After the queen of the SandWings dies with no clear heir, war has ravaged the island. Many tribes railing behind their favorite candidate, but there is no victor in sight.
Then a prophecy comes to light: five dragonets will stop the war.
The Five Dragonets of Destiny—Clay, Tsunami, Starflight, Glory, and Sunny—live in hiding under the mountains. Talon of Peace stole their eggs to fulfill the prophecy and train them. After escaping, they travel to different kingdoms on their quest to end the war.
Wings of Fire' Series Overview Video (YouTube).
Then a prophecy comes to light: five dragonets will stop the war.
The Five Dragonets of Destiny—Clay, Tsunami, Starflight, Glory, and Sunny—live in hiding under the mountains. Talon of Peace stole their eggs to fulfill the prophecy and train them. After escaping, they travel to different kingdoms on their quest to end the war.
Wings of Fire' Series Overview Video (YouTube).
Series format: chronological
The series is one long story with the same characters in each arc (and new main characters in the next arc). Each book is told from a different character’s point of view.
The series is broken into three 5-book arcs:
Books 1-5: The Dragonet Prophecy
Books 6-10: The Jade Mountain Prophecy
Books 11-15: The Lost Continent Prophecy
There are also two standalone prequel books: DarkStalker and DragonSlayer.
Each book is told from another character’s point of view:
1: The Dragonet Prophecy — Clay helps his friends escape their guardians, but end up right in the clutches of evil Queen Scarlet.
2: The Lost Heir — Hoping to find refuge from her royal mother, Tsunami leads her friends to the SeaWings.
3: The Hidden Kingdom — Traveling to her home tribe, Glory discovers dragons are going missing.
4: The Dark Secret — Kidnapped by his own tribe, Starflight is taken to the secret NightWing home where he learns the prophecy is fiction.
5: Brightest Night — Heartbroken the prophecy is a lie, Sunny decides to stop the war regardless.
Positive elements
The dragnets are loyal to each other. After stepping in to take a lethal blow instead of his friends, the dying dragonet says, “I’d die over and over to save you.”
The dragonet’s motivation to end the war is clear: to stop dragons from dying. Even when they’re mocked for being too naïve, they hold to their convictions. They value life, even when other dragons don’t.
Hope is another theme in the story. After years of endless fighting, the dragonets offer hope that peace will come.
The RainWings are a peaceful tribe who use non-lethal methods in battle. After other tribes’ carelessness attitude toward life, the RainWings are refreshing.
Character Development
Each character grows in their respective book: Tsunami needs to be less impulsive, Starflight learns bravery, etc.
At least twice, the message is undermined by stating one value but showing us the opposite:
Romance/sexual
There is an element of romance in every book with the main character. They flirt or wrap their tails together.
One character is in love with a girl who doesn’t return the feeling. She finally confesses she doesn’t love him romantically. He accepts her answer and pursues romantic relations with another girl.
The MudWing tribe has a “breeding night once a month,” so the father is unknown.
The dragonets have their own rooms while living under the mountain.
Family structure/general roles
Only females can reign as queen. Royal sons often become generals.
Both male and female soldiers compose the tribe’s armies.
Instead of being raised by their parents, MudWings grow up and are raised by their litter mates.
Tsunami comes from a nucleus family. Her married parents love and care for each other.
RainWings add their eggs to the village nursery with no record of which egg belongs to which parents. When dragonets hatch, the whole village raises them.
Sunny’s parents are from different tribes. They fell in love but never married. Due to a lost letter, both think the other abandoned them and they have lost contact. Her father had no idea he’d had a child.
Alcohol/drug use
When acting strangely, Clay wonders if Glory is drugged while they are in prisoned. A flirting dragon asks a girl if he can buy her a drink at a tavern. The RainWings use blowguns with knock-out darts. Someone drugs a guard to steal.
Violence
There is a lot of graphic violence in the first two books:
Dragons are beheaded or have their skulls crushed. Necks are broke and an egg with a baby dragon is shatter. A dragon can burn others to death by simply touching them. A dragon fighting her resigns himself to his fate and embraces her, burning himself to death. A human has his head bitten off. A dragon shoots flesh-melting venom from her fangs, killing or disfiguring enemies. A dragon’s throat is slit and she tries to scream, but only “dark blood bubbles out” of her mouth. The dragonets come across the ruins of a battle with many disfigured and mangled bodies. As a punishment, a dragon has her teeth pulled out. Graphic descriptions are often used as shock value to show the horrors of war, but it seems a bit much for a book series marketed to 3rd graders.
After the first two books, the graphics are toned down, but there is still violence: A dragon falls into lava and burns to death. A character finds two dead guards with their throats slit. Fire-breathing dragons burn up a unit of soldiers. A volcano explodes, killing and injuring many. A dragon stabs her stinger through an attacker’s heart. A dragon explodes after stealing a magical object.
Religious/spiritual elements
Each tribe has their own special abilities, and the NightWings can see into the future and read minds. We don’t know the source of the prophecy, but there is a sense of “destiny” surrounding the prophesied dragonets.
In the 4th book, we learn the prophecy is a lie. The NightWings lost their future and mind reading powers generations ago and the false prophecy for political power. Sunny decides she will end the war and fulfill the prophecy regardless.
(In the next arc, we learn NightWings do have powers if they hatch under the right conditions).
Magic
Some dragons are born with the ability to use magic. This includes saying or thinking a command to an object. The cost for such magic is losing part of your soul.
We meet two animus: One is pressured to use her magic to kill rivals, but doesn’t want to. The other builds teleporting tunnels between the tribes. Instead of using his soul to fuel his magic, he used his body. He now lives in a cave as he slowly turns to stone.
We also encounter animus-touched objects:
-dream visitor (able to talk to something while they are sleeping.)
-seer stone (listen to someone’s conversation.)
Language
The phrase “by the moons!” or “three moons!” is used. “Gosh,” also appears.
One of the guardians use insults as motivation during training: “Lazy RainWing, stupid MudWing,” etc.
Other negative elements
Although the Talons of Peace are supposed to be the ‘good guys,’ none of them are likable. One threatens to kill and replace the dragonets if they don’t cooperate. They try to kill Glory several times, including sending an assassin after her.
In the 1st book, the dragonets are put in gladiator-style arena and forced to fight. When a prisoner refuses to fight, he is deprived water until he goes insane. One of the dragonets unknowingly kills her father while fighting. When she learns his identity, she is horrified.
If a princess wants the throne, she must win a fight-to-the-death contest with the queen. During a challenge, the queen kills her own daughter in the combat.
One of the tribes has been kidnapping and experimenting on dragons.
When humans appear, they are often snack-ables or kept as pets.
Betrayal and deception appear throughout the story. Spies have infiltrated every group. The dragonets struggle with whom to trust.
Writing quality
Sutherlands wastes no times launching us into the story. The stakes are high and the challenges huge. Her characterize is top-notch. The plot and descriptions are engaging. She’s not afraid to pull her punches, which I respect.
But the ending was weak. We’ve been waiting for five books for the war to end, and the solution felt unearned. Oh look, a helpful human and a magical object we could use to fix everything! NO! We’ve spent five books working up to this—I need sweat and tears for this solution!
Final thoughts
Although the line writing is excellent and I enjoyed the characters, it’s hard to love a series with a lame ending. I’m probably not going to re-read the series anytime soon (I did enjoy the next arc better).
The series is one long story with the same characters in each arc (and new main characters in the next arc). Each book is told from a different character’s point of view.
The series is broken into three 5-book arcs:
Books 1-5: The Dragonet Prophecy
Books 6-10: The Jade Mountain Prophecy
Books 11-15: The Lost Continent Prophecy
There are also two standalone prequel books: DarkStalker and DragonSlayer.
Each book is told from another character’s point of view:
1: The Dragonet Prophecy — Clay helps his friends escape their guardians, but end up right in the clutches of evil Queen Scarlet.
2: The Lost Heir — Hoping to find refuge from her royal mother, Tsunami leads her friends to the SeaWings.
3: The Hidden Kingdom — Traveling to her home tribe, Glory discovers dragons are going missing.
4: The Dark Secret — Kidnapped by his own tribe, Starflight is taken to the secret NightWing home where he learns the prophecy is fiction.
5: Brightest Night — Heartbroken the prophecy is a lie, Sunny decides to stop the war regardless.
Positive elements
The dragnets are loyal to each other. After stepping in to take a lethal blow instead of his friends, the dying dragonet says, “I’d die over and over to save you.”
The dragonet’s motivation to end the war is clear: to stop dragons from dying. Even when they’re mocked for being too naïve, they hold to their convictions. They value life, even when other dragons don’t.
Hope is another theme in the story. After years of endless fighting, the dragonets offer hope that peace will come.
The RainWings are a peaceful tribe who use non-lethal methods in battle. After other tribes’ carelessness attitude toward life, the RainWings are refreshing.
Character Development
Each character grows in their respective book: Tsunami needs to be less impulsive, Starflight learns bravery, etc.
At least twice, the message is undermined by stating one value but showing us the opposite:
- After being told he was born a killer, Clay wants to choose his own identity. He encourages another dragon to do the same. He later discovers he wasn’t born a killer but has been a caring dragon since he hatched. While he’s relieved, it undermines the ‘choose your own identity’ message.
- Starflight needs to learn bravery. He finally musters up courage during the climax and becomes blind as a result. I found it an odd choice to punish him for his bravery if that’s the lesson he’s supposed to learn.
Romance/sexual
There is an element of romance in every book with the main character. They flirt or wrap their tails together.
One character is in love with a girl who doesn’t return the feeling. She finally confesses she doesn’t love him romantically. He accepts her answer and pursues romantic relations with another girl.
The MudWing tribe has a “breeding night once a month,” so the father is unknown.
The dragonets have their own rooms while living under the mountain.
Family structure/general roles
Only females can reign as queen. Royal sons often become generals.
Both male and female soldiers compose the tribe’s armies.
Instead of being raised by their parents, MudWings grow up and are raised by their litter mates.
Tsunami comes from a nucleus family. Her married parents love and care for each other.
RainWings add their eggs to the village nursery with no record of which egg belongs to which parents. When dragonets hatch, the whole village raises them.
Sunny’s parents are from different tribes. They fell in love but never married. Due to a lost letter, both think the other abandoned them and they have lost contact. Her father had no idea he’d had a child.
Alcohol/drug use
When acting strangely, Clay wonders if Glory is drugged while they are in prisoned. A flirting dragon asks a girl if he can buy her a drink at a tavern. The RainWings use blowguns with knock-out darts. Someone drugs a guard to steal.
Violence
There is a lot of graphic violence in the first two books:
Dragons are beheaded or have their skulls crushed. Necks are broke and an egg with a baby dragon is shatter. A dragon can burn others to death by simply touching them. A dragon fighting her resigns himself to his fate and embraces her, burning himself to death. A human has his head bitten off. A dragon shoots flesh-melting venom from her fangs, killing or disfiguring enemies. A dragon’s throat is slit and she tries to scream, but only “dark blood bubbles out” of her mouth. The dragonets come across the ruins of a battle with many disfigured and mangled bodies. As a punishment, a dragon has her teeth pulled out. Graphic descriptions are often used as shock value to show the horrors of war, but it seems a bit much for a book series marketed to 3rd graders.
After the first two books, the graphics are toned down, but there is still violence: A dragon falls into lava and burns to death. A character finds two dead guards with their throats slit. Fire-breathing dragons burn up a unit of soldiers. A volcano explodes, killing and injuring many. A dragon stabs her stinger through an attacker’s heart. A dragon explodes after stealing a magical object.
Religious/spiritual elements
Each tribe has their own special abilities, and the NightWings can see into the future and read minds. We don’t know the source of the prophecy, but there is a sense of “destiny” surrounding the prophesied dragonets.
In the 4th book, we learn the prophecy is a lie. The NightWings lost their future and mind reading powers generations ago and the false prophecy for political power. Sunny decides she will end the war and fulfill the prophecy regardless.
(In the next arc, we learn NightWings do have powers if they hatch under the right conditions).
Magic
Some dragons are born with the ability to use magic. This includes saying or thinking a command to an object. The cost for such magic is losing part of your soul.
We meet two animus: One is pressured to use her magic to kill rivals, but doesn’t want to. The other builds teleporting tunnels between the tribes. Instead of using his soul to fuel his magic, he used his body. He now lives in a cave as he slowly turns to stone.
We also encounter animus-touched objects:
-dream visitor (able to talk to something while they are sleeping.)
-seer stone (listen to someone’s conversation.)
Language
The phrase “by the moons!” or “three moons!” is used. “Gosh,” also appears.
One of the guardians use insults as motivation during training: “Lazy RainWing, stupid MudWing,” etc.
Other negative elements
Although the Talons of Peace are supposed to be the ‘good guys,’ none of them are likable. One threatens to kill and replace the dragonets if they don’t cooperate. They try to kill Glory several times, including sending an assassin after her.
In the 1st book, the dragonets are put in gladiator-style arena and forced to fight. When a prisoner refuses to fight, he is deprived water until he goes insane. One of the dragonets unknowingly kills her father while fighting. When she learns his identity, she is horrified.
If a princess wants the throne, she must win a fight-to-the-death contest with the queen. During a challenge, the queen kills her own daughter in the combat.
One of the tribes has been kidnapping and experimenting on dragons.
When humans appear, they are often snack-ables or kept as pets.
Betrayal and deception appear throughout the story. Spies have infiltrated every group. The dragonets struggle with whom to trust.
Writing quality
Sutherlands wastes no times launching us into the story. The stakes are high and the challenges huge. Her characterize is top-notch. The plot and descriptions are engaging. She’s not afraid to pull her punches, which I respect.
But the ending was weak. We’ve been waiting for five books for the war to end, and the solution felt unearned. Oh look, a helpful human and a magical object we could use to fix everything! NO! We’ve spent five books working up to this—I need sweat and tears for this solution!
Final thoughts
Although the line writing is excellent and I enjoyed the characters, it’s hard to love a series with a lame ending. I’m probably not going to re-read the series anytime soon (I did enjoy the next arc better).
