Book Review: When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker

When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker    

Written by Stacey Leerhoff

Being a librarian, sometimes people are leery of suggesting books to me. It might be because often I have already read their suggestions. It might also be that they are intimidated by suggesting reading material to someone who works in and around books all day. Whatever it is holding you back, ignore it!! We librarians love getting new reading suggestions!! After all, we can’t read and know all the books. Plus, it’s always fun to read something someone else really loved and wanted you to try. So, the other day, I was trying to purchase a book to complete a series I own and the book I was looking for was sold out. Having my mind set on getting a new book, suddenly I was at a loss as to what to read.  I asked for a suggestion. Inevitably, Darci, knowing that I like fantasy and romantasy, suggested several series that I had already read. Thinking on her feet, she found an intriguing title I had not read, “When the Moon Hatched” by Sarah A. Parker. She handed it to me saying that she’d heard from readers that if you like Sarah J. Maas, you’ll like this. Then she continued to say that she’d been wanting to try it, but looking at how thick the book is (690 pages!), she thought it was too much of a “life commitment.” After I read the back of the book and saw that it had dragons, I knew that I needed to tackle it!

 

I will say that when I sat down to read it and I opened the cover to pages of glossary, I almost put the book down. I do love fantasy, but I tend to read more young adult fantasy that isn’t quite as in depth as say a George R. R. Martin book would be. Knowing that I will probably need a glossary is daunting to say the least. So, I skipped over the glossary terms for the time being. Next, I started on the first chapter. As with most fantasy books, there is world building. The first chapter of this book does just that. It is a bit slow going and without any other context, a little hard to follow. So, after reading that a couple of times to figure things out, I finally started the first chapter! The rest of the novel is written from alternating points of view and alternating past and present time periods. This is my favorite way to read a book! Once you start reading, you get sucked in right away. Raeve, our main character, is tough as nails and works for the Fiur du Ath, or the rebellion, killing people. She has a hard exterior and a soft interior. Every day she completes a job and every night she falls asleep staring at her favorite moon. In her world, dragons sail up to the sky when they die and turn into a moon. This particular moon is a younger dragon and has a wonky ear, so it is endearing to her.

 

Raeve ultimately gets herself in trouble and thrown into prison where she is tortured and must stand a faux trial that will end in death one way or another. Kaan Vaegor, one of the rulers of the 4 kingdoms, earned his place by killing his father and donning his crown. He’s experienced great loss and is searching for moon shards. In his quest, he stumbles upon Raeve in the dungeons of Gore, a miracle come to life before his very eyes. Raeve hates Kaan as he is part of the establishment, yet when his dragon saves her from certain death, she softens a little. Raeve continues to get in and out of scrapes with Kaan.

Alternating with Raeve’s story is the story of Elluwin, a royal daughter destined to marry a Vaegor son. Her father dotes on her and doesn’t push the arranged marriage because he has already lost his son to a terrible accident. Elluwin loves her brother who is lost to them, yet still alive.

Following both timelines and stories, we, as readers, begin to put the pieces together and see the bigger picture of the story. We begin to understand, why Raeve? Why Elluwin? And why Kaan? By the time you get to page 690, you are so invested you want to keep reading no matter how many pages there are. You don’t want the story to end. The next installment comes out in October so you can binge a little, but my guess is that I will want the story to go on and on!! You can check out “When the Moon Hatched” by Sarah Parker from the library and get started today so you are ready when number two releases in October!!