The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan tells the story of Sai, a young man working at his family’s tea shop and taking care of his ailing mother. He was also born with the unusual ability to see the red threads, which tie each person to their Fated One, their soulmate. So he makes that a side business, playing matchmaker. Then, one day Sai unexpectedly gets hold of dragon scales from a local doctor, though, a supposedly magical treatment. To his shock, it works, and his mother’s health improves. But the dragon scales bring down scrutiny from the emperor himself, and Sai is ripped from home, tasked with finding the dragon for his ruler. But this quest takes him far from home, skirting a brewing war and dodging dangerous creatures he’d once thought were mythical. The closer he gets to the dragon, though, the stronger his own previously fading red thread seems to be pulling him forward.

Firstly, this book has a quite nice writing style. Something about it feels like the old school storytelling, the mythic epics from the past. Maybe it’s also the vivid settings that contribute to this too, but either way, it was easy to get swept away by the story.

Sai is a good protagonist, the familiar fish out of water type who discovers his own strength over time. I also liked the other main character Jyn, and the complex relationship the two have. I think some of the elements could have been handled differently, though; I wanted to explore the past a bit more than we did in the few flashbacks. Jyn is a long-lived being, and I feel like we didn’t quite get a sense of the scope of her experience and how living so long can affect a person. Then again, the story is from Sai’s perspective, and he’s a mere man of twenty-five, so it kind of makes sense that he couldn’t quite comprehend such a thing. But still.

Besides that, there are some action scenes and intense moments that keep this story moving along at a decent pace. This story takes place in a setting inspired by the history of China, and not during peacetime, which makes for a dark yet compelling land. Plus, dragons make everything better. And the ways that mythology and folklore are interwoven into the story is so cool.

However, I kind of have mixed feelings about how the story ended. On the one hand, I was invested in the relationship and can see clearly what Kwan was going for… but on the other hand, part of the situation ended up reminding me of something that happened in, of all things, Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. Apparently, I’ve never gotten over that particular book. Shudder.

Anyway, in the end, The Last Dragon of the East is a character-driven, mythology-steeped story of love and loss, of power and sacrifice. The setting is excellent, and the bond between Sai and Jyn is complicated without being frustrating. The action is engaging and the emotions are palpable. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with everything, but this was still worth reading! And the audiobook version, narrated by Eric Yang and Feodor Chin, was a great way to experience the story.

The Last Dragon of the East is available now!