Serena’s Review: “The Last Dragon of the East”

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Book: “The Last Dragon of the East” by Katrina Kwan

Publishing Info: S&S/Saga Press, October 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: At the spry young age of twenty-five, Sai has led a quiet life, keeping the family teahouse up and running—even if that means ignoring the past-due notices—and taking care of his ailing mother. But he has a not-so-secret gift that he’s parlayed into a side career: he was born with the ability see the red threads of fate between soulmates, which lends itself nicely to matchmaking. Sai has thus far been content not to follow his own thread, the only one he’s ever seen that’s gray and fraying.

But Sai’s ordinary existence is about to be turned upside-down by a pair of shining dragon scales. When his mother’s doctor sells them to him, claiming them as a miracle cure, Sai is pretty sure he’s being scammed. When the medicine actually works—and the terrifying, ruthless emperor catches wind—Sai is thrust into the search for a dragon long thought extinct that will lead him into the throes of a brewing war and deep into foreign lands, facing down challenges both magical and mortal on an unexpected adventure. And for the very first time, as his own thread of fate begins to move, he may be able to solve the mystery of his Fated One on the other end of the line.

Review: I was very interested in checking this one out when the publisher reached out about a potential review. For one thing, it’s rare that I see fantasy titles like this that are centered from the man’s perspective (I typically prefer a female POV, but some of my favorite books are from male POVs, too!). For another, I’ve read a few other stories that explored the concept of the red thread of fate, and I was curious to see how this author would tackle this topic. Plus, you know…dragons.

Overall, there was a lot to like about this one! As I’m often primarily a character reader, I’ll start with our main characters themselves. Sai was an excellent POV character, with all the charm and laughs that one could want. Yes, this did the tone of his narration did sit awkward with some of the more gruesome and gory descriptive moments. But on its own, he was a fun main character to follow. I also enjoyed the juxtaposition of his more light-hearted character type against the female love interest, Jyn’s, more stoic personality. It was a nice switch-up to the typical roles we often seen in romantic pairings like this. I perhaps wished there had been a bit more character exploration given to this character, but as the story picked up towards the latter half of the book, the character arcs took a bit of a back seat to the lore and romance anyways.

I don’t want to go into any spoilers here, but I very much enjoyed the dragon aspects of this story. I’m not sure what I really had in mind, but the story definitely took a few twists that I wasn’t expecting. Once I realized what was going on, I was definitely all in. However, again, even here I wish that the story had lingered a bit longer over this history and how it affected our characters. Much of the plot gets stuck in an escape adventure which starts to overshadow some of these details. And while exciting enough on its own, the dragon history was incredibly compelling, and I think the book would have been better served to just fully lean in on that part.

This was a fun, fast read! I think fans of adventure fantasy will definitely enjoy this, though the romance does play a prominent role (which I, for one, very much liked) towards the second half of the book. I’ll definitely look forward to whatever this author comes out with next!

Rating 8: An excellent exploration of Chines mythology and dragon lore, one that will likely appeal to many adventure fantasy fans!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Last Dragon of the East” can be found on these Goodreads lists: East Asian Fantasy and Asian Mythology Inspired Books.