This books starts a new series in Elven Alliance world. Essie and Farrendel’s son Fieran is the center of this new series. He’s around 21 now (comparatively in Elf years), and decides to enlist in the flying corps. Everyone knows there’s a war coming, and he figures this is the best way to help out, away from the shadow of his parents.
We also meet Pip, half elf, half dwarf, who’s a talented mechanic. She joins the mechanics corps associated with the flying corps to see a little bit more of the world, and also to help out. Obviously, this is going to be a love story, but like the last series, the author isn’t afraid to keep things slow.
We actually do get the opening salvos of the war at the end of this book, and I definitely appreciated how much in depth the author got into how terrible the battle was. This is a still a fairly light book (I’d have no problem letting my ten year old niece read it), but I really feel like the author has tried to keep it as honest to real life as possible.
We’ve also gone steam punk for this series, which is kind of fun. Fortunately, she hasn’t played that up too much – I get irrationally annoyed by overwrought steam punk (see my love hate relationship with Gail Carriger), but this story didn’t press my buttons.