Review--The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli

 

In the beginning, there was the Namsara: the child of sky and spirit, who carried love and laughter wherever he went. But where there is light, there must be darkness—and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death-bringer.

These are the legends that Asha, daughter of the king of Firgaard, has grown up learning in hushed whispers, drawn to the forbidden figures of the past. But it isn’t until she becomes the fiercest, most feared dragon slayer in the land that she takes on the role of the next Iskari—a lonely destiny that leaves her feeling more like a weapon than a girl.

Asha conquers each dragon and brings its head to the king, but no kill can free her from the shackles that await at home: her betrothal to the cruel commandant, a man who holds the truth about her nature in his palm. When she’s offered the chance to gain her freedom in exchange for the life of the most powerful dragon in Firgaard, she finds that there may be more truth to the ancient stories than she ever could have expected. With the help of a secret friend—a slave boy from her betrothed’s household—Asha must shed the layers of her Iskari bondage and open her heart to love, light, and a truth that has been kept from her.

I'm diving deep into my TBR pile now! I finally picked up Kristen Ciccarelli's The Last Namsara and I can honestly say I was not fully prepared for this wild fantasy read! Dragons galore, rich mythology galore, and a plot that was a slow burn that had me eating up the pages!

Asha is the king's dragon slayer and his daughter. She slays the dragons to protect the people. But when the arranged marriage her father made for looms closer, she would do anything to get out of it. Her betrothed is not a great man, Jarek, and brings to mind of Disney's Jafar in his sleaziness. Her father then tells Asha if she kills Kazo, a great and powerful dragon...the dragon who left her scarred many years ago and thus made her into the dragon killer, then she could be free of the marriage obligation. So Asha sets out to kill a powerful and mighty dragon.

Certain events lead Asha to be working with one of Jarek's slaves, Torwin. Interaction with the slaves is strictly forbidden, mainly on the slaves' end as there are certain things that must never happen between a slave and someone of Asha's standing. But naturally, we all know where things are about to head, but that takes awhile to develop anyway.

Meanwhile, Asha is being plagued with dreams, very foretelling dreams that may not quite be dreams at all in which her gods are giving her tasks to do. There are things she must do in her quest to fulfill her father's bargain and to finally gain her personal freedom.

This book, wow, this book was pretty amazing! I'll admit there was a bit of a slow start as I tried to acclimate myself to this new fantasy world with new rules and terms and a history that we get glimpses of. Every few chapters we would get an excerpt like interlude that told a backstory of something that was vaguely touched upon or we got a mythology type lesson. These were incredibly helpful and shed some much needed light onto things. I was honestly a bit sad when they stopped roughly before the halfway point, but I guess by then we had gotten all the backstory we needed.

That being said, I do wish there could have been a glossary in back for some of the terms that got tossed around when it came to social standings. There were names for Asha's position, the term for the slaves, and then there were other groups involved as well from other kingdoms...now that I think of that, a map would've been wonderful too! Lol. When it comes to unique fantasy worlds like these, I feel like I need a better picture to be able to get a grasp on the terms and peoples within. Their lack of appearance didn't really deter my enjoyment, but it did sometimes make it a bit confusing to grasp who was who and who might be an enemy or ally. So that kind of thing!

As far as the romance goes, I found it to be very sweet. It's definitely on the lighter side of things which nowadays feels surprising for a YA novel. Although this was out in 2017, so yeah, I am way late to the game, as always! But honestly, sometimes it's a little refreshing for the romance to be the sort of sweet, closed door kind of romance. But there weren't really any doors in this one for them to be closed in the first place! Lol. It was definitely a slow burn of a romance too in that it took time for feelings to be met on both sides. There were still plenty of intense or heated moments in between though to liven things up!

And I will also loosely mention that this is the first book of 2025 and the first book in a good long way that had made me full on cry like a baby! It was not a happy cry either and while I may have made a mention of it on Threads, I won't spoil things here, but keep some tissues handy in this one. I honestly do not remember the last time I cried this hard at a book! So be forewarned in that.

The secrets to this one were also just amazing! I was not prepared for the startling revelations that this story would unfold! Not prepared at all but I thought their execution was spot on! I cannot wait to see how the rest of this trilogy will turn out! 

If you're looking for your next dragon read this is one you will want to take a look at! It's different by far from some other series that I won't mention--mainly because I am behind in that one too, lol--but really, who could pass up any book involving dragons these days or any day? The Last Namsara is a fiery worthy read for sure!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars