Caramel reviews Darkness of Dragons (Book Ten of the Wings of Fire series) by Tui Sutherland

Today Caramel reviews the tenth book of Tui Sutherland’s Wings of Fire series: Darkness of Dragons. As usual Sprinkles is taking notes and asking followup questions. 

Before reading this review you might wish to check out Caramel’s reviews of the graphic novel versions of the first five books (The Dragonet Prophecy,  The Lost Heir,  The Hidden Kingdom, The Dark Secret, and The Brightest Night), as well as his review of the very first book (The Dragonet Prophecy, the sixth book (Moon Rising), the seventh (Winter Turning), the eighth (Escaping Peril), and the ninth (Talons of Power).

Sprinkles: So this is Book Ten, the end of the second story arc, right?

Caramel: Yes, book ten, ending the Jade Mountain Prophecy arc …

Sprinkles: … yes, you recited that prophecy to us when you were reviewing Moon Rising.

C: Yes. But can I recite it again?

S: Sure.

C: Oka, here goes:

Beware the darkness of dragons,
Beware the stalker of dreams,
Beware the talons of power and fire,
Beware one who is not what she seems.

Something is coming to shake the earth,
Something is coming to scorch the ground.
Jade Mountain will fall beneath thunder and ice
Unless the lost city of night can be found.

S: Yes, I remember that! And the darkness of dragons is mentioned in the prophecy and is the title of this tenth book!

C: Yes, because you finally learn about the darkness of dragons completely. It’s all about Darkstalker. But the main hero is Quibli this time, and you might remember him as my favorite character of all of them.

S: You mentioned Darkstalker in the previous reviews. He was an evil dragon but most other dragons did not suspect him somehow.

C: Yes, because he enchanted everyone to like him. But remember Turtle from the ninth book (Talons of Power)? He was not enchanted because he hid himself. And he created these earrings that could remove all spells and make you immune to new spells from Darkstalker.

S: Wait, and somehow Quibli gets these earrings?

C: Well, Quibli asks Turtle and Turtle enchants his earrings. And then Quibli can see through Darkstalker’s evil plans. And Turtle had made a bowl that doubled things, so Quibli replicates his enchanted earrings and passes them on to others so they too know about Darkstalker’s evil plans.

S: Oh, so is that how they will overcome the evil dragon?

C: Well, not quite. They have to do more because Darkstalker is really powerful. But they do something great to defeat him: they —

S: Wait, stop there! I think you are getting too far into spoiler territory!

C: Okay, okay, I will not give away how they finish the whole series, but everyone knows they do, because with the eleventh book a new prophecy comes up.

S: That is true. And you already have read the eleventh book!

C: Yes. But actually one of the characters from that book, Luna, already shows up in this book, and so we begin to see that the next story will be about the lost continent.

S: I see.

S: So let us pull back a bit, and think about these two story arcs, the dragonet prophecy and the jade mountain prophecy.

C: I kind of wanted the order of the stories to match. Like the first book of the first prophecy was about Clay, who is a MudWing, so I thought it would be nice to have the sixth book be about another MudWing. Each of the first five books is about one of the dragon tribes. But the second five are not about the same five tribes. Winter is an IceWing, Moon is a NightWing, Peril is a SkyWing, Turtle is a SeaWing, and Quibli is a SandWing.

S: Wait, I’m confused. I thought there were only five tribes!

C: No, there are seven: MudWing (Clay from The Dragonet Prophecy), SeaWing (Tsunami from The Lost Heir and Turtle from Talons of Power), RainWing (Glory from The Hidden Kingdom), IceWing (Winter from Winter Turning), NightWing (Starflight from The Dark Secret and Moonwatcher from Moon Rising), SkyWing (Peril from Escaping Peril), SandWing (Suunny from The Brightest Night and Quibli from this tenth book).

S: Hmm, that is interesting. I can see how you might have expected some kind of pattern to emerge but also since there are seven races, it is hard to fit that into ten books only. Maybe by the fourteenth book we will have two of each?

C: No, because remember I already read the eleventh book? And that one was about Blue who is a SilkWing.

S: Oh, that is true! There will be new tribes from the new continent! Okay, maybe then we won’t get every tribe doubled up. Oh well. I think you are still very much enjoying the series so far.

C: Yes. And I am quite ready to dive into the next five books. I already reviewed The Lost Continent but I might like to read it again before starting the twelfth book.

S: Yes, that makes sense. Maybe knowing about the whole collection of ten will allow you to get even more out of the eleventh book this time. So let us wrap things up. What do you want to tell our readers?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny book reviews!