No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished

love this series, a contemporary fantasy that isn't filled with unnecessary sex scenes or side stories. It's a great book which adds to the tension and builds on previously loved characters, as well as going deeper with less known but excellent characters.

This book was very different from the previous ones in a way. What do I mean by that? So far we have heard about the Heartstriker clan, the many, many siblings and how they all have their functions for the clan and how it's a very intricate hierarchy based on everyone trying like crazy to climb to the top (with the exception of Julius). There are enforcers, politicians, medics, soldiers, ones responsible for raising the new kids, etc. It all connects to support the brood mother, Bethesda, who rules over them by basically making them fight and fear each other.
By now things are changing, though. They all had the epiphany of almost every single one feeling like shit is not good. Like they all had some issues when life wasn't fair and it's seeming like.... they are wasting energy, potential and just generally every single resource because they are unable to work together.

So far we have mostly seen the characters as the kind of mysterious backdrop for Justin being the way he is, but they are starting to get fleshed out. Honestly, they are much more independent from Bethesda than I have expected; I shouldn't be surprised by how they are a lot less than perfect underlings. And at the same time a lot, lot more.
The origins and history of dragons are still not worked with too much, but I am happy with what I can get. Warning, though, I feel this book is not about the action mostly. Which is not an issue, I just feel like I had to mention it.

The war with Algonquin is approaching fast and even the humans are aware it's happening. Marci is getting the attention of some influential humans and... others.

I feel this book will pay off big time with all the huge things being set up. Definitely looking forward to it.

3.5 / 5

It's the third book in the series, and it picks up right where we left the characters at the end of book 2.

What I liked:
- We get to know some of the characters better, get some insights into their backstories and/or some interesting character development (Julius needs to do some growing up, then there's Chelsie, Ghost, Justin, F-clutch...)
- The snappy dialogue and style of writing I enjoy in all of Rachel Aaron's books. :)
- A couple of strong scenes and character dynamics that really spoke to me (Chelsie/Julius, Amelia/Bob, Ghost/Marci).

What I didn't like:
- The major cliffhanger ending.
- At times, things got rather repetitive (for example “no, killing your siblings is not okay”, “I want to be a Merlin, but wtf is a Merlin anyway?”, “don't you DARE try and free me”...)
- Algonquin and the Leviathan. I can't even say why, but I don't want to read about them.
- The amount of typos and mistakes left over from rewriting / editing was a bit distracting (Kindle edition, I don't know about others).

The previous books are now going to be hard acts to follow as Julius has now become the top man. But still Rachel does a pretty good job of it by shifting the focus to his sister and bringing the family story into play. At the same time a larger plot is added to make things more interesting along with a couple of new characters. Onwards