It starts with a rift that burns a thousand scars into the sky. It makes the winds stop. It makes the stars go dark. It awakens an ancient beast. And with it, a new reign of blood. It is the Summoning. And at the heart of it is fire.
Dove’s plan to slay a dead dragon has backfired spectacularly. Now there are two dragons, and Valerya the Fireborne is burning everything in her path to hunt her down. In the aftermath of battle, Dove must use her courage, wits—and an erratic, impulsive dragon—to protect her companions, make unexpected alliances… and survive.
-Goodreads
Book Information
- Title: Rise Red Kingdom
- Series: Burn Red Skies #2
- Author: Kerstin Espinosa Rosero
- Page Count: 346
- Genre: Fantasy
- Rating: 4.5/5.0
- Date Read: July 8th, 2024
Opening Thoughts
I began my journey through the Burn Red Skies series with book one of the same name back in June of 2022. I’ve had my eye on book two Rise Red Kingdom for quite some time now and it’s been constantly floating around the edge of my monthly TBR list for what seems like ages. I finally locked it in for July due to two reasons. The first was I was looking for a reading challenge prompt that included airships. I know that was a considerable topic in book one so I figured it would probably still be in book two. Well… not so much. I told the reading challenge group I’m counting the month as a failure but I could probably make a considerable stretch to still include it from a part near the very end if I really wanted to. The other reason I finally got this one read was both Dom from Dominish Books also wanted to get to it soon so everything just aligned for us to get this read in July.
Pacing
I felt the pacing of Rise Red Kingdom was fairly well done. As far as writing style, I really enjoy how Kerstin Espinosa Rosero tells her story. I will mention I picked up on a handful of what I felt were editing misses sprinkled here and there. When I came across them, they tripped me up briefly but not enough to take away from the story itself. There are a good amount of characters to keep track up. I didn’t have too much trouble. However, I was also taking notes on each chapter as I went. If I wasn’t doing that, it might have been a bit more difficult, I’m simply not sure. I have not had any issues with names of characters and locations to this point.
World Building
The world building continues to impress me. Book two added more layers to the history of this world than the first book did and I’m hear for it! This is certainly a magic rich world. The different regions and factions also add to a believable world as far as fantasy goes. The one thing I will mention regarding that, is readers might need to pay close attention to whom belongs to which faction as this story progress. Several things turn this world and it’s characters upside down in Rise Red Kingdom. It is keeping this reader on my toes for sure.
Character Development
And speaking of characters… The character development was another strong aspect of this read. As I previously mentioned there are a considerable amount of characters to keep up with in this book. I will try and not give anything too important or revealing away but there is a lot of growth going on with characters in this one. Certainly we can expect to see plenty from Dove as a main focal point. There is also quite a bit going on with Valerya. There are more than a couple of very good reveals in Rise Red Kingdom with characters. I even had a couple of chapter notes stating “awesome creepy chapter” and “holy cow!”
Roundup & Recommendation
I took a look back and when I read book one, I wasn’t doing the same style of detailed reviews that I am now. I did mark it as a 5-star read and even though I think I might have liked this one just a bit more. I’m going to end up giving this one a 4.5-Star. In hind sight I’d probably give book one a 4.25-Star looking back.
I don’t say the above to take anything away from either story, they were both great! I just have a lot more books read under my belt now and I might be a bit more picky than I was back in 2022. I would still recommend this book and series to fans of high fantasy with some solid interesting magic and what is turning into a relatively deep world and characters populating it. There are a lot of complex characters through the first two books as well if that is your thing.
Scoring
World Building 5/5
Pacing 4.5/5
Character Development 4/5
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