ARC Review--The Savage Dawn by Melissa Grey

The sides have been chosen and the battle lines drawn.

Echo awakened the Firebird. Now she is the only one with the power to face the darkness she unwittingly unleashed . . . right into the waiting hands of Tanith, the new Dragon Prince. Tanith has one goal in mind: destroy her enemies, raze their lands, and reign supreme in a new era where the Drakharin are almighty and the Avicen are nothing but a memory.

The war that has been brewing for centuries is finally imminent. But the scales are tipped. Echo might hold the power to face the darkness within the Dragon Prince, but she has far to go to master its overwhelming force. And now she’s plagued by uncertainty. With Caius no longer by her side, she doesn’t know if she can do it alone. Is she strong enough to save her home and the people she loves?

Whether Echo is ready to face this evil is not the question. The war has begun, and there is no looking back. There are only two outcomes possible: triumph or death.

I received this book from the publisher for being a part of the blog tour team for an honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.

The Savage Dawn brings a conclusion to the world Melissa Grey created two years ago. Having read the first two installments of this trilogy as ARCs made it a tad difficult to dive into this one a bit later. As usual I struggled to get my memory caught up with what had happened and what needed to happen. But soon I was hooked into the story as Echo and her friends try to save the world!

Caius has been taken prisoner by his sister, the Dragon Prince, Tanith, and it’s Echo’s first mission to find and rescue him. But she will need the help of her friends and a little creative thinking! Rescuing Caius is only the first part of the mission for when they do find him, he’s nowhere near fighting ready.

I’ll admit, I had a hard time getting back into this one. Purely memory reasons. When I can’t remember what happened before, it really makes it hard to know why I need to care about the success of all the separate missions and whatnot. Obviously there’s the, Echo is our hero and she needs to win/succeed thing going on, but I like remembering the deeper reason why! Clearly my notes from before were not as detailed as I thought!

Despite that, I did still like the story! The characters were always my favorite part of this series! I mean, Echo lives in a library! How cool is that?! And she knows all these obscure words that have such fun meanings! I would never be able to remember them all like she can! I’m definitely a reader of the moment, when reading a book I could tell you what’s going on and all that, probably not be able to give you the backstory if it was the final book of a trilogy, but I’d be able to tell you what happened for the most part. Trying to remember books I’ve previously read and tell you things? Yeah, not as likely to happen! Lol.

I also still adore Dorian and Jasper! Jasper is by far the funniest of the group and I love his sense of humor! And I love how far Dorian has come. Granted, I can’t remember his character exactly from the first book, but I remember not having happy feels towards him right away! But now? Definitely an amazing guy! And of course there’s Caius! He was also incredible and strong! And I loved watching his progression as well! All of these characters do a lot of growing and it was most enjoyable to witness!

There’s a good deal of action in this one too. It’s kind of spread out. We have the planning stages, the action itself, and some after math coupled with downtime moments. It’s got a nice balance of things. There were also about three sweet romances going on as well! One was subtle, and actually, you never really know the final outcome…I mean I suppose you can infer it, but still. I like concrete answers! Lol. Naturally, the will they, won’t they romance between Caius and Echo was sweet and swoony. You can pretty much say the same thing about Dorian and Julian, except there was a little more conflict between theirs. But still, there was just the right amount of romance to this story and it was nice and subtle instead of all consuming!

The ending was exciting and shocking and I admit, I’m left a bit stunned and emotional! Like a serious range of emotions are inflicting me right now as I write this review and try to keep myself from saying things I shouldn’t! Don’t worry! I’d never spoil anything for you guys! But yeah…that ending was emotional! All kinds of emotions! And it also leaves you to wonder, what if? You have this sense, that though the series is over, there will still be more to come from this world. It’s changed quite a bit over the course of the books and I can definitely see more potential to the world itself, should Melissa not ever be completely done with it! You never know!

The Savage Dawn was a remarkable conclusion to the world of The Girl at Midnight! I am sad to say goodbye so soon, but Melissa definitely ended it at the right place. I may have more I’d like to say to that, but won’t! For obvious reasons. ;) I am definitely looking forward to more books from Melissa!

 
Overall Rating 4/5 stars

 
The Savage Dawn releases July 11, 2017