So he's the prince, captain of the royal guard, super smart and well-read, loyal, good looking, charming, funny, polite, never lies, and has a tragic backstory.
*wags finger*Īnyway, Lucian's gary stu-ness. Like, there is no way a prince is going to even look at her let alone act like they're BFFs. So he's this prince, and he's acting far too chummy with Seraphina. Quite the gary stu love interest (and I GROANED when I realized he was going to be the love interest). There's Prince Lucian Kiggs (i hate his name and thus it will take a lot to impress me about his character. Music played a huge motif throughout the story, so it was definitely threaded through nicely, not just mentioned once and forgotten. I've never seen a protagonist with that career, so I thought that was really original and refreshing. She's the music mistress, assistant to the head music guy, so she lives at the palace and plans all the musical events and shows for the big-shot parties and balls and funerals and stuff. At any rate, Seraphina's passive/reactionary character was one major flaw, although it's hidden by a lot of pretty writing, emotion, well-placed tension and cliffhangers, and world building. I'm slightly baffled and in awe of how the author managed to pull that off. She barely pushed the plot along, reacting more passively than actively propelling the plot, but she was still written in a way that made her appear to have great agency. But then I finished book, sat there for a second, and thought "what did she actually DO?" It's so strange. She's got a great voice and it *appears* like she's really take-action and proactive and a strong character. It's a really cool concept and some great nuances, and the tension and conflict created by this setup was fantastic. There are bell-exempt scholars, an exception made so they could pursue knowledge without freaking out the humans they're working with (so they're pretending to be fully human). They all have to wear a bell on them to show they are saarantrai, or dragons in human form. But when they become humans, they get all the emotions and mushy feels that come with humanity, and it makes them highly uncomfortable.
They were emotionless, creepy, and logical. I loved the dragons! Or rather, their human forms. However, both harbor deep grudges for the other, which puts a half-human, half-dragon in an awkward place. She lives in a world where dragons and humans have always warred with each other, but a few decades ago, they signed a treaty for the two species to live in peace. Seraphina refers to the protagonist, Seraphina, a half-human, half-dragon.
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