Shadowed by Wings

by Janine Cross

Roc, 354 pp, $14.00

Shadowed by Wings is book two of the Dragon Temple Saga.

Zarq has been grudgingly accepted for apprenticeship at the Dragon Temple. She is considered a deviant and both the Temple and her fellow apprentices want her dead. Zarq is convinced that the doctrine allowing women to become dragonmasters has been lost or hidden. As she struggles with the physical demands of apprenticeship, she searches the Temple archives.

But her difficulties pale against her addiction to dragon venom and her desire to understand the dragons themselves which make her a vessel to receive the dragons ancestral memories. Eager for the knowledge, the Temple has her starved and tortured.. Finally she is thrown into the Arena to be killed. Against all odds. She survives, barely, to continue her quest in book three.

Vividly rendered, full of detail, , Zarq’s story is a compelling and harrowing journey that holds your interest till the last page ends. I hope you’re collecting the series as Cross’s journey through Zarq’s world may well become a classic. - Pam Allan