The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan

TL;DR: This one was a surprise in many ways, all lovely.
Source: NetGalley and a physical copy via the publisher

Plot: Sai ends up forced on a journey by the Emperor to find the last dragon and along the way he finds a lot more.
Characters: I enjoyed all these characters and could see them vividly. I genuinely felt for them as well.
Setting: A beautiful Asian inspired world, I will keep a lot of those settings in my mind for a long time.
Fantasy: I thought this was interesting and well drawn, I do wish we’d gotten more of it but I loved what we had. I’d kill for a sequel to this.

Thoughts:

The way that this man was gone for the love interest! This follows Sai, he’s a tea shop owner who cares for his mother and struggles to make ends make in a kingdom that is struggling to simply survive. He works on the side helping people find their Fated Ones, as he can see the Red Threads of Fate that connect these people to each other. He gets on the Emperor’s bad side after purchasing illegal dragon scales for his mother’s medicine and as punishment the Emperor sends him out to find the last dragon of the east.

Pretty quickly we meet our love interest in this and the way Sai falls for her, the journey they go on and the way the interact? I loved it. Jyn is incredibly grumpy, and she’s incredibly strong – a nice flip from the usual ‘man grumpy, woman weak and bubbly’. You can see her struggling with grief as she’s lost a child, but she’s also dealing with seven thousand years worth of grief for her lost husband as well and man it hurt to read. I ate up the way this author wrote Sai’s feelings and how they interacted and I cannot wait for more from her.

This is short one, it doesn’t go too deep and it focuses primarily on the relationship between the two but it does it such a wonderful way. I loved it. I will be revisiting lines in this, and I am following the author to make sure to stay up to date on her releases because yes please! One I really recommend if you want a short and snappy love story with a beautiful setting. And dragons!