Blood of Dragons (Rain Wilds Chronicles 4) - Robin Hobb

⭐ 9/10

The last book in this set, and easily my favourite, probably because the most happens. The previous 3 books have all been pretty slow without a huge payoff because they were leading up to this, and I found this conclusion very satisfying.  I wouldn't say there were any huge surprises, but as I say in every review of Hobb's work I love this world and the characters who occupy it. This was the book that had me thinking about how rewarding a re-read would be, since the lore is is deep now as characters discover past secrets that I'm sure early books would hint at, but maybe in 20 years.

The fantasy themes in this series (and world) are pretty typical, but quite effective.  The interesting wrinkle in this series has been humans kind of realizing they are no longer the dominant species, and how different groups react to that. There is one character that is so obsessed with preserving the past, while younger characters barge forward into it with abandon, and I found the dynamic of that in this book to be interesting, especially because of the way this book uses the past.

As always, hard to talk about plot since we are deep in the weeds here, but the ending was explosive and has me excited for the next book, which is the first in the final trilogy of this world!  The end is in sight, and I will be sad to see the end - I started the first series the day I got my first covid vaccine. I have been savouring every book, and although this series was maybe the worst of the 4 I have read it has some memorable characters I hope I get to hear from again.