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acqua's review against another edition
5.0
The House of Binding Thorns is the the opposite of second book syndrome.
I really liked The House of Shattered Wings, but this was on a completely other level, and it cemented Dominion of the Fallen's place in my favorite fantasy series.
The House of Binding Thorns is a story about life in a city ruined by angels' greed, with an ugly colonial history, in which the characters have to make terrible bargains to survive. It's a story about compromises that, in a fairer world, wouldn't be necessary; about how people survive when the world is broken and history is full of unrepairable hurts. How can characters go on while carrying such a weight? At times, it looks impossible to live a life worth living in this place, but the characters find ways, and they shine brighter because of this faded, decaying background.
This book never forgets that among the ruins, life can only thrive through cooperation.
If The House of Shattered Wings followed the events surrounding the mysteries and past of House Silverspires, this book follows another house of fallen angels in fallen historical Paris: House Hawthorn, and its relation with the underwater Dragon Kingdom in the Seine.
We follow:
✨ Madeleine, a woman who is trying to recover from angel essence addiction while not falling victim to political intrigue, which seems to be everywhere in House Hawthorn;
✨ Philippe, a Vietnamese ex-immortal who is trying to bring someone back to life;
✨ Thuan, a shapeshifting bisexual Dragon Prince who is a spy in House Hawthorn;
✨Françoise, a pregnant Vietnamese woman who is trying to survive in this post-magical-war Paris with her trans girlfriend Berith, a fallen angel;
✨ not PoV characters, but a major characters anyway: Asmodeus, gay fallen angel, antivillain, in an arranged marriage with a prince from the Dragon Kingdom, and Ngoc Bich, a dragon princess. I mention them specifically because they're two of my favorite characters.
While Thuan's and Françoise's PoVs were my favorites, both Madeleine and - especially with this reread - Philippe grew on me a lot.
I read this book in two days, which is something I haven't been able to do with novels lately. But this was so good that I just couldn't stop reading it. So much political intrigue, most of it revolving around a gay antivillain, of course I loved this.
I also really liked the setting - in The House of Shattered Wings, I wanted to know more about the Dragon Kingdom, and a significant part of this book is set there. This also meant that this book gave an even more overwhelming sense of rot than the first book, and it may sound weird, but the atmosphere is beautiful also because of it. Ruins have their charm, and it makes sense that in a series about falling the settings is falling apart too.
There's not much romance in this series - there is an established f/f couple in this book, another one in the first book, and a m/m arranged marriage with the kind of plotline I love (which means: tension between enemies! stabbing!) - but all the romance here is wonderful. I'd read more of it and I almost never say that.
I really liked The House of Shattered Wings, but this was on a completely other level, and it cemented Dominion of the Fallen's place in my favorite fantasy series.
The House of Binding Thorns is a story about life in a city ruined by angels' greed, with an ugly colonial history, in which the characters have to make terrible bargains to survive. It's a story about compromises that, in a fairer world, wouldn't be necessary; about how people survive when the world is broken and history is full of unrepairable hurts. How can characters go on while carrying such a weight? At times, it looks impossible to live a life worth living in this place, but the characters find ways, and they shine brighter because of this faded, decaying background.
This book never forgets that among the ruins, life can only thrive through cooperation.
If The House of Shattered Wings followed the events surrounding the mysteries and past of House Silverspires, this book follows another house of fallen angels in fallen historical Paris: House Hawthorn, and its relation with the underwater Dragon Kingdom in the Seine.
We follow:
✨ Madeleine, a woman who is trying to recover from angel essence addiction while not falling victim to political intrigue, which seems to be everywhere in House Hawthorn;
✨ Philippe, a Vietnamese ex-immortal who is trying to bring someone back to life;
✨ Thuan, a shapeshifting bisexual Dragon Prince who is a spy in House Hawthorn;
✨Françoise, a pregnant Vietnamese woman who is trying to survive in this post-magical-war Paris with her trans girlfriend Berith, a fallen angel;
✨ not PoV characters, but a major characters anyway: Asmodeus, gay fallen angel, antivillain, in an arranged marriage with a prince from the Dragon Kingdom, and Ngoc Bich, a dragon princess. I mention them specifically because they're two of my favorite characters.
While Thuan's and Françoise's PoVs were my favorites, both Madeleine and - especially with this reread - Philippe grew on me a lot.
I read this book in two days, which is something I haven't been able to do with novels lately. But this was so good that I just couldn't stop reading it. So much political intrigue, most of it revolving around a gay antivillain, of course I loved this.
I also really liked the setting - in The House of Shattered Wings, I wanted to know more about the Dragon Kingdom, and a significant part of this book is set there. This also meant that this book gave an even more overwhelming sense of rot than the first book, and it may sound weird, but the atmosphere is beautiful also because of it. Ruins have their charm, and it makes sense that in a series about falling the settings is falling apart too.
There's not much romance in this series - there is an established f/f couple in this book, another one in the first book, and a m/m arranged marriage with the kind of plotline I love (which means: tension between enemies! stabbing!) - but all the romance here is wonderful. I'd read more of it and I almost never say that.
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