Blood of an Exile / Brian Naslund

Title / Blood of an Exile

Author / Brian Naslund

Series / Dragons of Terra (book 1)

Published / 2019

Page no. / 489

Overall Rating / ★★★★

Blood of an Exile is the author’s debut book and is the first book in the Dragons of Terra trilogy. The story follows Silas Bershad, once a noble now an exiled dragonslayer who was supposed to die during his first attempt at slaying a dragon. After 14 years of dragonslaying, Bershad is the most famous and successful dragonslayer. Now the man that exiled Bershad offers him a deal – kill a king and save a child in captive and he will be pardoned of his crime. The story proceeds from there. 

 

Blood of an Exile is a fantastic debut containing dragons, well written characters and a compelling plot. If you love fantasy with dragons then this is well worth checking out. One of my favourite things about this book was how Naslund has written dragons into his fantasy world – just like how our ecosystem is affected by animals, his fantasy world (or ecosystem) is affected by the existence of these dragons. This is something I’ve never really come across in fantasy books and it results in an interesting and vivid world. 

 

Although split into a multiple perspective story (five in total), the majority of the plot is told from Bershad’s point of view. Each character perspective had a distinctive voice and Naslund does a fantastic job at weaving these threads all together. The pacing was maintained throughout the switches in POVs and although I did find Bershad’s perspective the most engaging, all of them remained compelling throughout the book. The writing is great and I found it easy to settle into the flow of the story from early on. 

 

Overall this was a strong first instalment to this trilogy and a fantastic debut. The second book, Sorcery of a Queen, was released earlier this year and the third book, Fury of a Demon, will be released next year (2021). I definitely plan on checking out the sequel and look forward to reading more about this world and characters. Have you guys read this book? I’d love to know what you thought. Let’s chat in the comments. I hope you are all having a wonderful day and I will see you next time. 

 

 

Pippa