The Mountain Crown

Lowachee’s fun if fussy latest (after Under the Silence) follows a dragoneer forced to serve under her people’s conquerors. Méka is a Ba’Suon, one who is in tune with the land and its suon, or dragons. The people of the islands of Ishia, once her home, lived at peace with the suon until the Kattakans invaded in search of gold, and sent the Ba’Suon into exile. After 10 years, Méka returns to her place of birth to gather a king suon to prevent the destruction that comes when too many kings occupy the same region. The head of Ishia’s Fortune City, Lord Shearoji, allows this but orders Méka and Lilley, the bond servant she freed, to bring the king suon back to him for financial gain. Shearoji sends Raka, one of his men and a Ba’Suon traitor, to go with them to ensure his will is enforced. But the suppressed rage of so many years has taken its toll on Ba’Suon and dragons both. The choices Méka, Lilley, and Raka make will determine the survival of the land and its inhabitants. There’s plenty of enjoyment to be had here, but the plot occasionally becomes difficult to follow thanks to Lowachee’s verbose prose and overreliance on metaphor. Still, for die-hard fans of dragon-riding books, this is sure to satisfy. Agent: Tamara Kawar, DeFiore & Company. (Oct.)