Jascinda is a draki – the descendents of dragons. She can shift her form into a humanoid dragon, scales, claws, wings and all. It's not easy though, for their kind are hunted to sell their body parts – indeed Jascinda barely escapes when one handsome young hunter spares her life.Also, like all draki, she has a talent – she can breathe fire and makes her highly in demand. So in demand that her mother (who is effectively human) and her twin sister take her away from her pride in the dead of night.Taking her to Nevada, to a city in the desert. In the hot, dry air without fertile land, Jascinda's draki will die and she can be a normal person just like her mother and her sister – but she doesn't want that and her draki withering feels like part of her soul is dying.But who is at the school? Why it is hot hunter guy in her class! What an incredible (and by incredible I mean utterly ridiculous and mockable) coincidence! (No, really, it's a coincidence. The guy hunting her in Colorado turns out to be one of her class mates in Nevada just random chance). And she can't help but love him and she pushes him away but is pulled back – and their passion manages to keep her draki alive in the desertBut she must combat his hunter nature, his family as well as the demands of living in the desert when she longs for home – as well as the pride's demand she return.So this book was YA, and probably epitomised so much about YA that I dislike. And I have to fight my cynical face because it had a lot of the tropes that are common to YA (and Urban fantasy as a whole if I'm honest) that are a tad tired – Jascinda is also the chosen special one who Does Not Want to be. She manages to maintain book long angst. No, really, there isn't a page in this book where Jascinda is not angsting. Ok she had good reason for the angst – but daaamn, do you need training to maintain abject angst for this long? Did she go to the special Bella Swan school of angst?Read more
