The O.W.L.: Blog Tour: Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman REVIEW +GIVEAWAY

I'm very excited to be participating in the blog tour for Shadow Scaled by Rachel Hartman.
This is the sequel to Seraphina.

About the Book

In her Morris Award-winning and New York Times bestselling debut, Rachel Hartman took our breath away with an utterly original alternative-medieval world full of dragons, Seraphina. This novel took the literary world by storm with 8 starred reviews and appeared on numerous “Best of” the year lists. Now Random House Children’s Books is proud to announce the release of SHADOW SCALE. At last, Rachel’s eagerly awaited sequel has arrived—with an epic battle between humans and dragons.

The kingdom of Goredd: a world where humans and dragons share life with an uneasy balance, and those few who are both human and dragon must hide the truth. Seraphina is one of these, part girl, part dragon, who is reluctantly drawn into the politics of her world. When war breaks out between the dragons and humans, she must travel the lands to find those like herself—for she has an inexplicable connection to all of them, and together
they will be able to fight the dragons in powerful, magical ways.

As Seraphina gathers this motley crew, she is pursued by humans who want to stop her. But the most terrifying is another half dragon, who can creep into people’s minds and take them over. Until now, Seraphina has kept her mind safe from intruders, but that also means she’s held back her own gift. It is time to make a choice: Cling to the safety of her old life, or embrace a powerful new destiny?

About Rachel

As a child, Rachel Harman played cello, lip-synched Mozart operas with her sisters, and fostered the deep love of music that inspired much of her award-winning debut novel, Seraphina. Born in Kentucky, Rachel has lived in Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, England, and Japan. She now lives with her family in Vancouver, Canada.

To learn more, please visit RachelHartmanBooks.com and follow her on Twitter @_rachelhartman.

(well actually my daughter's)

I agreed to be a part of the blog tour when Random House Children's Books asked because of my daughter. She loved Seraphina, and after reading it she got several of her friends to read it as well. So I knew if I asked her to read it and give me her thoughts she would jump at the chance. So this review is her thoughts.

To put it in the simplest words - she loved it. But I guess I should expand on that a bit. First she talked about the world building. My daughter is an avid reader, so she knows when world building is good and when it's lacking. She thought the world Rachel Hartman created was perfect. She talked about how detailed it was. There is a small village, and she that it was really cool how detailed the world of that village was.

Next she said what she really liked was that there was romance in it BUT (and she is not a romance girl) she was really happy that is was just a part of the story not the whole story. That's a huge plus for her. It was there, but it didn't take over the story.

Then I bugged her about the actual story - how did it compare to the first book, how did the story progress? She said was just as good as the first book if not a little bit better. She thought this because the first book had to have a lot of background building where this one didn't need as much since you knew it already and the story could just happen.

Lastly I asked her about the ending and how she felt about it. She said the ending was good, and that she thinks there isn't another one. I asked why and she said because there was an epilogue and usually that means it's over. She found the ending satisfying - of course there were things she had questions about or would've liked different, but she understood why it was the way it was.

Over-all she really liked the book!