So Let Them Burn

Kamilah Cole
Completed 7/11/2025, Reviewed 7/11/2025
3 stars

I was really looking forward to this book which takes a Jamaican mythological perspective of dragons, colonialism, imperialism, family, and racism.  It’s a YA book nominated for the 2025 Lodestone Award at the Hugos featuring protagonists on the cusp of adulthood and a small pantheon of gods who interact with them.  The first half dragged miserably.  It was full of exposition to explain how everything got to its present state.  The second half got much better, but it didn’t quite pull me in as deeply as I would have hoped.  This being the first of a series, it ended with a cliffhanger and wow, was it a doozey. But I don’t know if I need to put closure on this story by reading the sequel.

Faron is the Childe Empyrean.  This means she was anointed by the gods to save her island from the invaders from the mainland.  She was chosen at age twelve and wielded the power to overthrow the Langley Empire.  They built mechanical dragons called drakes to fight Langley’s real dragons, and the people united to push out their oppressors.  The effort was helped by Reeve, son of the commander of the Langely Empire, who defected and helped throw his own people out.  Elara is Faron’s slightly older sister.  She wants to be a drake pilot but is passed over.  A few years have gone by and Langely is back for peace negotiations.  During that stay, Elara unknowingly bonds with one of Langely’s dragons and is taken back there to train.  Faron is distraught at losing Elara.  The gods tell her that the only way to break the bond with the enemy’s dragon will end up killing Elara.  So she and Reeve research alternatives and find that Faron must trust a renegade god who’s been bound in a limbo but doing so may destroy the world.

A lot to pack in there, for sure.  And this is just the beginning.  My biggest problem is that there’s so many dry recountings of the war for freedom, that it quickly bored me.  It wasn’t until Elara went to the Langely empire to train with the dragon that I became more engrossed.  It should be noted that it takes two riders to complete the bonding with a dragon.  Enter Signey, the first rider of the dragon.  She resents being bonded with Elara, being enemies.  But the Commander of the Langely forces and the island’s Queen both feel that it is in their respective nations’ best interests for this relationship to be allowed.  Both think they will have an advantage over the other, being able to manipulate their weaknesses and discover any secret plans.  Yes, the relationships get convoluted.

However, once all that is established, we understand the bonds of family and friendship and the moral ambiguity they each have in their roles for their government.  There’s the sisterly bond of Faron and Elara, the slow acceptance between Elara and Signey, and resentment of Reeve towards his father and country.  

Faron is actually a great main character.  She’s an expert liar and constant devil’s advocate despite being the savior of the island nation.  But her devotion to her sister could unravel reality.  She takes numerous unnecessary chances and usually succeeds.  Elara is also good, but in a different way.  Always honest and kind-hearted, she’s put into a terrible situation.  That’s complicated by her growing friendship and attraction to Signey as they come to trust each other as bonded dragon riders.

It was interesting reading this book so soon after rereading Dragonflight.  You can see the Pern influence on the dragon subgenre here, but it occasionally caused me some cognitive dissonance.  At times the book felt like fan fiction, at other times, it felt like a rip-off, then at other times, it felt like a very original application of the dragon trope.  I had a tough time getting this squared away in my head until at least halfway through with the evil god’s appearance and his relationship to the dragons.

I give this book three stars out of five.  The first half was tough, the second better.  It averaged out to being a decent book, but not the best post-Pern dragon book I’ve read.  I do give this book props for having strong, non-traditional, black, near-adult women characters and dealing with important themes.  If the sequel is nominated next year, I’ll definitely read it, but for now, I’ll wait and see how I feel about it.