Tittle           : The Dragon's Promise (Six Crimson Cranes #2)

Author        : Elizabeth Lim

Pub Date    : August 30, 2022

Pages          : 400

My Rating   : ★★

The Summary

Princess Shiori promised on her deathbed to give the dragon's pearl back to its rightful owner, but doing so is riskier than she ever thought. She must travel to the kingdom of dragons, deal with political intrigue involving both humans and dragons, thwart thieves who are desperate to obtain the pearl while maintaining the appearance of a perfect princess to deter those who want to have her burned at the stake for the magic that runs in her family. The pearl itself is not your typical goods; it pulses with malicious power, leaping to Shiori's aid one moment and betraying her the next, threatening to destroy her family and sever the fated thread that ties her to her true love. To protect the life and the love she has worked so hard to obtain, Shiori will need all of her strength.

My Review

In all honesty, Six Crimson Cranes deserved to stand alone even though I thought the first book was only merely average and left a lot of unanswered questions that I had expected the second book to address. Instead, it just made me feel disappointed.

I really value it when you create new worlds and tell stories that are steeped in mythology and culture. She just has such a sure touch with the magic she conjures, so I'll always be tempted to purchase her works.

There is far too much happening for just one book, and it felt much longer than it needed to. The plot of this novel was boring and haphazard. There were either too many subplots or too many unresolved problems, which gave the impression that I was being hurried from one subplot to another.

Its uneven pacing occasionally made it feel crowded and out of place. It looked as though the author was coming up with plot twists on the fly. Moreover, it appeared as though the author was under duress to finish this sequel since some ideas from the first volume were repeated here.

Even though there isn't a true love triangle in the story, it is hinted, which I found to be almost as annoying as dealing with one. The characters in this book don't seem to be strong enough to carry it off, even without a love triangle. I never warmed up to the characters, and I frequently felt cut off from what was happening on the page.

Instead of being happy that the story is over now that the book is completed, I still have a lot of unanswered questions. And as an outcome of those unexplained causes, nearly every answer to a particular problem seemed random and forced.

Overall, this is a disappointing end to a duology that had a lot of promise but was regrettably divided up, and I still stand by my opinion that if the first book could be the only one more focused, It will be more fantastic!

Series Review:

Six Crimson Canes: 3/5 stars

The Dragon Promise: 2/5 stars

Six Crimson Canes Duology: 5/10 stars

My ratings score:

★★★★★ Fantastic! Made me go through a lot of emotions & the entire book is incredibly beautifully done! 

★★★★ Memorable! Despite its shortcomings, this book was incredible and taught us a lot. 

★★★ Good work! Nothing particularly remarkable, but still nice.

★★ Meh... Mediocre with great room for improvement.

★ Extremely Poor.