb.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
I'm gonna be very picky. I'm gonna see if she
does anything adult. I feel like she would do really
well with adult stuff, but I don't. I think she's
only I don't.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
I don't think she would, and I could be you know,
I could just be wrong. I don't know, but I
don't think she actually has it in her to write
anything that's more.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
She might. I feel like if she was going for
an adult fantasy book, I believe in her. I feel
like she would make it a lot darker.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Okay, So I guess it depends on if I feel
like anything again that is yeah east inspired. You know,
I don't know if all her stuff is like Japanese feeling.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
I think it is.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, but eh, whatever, long it's not freaking fairy tales.
I don't know. I'm looking at her good Reads and
she does have some let's see retellings again, she's doing
fairy tale retellings.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Okay, this doesn't.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Look like it's ya unable to prove she's the missing princess. Okay,
that's one. Let's there's another one till two Sisters, Mythology Dragons.
She definitely has the same vibes for all of her books.

(49:38):
They all kind of have similar feeling covers, they all
kind of look, you know, I think they all have
the same kind of So I guess if you like that, great,
you'll probably enjoy more. You know, I don't know. I'm
probably gonna opt out personally. That's fair if you come

(49:59):
across something that you think is stellar and I mean
Chef's Kiss five star kind of.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yellar, Oh absolutely, I know you. That's what I would
tell you, Okay, this book is for you, or like, Okay,
this book is good, but it's not for you.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah, that's right, save us the misery. Yes, so we
would normally say what we're going to read next at
this point, But guess who hasn't read any samples. So unfortunately,

(50:37):
the Patreon people will already know by the time you
listen to this recording, but you don't know because you're
not on Patreon. But come on over to book clubs
at the very least. If you're not into Patreon, that's fine,
but come over over the book clubs and read the
next one with us. Join us for book club. Book

(50:58):
Clubs are always a fun time. I love to hear
what other people have to say, because you know, our
two sense isn't always the only opinion, that that's only consensus, right,
So yeah, I love to hear what the group has
to say, and it's always a fun time. So do
join us over there. And I think that's it.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
I sound like god.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
Yeah, okay, Well, thank you for listening to this entire episode.
We appreciate you for doing that, and we'll catch you
in the next one. Take care of yourselves.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Bye, guys, Bye everybody.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, please head over
to Apple podcast or Spotify and leave a positive, five
star review. It's a simple action that makes a big difference.
You can also like this episode on your favorite podcast
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(51:59):
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You can find me everywhere, including Instagram, x and TikTok

(52:19):
under the handle shelf Addiction. Join our book club of
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