Review: The Savage Dawn

The Savage Dawn
Rating: 4.5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

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 have been waiting for this book with baited breath, like I've loved this trilogy ever since I read the first page of the first book. I knew I was going to love it and it blew me away. I was so not ready to start reading this and for it to all be over and while the ending made me really sad, I'm actually really pleased with how it all turned out. 

The prologue is nice and creepy, and it sucks you straight back in to the story like you've never been away. The writing is as vivid as ever, and I could once again picture each of the settings clearly and feel the atmosphere in each setting and scene. This book really pulls you in so you feel like you're there with the characters. 

I've missed our little group, so I was overjoyed to see them again. It was really nice to see Echo and Rowan bantering again, and I will forever and always love Echo's narrative voice. She cracks me up with her snark and she's just such a brilliant character. She goes through a lot in this book, and deals with things from the previous book and I just feel like she's such a strong and relatable character. I also love how Echo's personality has been consistent throughout the trilogy, with her love for words and the words she throws in to her narrative and explains for you, that always fit the situation perfectly. It's always been a nice, original touch, and I love seeing what word we'll get next. I'm going to miss it, it's widened my vocabulary a bit! 

Caius. My poor baby Caius. He might be broken and beaten at the beginning of this book, but he still has his sass. Which is why he's one of my favourite characters ever, he's come so far over the course of the books and he was just so brilliant in this book. Plus, ya know, he gets his Daenerys Targaryen on in this book and I was living for it! I was kinda hoping to see him do it a bit more but there where other things going on. 

Jasper and Dorian....I ship them so hard and this is the book when it all comes together. Like all of my ships where sailing you guys. All of them. One sank though but more on that later. Back to Jorian. Jasper is one of the most hilarious characters in the book, he provides plenty of laughs to get you through the dire situations, and I've loved getting to know him. I was looking for a bit more of a thing between he and Quinn when he popped up though. As for Dorian.....poor old Dorian. Poor old, outnumbered and overruled Dorian. He really has it tough this book. His bromance with Caius gives me life though and they really hit me with the feels stick in this one! You know you're best buddies when you just accept your BFF starting a civil war with nary an eyebrow raise. Dorian's another character that's come so far throughout the trilogy, and he gets in touch with his feelings this book and we get to see another side to him, which was nice! 

I have a new ship, just in time for the trilogy end you guys! Helios and Ivy. They're so cute. I was liking Helios more and more throughout the book. He reacts with the same confusion I do when faced with the Starbucks drink menu. He had to let me down though didn't he. Damn him. Ivy's become a much stronger character over the books, and you can really see that in this book. Her friendship with Dorian and how far the pair of them has come really choked me up! 

I just really love our little ragtag group okay. Their interactions and banter are brilliant, and there's some nice nuances to their relationships that you notice as you read. They've been such an interesting group of characters, and I'm going to miss them a lot! 

As usual with this trilogy, we go on quite the adventure in this book! We get to visit one of my favourite places in the entire world, that I would kill to get to go to....Egypt! Plus there's a haunted ruin, and a remote Avicen settlement in the jungle among other places, and as I said, I could really picture these settings clearly and each one gave off it's own atmosphere that come through the page. 

It may be the final book, but we still get to know some more about the Drakharin as well, which I loved because I've been so curious about them and I still want to know more! Melissa has done a brilliant job with building the world up and pulling you in to it! I genuinely wish it was all real! Minus Tanith and her little drama. 

Along with all of the serious, emotional bits and pieces throughout the narrative and plot, we also get the usual dose of humour and I really feel like this book has outdone itself. There where so many lines that had me cackling away, my favourite? "That's Bowser and Caius is Princess Peach" the visual was just too much for me, I'm sorry! 

Now. It was all going fine. The plot was progressing. My ships where all sailing. I was laughing away at all the funny lines. I was getting the warm and fuzzies left, right and centre. It was all good. Then the ending of the book happened.  I should have known really, that it wouldn't last because you know...finale. But Melissa ruthlessly ripped my heart right out of my chest, and danced on it. I was hopeful right up until the last page. I don't know if I'll ever recover to be honest. 

The Savage Dawn is fast paced and a brilliant mix of action, adventure and romance. The plot speeds you along, populated with memorable characters, and you reach a point where you're on the edge of your seat and unable to put the book down, like it's glued to your hand. I only meant to read about half of this and the next thing I knew it was 3am and I'd finished. 

I can't say I loved the ending, because you know...it ripped my heart out and destroyed me. But everything was wrapped up nicely and came to a solid resolution. I mean the character causing me so much pain is definitely dead so there's not even any hope to cling to and drive me mad, which is probably best at this stage, I do hate ambiguous endings because I just want to know. My one little niggle is that there where a couple of things that I felt where left unresolved or as a loose thread, like one of my ships among other things, but I'm unsure if it was done on purpose or not....like...my heart is saying "spin off trilogy" my brain is saying "don't be stupid". Then again I was emotionally traumatised at the time so I might have missed something. We'll see! Either way this is one of my favourite trilogies!