Every book is a gift, in a sense. Most have something to offer its readers, whether it’s purely entertainment, information or morals. It’s fitting then, that the last review of the blog is Scott Reintgen’s Devious Prey, a gift given to Wingspan by Simon & Schuster.
The Grand Gesture airship seems to be the most normal, boring airship possible. The airship was led by a captain who wasn’t quite organized enough, and confirmed just 15 passengers. It seemed like the perfect freighter for Pearl Trask and her aunt, Hathaway Trask (Aunt Hath) and the magical, dangerous cargo they smuggled onboard. All of that changes once Marken Burke boards, surrounded by guards, on his way to a trial for a crime he didn’t commit. One of these guards is a warden: someone who gained the ability to nullify magic for the sacrifice of their non-dominant hand. For Pearl, it quickly becomes clear why a warden would be on board: Marken Burke is a wizard. A dangerous and powerful one, it seemed.
But then the windmaster, who kept the airship on track, dies. The airship crashes, taking its passengers onto a deserted island and freeing the dragoness that had been contained in the crate Pearl and her Aunt Hath had smuggled onboard. Worse, the dragoness almost immediately makes the judgement that the only way humans can give back to the earth is by returning to it in death. It becomes her mission to hunt every last passenger down and return them to the earth.
The passengers are constantly in danger. Between fighting with each other and protecting themselves from the dragoness, there’s little time to craft a proper, strong relationship. It leads to a lack of chemistry between the two main characters. In some parts of the book, it felt more like they were observing each other than interacting with each other—a point only emphasized by the alternating perspectives of the novel. However, on their own, the characters were well-developed with histories and secrets that made them feel unique and individual.
In terms of pacing, the book sped up as it progressed closer to the climax, but the end of the book felt almost dragged out, as if setting up for a second half that doesn’t—yet—exist. The secrets that Pearl carried that Marken repeatedly mentioned sensing added to the intrigue, but Reintgen added in multiple indicators as to what Pearl’s secrets were and the twists weren’t the most unpredictable, as a result.
On the other hand, world-building was the novel’s biggest strength. The magical system of the Ten Tides was imaginative, well-explained. No magic could be done without some kind of sacrifice, requiring wizards to choose an ecosystem to ‘anchor’ to. The ‘null glove’ magic that blocked Marken from his magic was just as well-explained, and the book’s anchoring system made it a process that was easy to picture and understand.
Full of conflict, complex, flawed characters and magic that makes sense, Devious Prey may be the perfect next read for readers looking for a richly-imagined world of dragons, magic and survivorship.
