A review by msjessc
The Dragon Prince's Necromancer by Amy Sumida

adventurous medium-paced

4.0

This book surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. I've been in such a book slump and I not only read beyond the 30% mark (unlike the last six books I've tried), but was sneak reading it during family movie night. It's a unique fantasy world that didn't require a huge info dump. There was a first book I skipped, because well, this book looked more interesting to me honestly. I LOVE a good necromancer story. I'm going on the record saying this book can be read as a standalone.

This is a new author to me and the writing style took a bit of getting used to. Some parts I felt were written in a beautiful five-star manner and others I was wondering if it was the same author. The pacing and the plot and the politics- all very well done.

I did have one major issue with the book- Patriarchy (read misogyny). The dragons have only male warriors/guards/leaders. The two female dragons that are in the story by name are female stereotypes.
Spoiler (Someone with a calming nature unless her children are threatened and a manipulator.)
The mother is "blessed by the goddess" because she had twins. They even double down on this concept in the first chapter of the next book. The female dragons are valued because they have children.
Quotes from this book:
"women like crowns- they sparkle"
"He only wants what's best for her and she would trust that. Plus she can always refuse."
And another one I can't find, but when the prince doesn't want the necromancer to fight the necromancer complains he's being treated like a female dragon.

On top of all that it is repeatedly mentioned how the necromancer flirting, but not giving in and having sex with the prince, could cause the dragon in the prince to waken and *ahem* forcefully take sex. I lost the exact quote from the king, but after this almost happened, he says something along the lines of "I told you not to tease him." And all this was okay because the dragon is a different being from the man. They can't help it. It sometimes gets too hard to fight the dragon. Oh. My. God. It's not even a generation ago human men were using a similar excuse.

This all bothered me so much I debated not continuing the series even though I've really enjoyed this story, but I'm going to try it. Like I said, it was a good plot with interesting characters and I'm curious what she'll do with the next book.