Book Dragon Banter

Book Club: The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan

• Zinzi Brookbree • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Book Dragon Banter: Exploring 'The Last Dragon of the East' by Katrina Kwan

The hosts welcome listeners and dive into 'The Last Dragon of the East' by Katrina Kwan. They introduce the Vancouver-based author, discuss the book's elements of fantasy, romance, and adventure, and touch on Kwan's extensive background as a romance ghostwriter. The episode includes spoiler-free recommendations, highlights about the book's darker themes, and a detailed analysis encompassing character development, plot twists, and world-building. The hosts also share their predictions, reactions to significant plot points, and thoughts on the romance and reincarnation aspects of the story.


The Author:

https://katrinakwan.com/


Our links:

Sage: https://readorbleed.substack.com/

Katherine: https://www.bookdragoneditorial.com/

Zinzi Bree: Zinzi@bookdragonbanter.com 


https://bookdragonbanter.buzzsprout.com/

YT: https://www.youtube.com/@BookDragonBanterpodcast

TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@bookdragonbanterpod

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/bookdragonbanter/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/bookdragonbanter 


00:00 Introduction to Book Dragon Banter Podcast

00:15 Author Spotlight: Katrina Kwan

01:49 Spoiler-Free Recommendations

03:33 Diving into Spoilers: Detailed Analysis

04:47 World Building and Cultural Elements

16:54 Magic System and Reincarnation

27:17 Character Dynamics and Relationships

31:27 Plot Twists and Marketing Surprises

32:46 Fated Mates and Insta Love

34:10 Reincarnation and Choices

37:54 The Red Dragon Revelation

41:18 Character Development and Emotional Depth

45:13 Villain's Manipulation and Mythology

47:14 Timeline and Story Structure

54:47 Final Thoughts and Bloopers



Get in touch with us!

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Welcome everyone to our first book club episode. This

Zinzi Bree:

is Book Dragon Banter podcast. Welcome back listeners. We're so glad you're here.

Sage:

Today we are going to be talking about this book, the Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan. It is her debut novel and it's a lovely fantasy, romance, adventure.

Zinzi Bree:

Katrina Kwan is a Vancouver based fantasy and contemporary romance author with six years of experience as a romance ghost writer. She's very excited to finally be writing stories under her own name. Her books have been translated up to five languages. And guys, when I was reading, I went through a couple of the articles, and interviews that she's done, and she's got an estimated like 150 ghost written books under her belt.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Wow.

Sage:

Wow, that's a lot

Zinzi Bree:

which is,

Sage:

write in six or seven years.

Zinzi Bree:

One of her articles does an interview in there talking about the process, and the turnaround for those books where she has to write, it's like 20,000 words a week and

Sage:

Wow.

Zinzi Bree:

it, to keep up with the deadlines, and total side digression. But I'm really curious now with generative AI has that decimated the ghost writing industry? Sorry, thought for a future discussion, but that was just something that I found really interesting when I was doing my homework. If someone wants to know what she's working on and what's coming up next, she's got a new story that's like a nine tailed fox going to the nine hells and escaping with, the bounty hunter who sent her there as the plot of the next story that she's working on. So I'm really excited for that, because I enjoyed this one. Enough to be excited for whatever she writes next. All right, spoiler free recommendations. I really enjoyed this. I would recommend it not necessarily for the cozy fantasy crowd. I know it gives, in the marketing for it definitely made it sound like it was gonna be cozier than it turned out to be. But inside this, there is an author's note. That the last dragon of the East is a fantasy intended for adult readers."While it is a hopeful tale of love and devotion, the journey on which our characters will embark is one steeped in war, violence, and death. Readers who may be sensitive to more mature themes of self-harm, suicidal thought and torture are encouraged to take heed and now set forth and find your fated one." But that author's note was not in the audio book because I did a tandem read. I listened and read so I could tab and find stuff. But the audio book did not have that warning, so I was glad to see it in here because there's some darker stuff in this that I was not expecting.

Sage:

I totally missed that author's note, which is why I was gonna say that it was more violent than I had expected.

Zinzi Bree:

I would say if you like Legends and Lattes from Travis Baldree like that is light air and cozier, then this is not the same vibe as that.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah, Legends and Lattes is a lot more humor based than this one was.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

a little bit more realistic intensity for the situation in which the characters find themselves. very light touch with it, they don't go super deep into these things.

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

It's absolutely there.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah, I'd agree with that. So at this point, spoilers, after this, there will be details. I have all the tabs for the details and the quotes. So, if you are interested in the reading the book yourself, before we get into those details, go read the book. And then you can come back and hear us, dissect this. I will be dissecting it.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

I recommend the book very, very much so. No matter what your opinions are, it's definitely worth a chat.

Sage:

I also really enjoyed it. I traditionally like a deeper fantasy. I like vast world building, and this was a little on the lighter side of it. So while it's not cozy fantasy, I would say that it's a lighter. Take than it could have been. Which is why I was surprised by how much kind of violence adventure there was in it. It doesn't get super gruesome. But for me it was like a fun fast read. I enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed the world building. I could have used more world building. I really wish that there was a map at the beginning of the book because she talked about, well,'cause I love maps, but also she talked about going to the east or going to the north and I really wanted to see that laid out on a map. but a lot of the ways that she wove some of the Chinese mythologies in with her own take on the story was really lovely. And that was one of the things I enjoyed about it the most.

Zinzi Bree:

all of the little mythology tales that were put in, it reminded me a lot of reading Watership Down, that had all of these lore, I mean, from rabbits, so very different characters that you're getting that from. But that's another one of my favorite things is just having those lore stories that talk about the beginning of things. Like how the stars got in the sky, how, rivers were made, the land, like the creation myths that different cultures have. I find them fascinating. And so it was really lovely to have some of those stories embedded in here. And I did read, I forget. Which story it was in particular, but one of them specifically, she talked about being a story that her grandparents would have talked about and told. And so that was part of the choice to include it.

Sage:

Cool.

Zinzi Bree:

yeah. And that this book in particular was part of her as an author, as a writer, as a person getting in touch with her heritage is learning about that myth, learning more about, her heritage And I think that's. Lovely. When, an author gets to pursue that and share it from their perspective. For the authors that they're, you know, first generation, second generation, you know, they're still so close to that heritage and they were raised on the stories and things like that. I love getting to read their books that include those perspectives.

Sage:

Absolutely. And to put their own take on it, right? Because it's like a modern, even though the

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

doesn't take place in modern times, it takes place in a ancient time that's not specified'cause it's a fantasy time. It does have like a little bit of a modern flavor to it, I thought with the way that the characters interacted with each other and talked about some of the stuff. It, didn't feel super ancient, but it had all of these kind of old elements brought in.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah, and they did bring in some things like the way that things were named or some words that were particular to the language or culture.

Zinzi Bree:

so one of the ones that kept throwing me in this is that our main character, who we haven't even talked about yet, Sai he keeps referring to the love interest as"my lady." And that, it's lovely, but that is definitely a historical,'cause you can't call someone, she's closer than a miss, but she's not a misses, and she's not a princess. What do you call them? So going with my lady, I thought was appropriate for the historical context, but also as, as a modern woman. It was a little jarring just to me, that was personal opinion on that one versus anytime. So our main character Sai, uses endearments that are"my dumpling,""my sunshine,"

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Mooncake.

Zinzi Bree:

Which annoys the heck out of our- Yeah. Mooncake, annoys the heck out of our leaving lady. I love those. I wanted more of those scattered out, annoying her, more than the to over by lady.

Sage:

But also the formality of the time meant that he didn't have permission to call her by her first name at that point.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

couple that hadn't known each other, or he didn't remember, but she knew, but she hadn't given him permission yet to- was kind of trying to keep him at a distance I think so she wasn't like, yeah, call me by my name. Right. So my lady is just fine with me. Thank you very much. You can be at a distance.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah,

Sage:

she probably would've been preferred to be called by her first name than mooncake, although I did love that one so much.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Moon cake, sunshine, everything. I did like sunshine a lot, but I'm not a very sunshine kind of personality, so I don't love nicknames myself, generally speaking. So I thought that the balance was really good and really cute. It didn't get to the point where it irritated me, but I did wonder why didn't Katrina choose to use a more culturally term?

Zinzi Bree:

Hmm.

Sage:

interesting.

Zinzi Bree:

so this is something that I appreciate as a choice that she made because even talking about this, like our main characters, we have Jin, we have Sai, we have Fang, we have Emperor Rong, which that one only has a slight, like extra sounds that I have to make to try and pronounce it correctly the way, or at least pronounce it the way that I heard it in the audiobook. There were only a couple of other places where it was the Chinese words. That would as a reader without an audiobook to tell me how to pronounce it, I don't know how to pronounce it. I don't necessarily know how to get it right. So I appreciated the choice in giving us names that were simple, but still contextually correct as far as I can tell.

Sage:

I wanted a little bit more of the Chinese names, but I agree that if you're not listening to the audio book, you're not necessarily, going to feel like you're hearing them in your head pronounced correctly as you're reading. And I also, I already said I love maps. I also love like a list of characters with name pronunciations. So if there had been more of that, then I think maybe having at the back of the book or the beginning of the book, a list of names with pronunciations would've been helpful. The names were simple enough that it felt like I could understand- because I read the book, I didn't listen to the audio book. I felt like I could pretty much know how they would sound. So I felt like I was saying them correctly in my head, except for the son's name, which I don't know how to pronounce. And I was curious about that one.

Zinzi Bree:

Oh I gotta go back in the book. Hold on. I wanna look at how it's spelled because how it was spelled in the book and then hearing it on the audiobook, they weren't a perfect sync.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Wait, how is it spelled then?'cause I only did the audio book. So we've got Sage who only read, I who only listened, and then Zinzi, You chose to do both at

Zinzi Bree:

I did both. Yeah. Yep. It let me really go deep. Really focus, really pay attention to oh, A-Qian

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Oh,

Zinzi Bree:

it might be A-Qian

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yes,

Zinzi Bree:

it's A-Q-I-A-N

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yep, that sounds

Zinzi Bree:

and that's

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

the

Zinzi Bree:

with the little symbol Yeah. A-Qian

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Mm-hmm.

Zinzi Bree:

Yep.

Sage:

love that. And that was the one where I was like, I know that this is not, how I'm saying it in my head is probably not how the author would pronounce it. And so that's great.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

I like.

Zinzi Bree:

very sweet

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

and very unassuming of a name. It really fit the character that they developed.

Zinzi Bree:

we've talked a bit about culture, world building, how that was set. Like this was a really approachable worldbuild it didn't feel. It didn't feel epic or high fantasy, but it wasn't low fantasy. It felt easy to step into and enjoy without getting,'cause like some books, if I look at them and I open it and on the first page there's a map and there's a family tree and there's a pronunciation guide, like if I'm not doing an audiobook, that would scare me off because that's, that's,

Sage:

that's my love language.

Zinzi Bree:

that's your candy. That's Sage is like, give me those books. And I'm like, ah. Which is how, you know, you'll get a, breadth of perspectives from us. I like both. Yeah, I mean, they're wonderful to have. I know just looking at that, I'm gonna go find the audiobook to listen to it because it will be difficult for me to just read.

Sage:

and when I'm ready to start a book like that, I'm always like, okay, deep breath. have to focus. I can't just pick it up and start reading late at night when I'm tired. I really have to spend the initial investment in time and energy to get into that heavy of a world build. Whereas you're right, this one was like so light and easy to jump into. And I thought she did a really nice job as the character travels. They start in his town and then she describes his home and the town really sweetly. And then as he moves through. There's enough of a description of the land he is through, but it was a lot more about like what was happening to him and the relationships

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

with the people he was traveling with, so that you didn't need to know. Like it wasn't Tolkien where you describe a mountain for six years.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

you know, it was like, oh, we're traveling through the

Zinzi Bree:

You know

Sage:

and maybe there's talk of it being colder or needing, you know, a

Zinzi Bree:

you need your coats'cause it's cold weather. Yep.

Sage:

But it was easy to be like, oh, okay, I can kind of see that in my head. Or then you're in the jungle and I can imagine what a jungle looks like. Right. I've, I understand that. And so a lot of detail wasn't needed, but she did a really good job describing the monsters. So when you

Zinzi Bree:

Mm.

Sage:

encounter one of the monsters that was described in great detail and I really got a feeling for it, whereas I felt like some of the like land areas you could, it was a little bit more left open to the reader just to. Fill in some of the blanks, and I thought that worked really lovely.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah, that was awesome. I really loved the balance that Katrina had with the world build here because it's, for me, it felt very atmospheric. So instead of being descriptive, I could feel it and sense it a little bit more through the way that she chose to insert the reader into the story, as opposed to like giving us all the tools to see every little detail of the scene going on around us. She just gave us a vibe, a feeling, except for, like you said, sage, those moments of intensity in which there was more description in order to create, tension in the reader and I thought it was genius. I thought it was really well done. That's the kind of atmosphere is so hard to achieve unless someone just is, I don't born to it with that very special talent that just have. And fantastic for them. But for a writer, it's really hard to achieve in the earlier stages. For most of us, it has to come as we go along with our style. And some of us never achieve it because we don't want it. There are authors much prefer the descriptive and for example, the Lord of the Rings, since we were just talking about that. He always leaned on description more than atmosphere. And the description did create an atmosphere, don't get me wrong, but it was detail oriented as opposed to Katrina. It was atmosphere, feeling. And that lent a little bit to me, the cozier atmosphere. I didn't have to work hard to think about, oh, and that's the village name and, oh, that's this person at the village, or that's, thing going on, whatever. I didn't have to keep track of all the little details because she gave us just enough that our brain could absorb without having to work too hard.

Sage:

Yeah. And like I can't remember for the life of me the name of his village it in my head, like I can

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

mother's mother.

Sage:

what the tea House looked like, and I can imagine what the city that he lived in looked like, but I don't know that there was a name to it, or if there was like, it didn't imprint on me.

Zinzi Bree:

so page four, the City of Jiaoshan so I've been told was once, nothing more than a few straw huts built around the circumference of a large lake. The more people who gathered to call it home, the more they took from the water." And even the description goes into the history and storytelling of how that city became, um, and it goes on, but it's got just enough. It's laced in history. It's laced in story without it becoming overexplaining.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah, I don't need to know all of the details about how the village looks, but to know the history of it and how the density of the people and how they use their water source and things like that creates imagery in my head that's almost stronger than a full description would be.

Zinzi Bree:

I'm gonna rain us back in'cause I said, Hey, let's talk about the magic system and then we got distracted'cause we got into description. And something that I really appreciate that was done very early, is setting up the cultural perspective of magic. So our main character, Sai, he's a thread seeker. He can see magic. He obviously knows magics exists. He can see a red thread or a black thread if the loved one has died, on every person he meets, he sees this whole web, it's described. But on page five, he's going through the crowd helping someone find their mates. And you hear the, the voices around him go, that's the thread seeker who he looks like a drifter like questioning. So it's not, oh, this is someone who's a celebrated and okay magic exists and we all believe it. It's like, no, that guy's probably a quack, and he's taken that poor girl's money. So, you know, immediately the amount of knowledge the world has and acceptance of magic super early on.

Sage:

even when he goes to the doctor and he gets the dragon

Zinzi Bree:

Hmm mm-hmm.

Sage:

it's like he even has a thread of doubt there,

Zinzi Bree:

Dragons don't exist.

Sage:

Exactly. Dragons don't exist. I know that magic exists because I see these red threads of fate, but dragons, are you kidding me? That's crazy. So even with people who believe in magic and then there was like the shamans and you could almost see that there's these layers of different types of magic and not

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

different people didn't necessarily all get on board with everything.

Zinzi Bree:

I found it interesting. So this is a little bit magic system and culture in talking about when they would swear it would be, you know, curse the gods. Oh, gods and capital G gods so like gods were part of the culture and world building, and there was praying to gods and then there was, you know, lower tier, the dragons and magical beasts. The magical beasts are magical beasts, but they're not gods, lowercase G, but the dragons and even the emperor to a degree were considered lowercase g gods. so there was, the dragons, the faebeasts, the shamans. And then there was also, monks, like there was a monk temple where they used. Talismans to sink an entire library underground. Right. To hide it away. I don't know whether those talismans and the shamans and the monks, is that the same tier? Would they use the same magic? Or are those two different kinds of magic?

Sage:

And they were in different regions of the world, if I'm remembering correctly. So it's almost like, is this that form of magic taking place in another part of the world or is it a completely different level of magic? And she didn't specify and it, but it also worked. Like you knew that there

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

these elements and it left me wanting more. I definitely could have read more about. You know, I could read a whole nother book set in the same world

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

more about the monks in the library, for example, that you mentioned.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

We were only in that library for a very short period of time, and I was like, Ooh, this is so interesting. Why did the library get sunk and what are on all these scrolls? I mean of course, book lovers love books about libraries and magic libraries. So to just get a taste of it, I thought was so well done because it was like, oh. I love this part

Zinzi Bree:

me more.

Sage:

he really wants more of the books. He's like, oh my God, all these scrolls that we're passing by, what could be on these ancient school? What's all this magic or knowledge and histories. He was really into histories and stories and he was like regretting having to leave them behind and not getting to sit and delve into that. It just has how I was feeling. And I also thought that the idea of reincarnation was brought in as part of the magic and to me that it wasn't clarified if everybody in the world reincarnated if it was, I mean, it's specifically with Sai and Jyn. We know that they reincarnated

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

talked about, but we didn't know for exact example when Fang died, she gonna come back? You know?

Zinzi Bree:

It would've been everybody because the initial story that is told on the tapestry in the library is one of the monks is standing on the stairs. That can go either way, where you can choose to continue up the stairs and go on to whatever's next in the afterlife, or you go down the stairs back to earth and you reincarnate, and that's, you have that choice. So to me, that's an option to everyone. And Sai makes a point of over the 700 lifetimes that he has always choosing to go down the stairs to get back to Jyn. And getting into a little bit of the deeper part, the strength and the optimism that you have to have as a character to keep choosing that. Even if your, memory gets wiped in every lifetime. Like the emperor, emperor Rong spends all of his time as an immortal hunting him down and killing him in some way, almost all of his lives. And tragically, except for maybe, oh, so here was one, there was one life that is talked about. I've got the page where Sai comes back as a girl is considered, a pretty girl in a well-to-do family. And, Jyn never comes for him. So he lives, he gets married to so another political family has, it says he has like a bunch of kids in that life and then dies of old age. And I'm like, so there's descendants that are like half dragon out there somewhere, right? There's a whole story potential to bleed off of, you know, I'm descended from that, that potential lifetime.

Sage:

I'm glad you brought that piece up about his reincarnated because I loved when he started to remember, I don't have the page marked, but when he started to remember, and he

Zinzi Bree:

It is 218.

Sage:

coming back as a stillborn Fox Cub, I believe is one of

Zinzi Bree:

mm. Mm-hmm.

Sage:

back and he didn't even fully get birthed into the world. And there's just like I, with my human,

Zinzi Bree:

It's his 50th life.

Sage:

in my human focus. I of course think, oh, he is gonna come back as a human every time. But no, he

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

as a beast and he comes back as an animal and he comes back as a girl and he comes back as a boy and he has all of these different experiences and obviously we don't dive into all 700 lifetimes that he goes through. But I really loved the brief look at what that experience of reincarnation looked like and how many different paths

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah, and that

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah, the

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

relevant to coming back to Katrina's representation of the culture. I think that was really, really good. loved how she set a precedent for Sai to be a storyteller so that when she was giving descriptions and things like that, some backstory to his past lives, or even explaining the tapestries in the library or anything like that, it came through as Sai telling or interpreting these stories so that they never felt bulky.'cause I mean, even the mention of how many past lives that you guys just mentioned sounds like so much, but it felt right. It felt easy read. It didn't take me out of the story when often I would be taken outta the story by that much backstory, but I wasn't because it felt right to the character.

Sage:

Yeah. I do have to. at it now, and it's only a couple of pages and it, a lot of it is her writing style. How she's able to impress these ideas onto the reader with just a few words, and like she gives

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

of it without having to go greatly in depth.

Zinzi Bree:

again, this is going back to structure. So, the first time he is reborn, the red dragon returns in the form of a paupper's son. So it immediately sets up that the first life immediately after dying that first time, comes back, same gender as human. And he mistakes the memories of his past life for nothing more than the most vivid of dreams. So, like those memories are super close and super vivid, and I felt that was such a great setup and hint for when. Major spoiler Jyn dies and comes back and she comes back as human as the same gender, still a girl. And that her past life's memories are so close that at that, you know, climactic end where, Sai takes her up on his back in Dragon form, she's able to, with the experience of flight, find her dragon form again and they can, I was like, if, if they don't, if they don't end this book as two Dragons flying together, I will throw the book. But I did not have to because they did. And it, it was lovely. But even just seeing, okay, that structure that, foreshadowing here makes that feel right and not like, oh, well why didn't she just reincarnate as a bug the next time? Like, what makes you think that it's gonna be the next life will be? And Sai was prepared for it not to be human, for it to be just whatever form she was gonna come in, he was gonna find her.

Sage:

Yeah, and I

Zinzi Bree:

else.

Sage:

how they, like when he came back as a faebeast, then

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage:

like spent time in that life together in those forms and this idea of acceptance of your soulmate no matter how they are reborn.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

feeling.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah. It, gives me an extra soft spot for whatever. I see stories in the zoo where, animal that are like, here's a fox and a goose that are best friends. Or here's, you know, that's not normal, but they are, and it's just, it's weird and wonderful on such an extra level, because of that, the human interpretation of acceptance of who the other person is in the soul and the comfort they bring, and the connection that you have mattering more than what food you eat or what shape you're in.

Sage:

Yeah,

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Absolutely.

Sage:

I don't always love meant to be soulmates. As plot device, because I feel like it can take away in books, not necessarily in this one, but in general in books. I feel like it kind of gives the author a little bit of an easy out of being like, well, now these two people love each other and we just know that they love each other because they're mated or they're soulmates and we don't have to do the work as the writer to create a relationship between these two people.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

the mating bond click in and I know you're the one for me. So I was loving Sai as a, as a protagonist. And then that started to come in and I got a little worried, but then as the idea of the reincarnation happened and Jyn's feeling of being really sad and keeping him at a distance because of all of the hurt that she'd experienced through all the lifetimes. And then

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

big betrayal that she, had very recently gone through with him. It started to really grow on me, and I really loved you do have all of this. It's not just that this mating bond clicks in and I love you no matter what. It's that you actually have all of these many, many years of experience in life together. And it's

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

for Sai it wasn't something that he could remember. He felt it inside him, but he didn't have it in his mind. Whereas she did, she remembered all of those times. I kept kind of wanting a little bit of her perspective just to feel what that would feel like. But I actually think it really worked well not to have that and just to see it through his perspective of him, struggling to understand why she was keeping him at such a distance.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm. Their dynamic is a grumpy, a reverse grumpy sunshine, right?'cause Jyn is the grumpy one and Sai is absolutely sunshine. And if we had gotten her perspective, because she has gone through and remembers the 7,000 years of lifetime trauma, like that would change the tone of the book to have that in there. So I fully agree with the choice not to include that because that tonal change would've affected the kind of story that was, you know, the lightness and the hope and the ultimate message of it being a story of love and devotion.'cause also Jyn struggled with self-harm. That was a part. It, broke her in ways that I don't think, in this amount of pages.

Sage:

Yeah, you couldn't do justice to that.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah.

Sage:

of

Zinzi Bree:

Not, not as a glimpse, not unless the whole book was from her perspective. And then that's a different story because it's her story, not Sai's story.

Sage:

I kept thinking, I knew what was happening. I kept thinking like, okay, I think she's the dragon. I think that she has seen him die and come back. I kept getting glimpses of what it might be, but I didn't know the whole picture. And that's, why I wanted some of her perspective was to see how she was going through it. But then I a hundred percent agree, it would've totally changed the story to include her, but I did feel like at the very end, after she dies and Sai is waiting, you don't fully get the feeling of what she went through, but you get a little hint that he's prepared to wait as long as it takes

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

they're very lucky that they didn't have to wait that long, like 20 years. So not so bad.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

And it would be so grim to go through her perspective of all of those lifetimes. And that was not the book I was signing up to read.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah. That is not what this cover promise is, that would be an entirely different color palette is that kind of promise. I wanna touch on the plot twists. At what point, because when you read the back of this story, it does not at any point say or hint at reincarnation that is saved as a twist in the plot in any of the marketing. Until someone outside of the marketing plan, like if you get a TikTok or something, like they might include, you know, fated mates, reincarnation as their little. on screen, here's what's in this book. But just reading the back, like the promise on the back of the book happened all in the first like 30 or 50 pages. Like I marked it.'cause I was like, we've gotten to this point and now it's a completely different story than what the premise set up Oh, he owns a tea shop. Oh, he's gonna, go find dragon scales while he finds the dragon in the first 50. Because that's his fated one. So that part of the premise delivered. What is the whole rest of this book about if we've already met the dragon, we've already met the fated one. where's the rest of the plot? Which there was plot. I just didn't know what it was.

Sage:

we're 25% of the way through and they've already like met each other and figured out that they're fated. I thought that would be the end of the book.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm. Tough romance though. If it's the, you're getting through 200 pages of not together and then they see each other and it's, oh, you're my fated one. Like, that's the kind of story I don't like, because then that's, oh, here's your Insta Love, here's your, you didn't both work for it.

Sage:

Yeah.

Zinzi Bree:

that wouldn't have felt as satisfying to me as this, where they get to meet, they get to interact and Sai gets to fall in love with her. This version of her pre- getting his other memories back.

Sage:

Yeah.

Zinzi Bree:

I don't know that I believe in love at first sight necessarily, but I do believe in home at first experience because I have experienced that when I met my husband, not my husband at the time, but when he was a complete stranger to me. I met him and by the end of the day, I absolutely knew that he was gonna be part of my life and that he felt like a person who was home to me. And it was so bizarre. So seeing your fated one, the experience that is described here where just, you see them and you feel that I felt okay, yes, that exists. I do recognize that my experience with that is rare. But I understood it and I felt like it was written well in this story,

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

like Sage, I'm not a huge fated mate trope kind of person, this one I think did it very well because Katrina, showed these characters falling in love over and over and choosing the love over and over being reborn over and over and fighting for each other. So they didn't lose the the part for me that is so attractive is people choosing each other and going through things in order to choose each other. instead made it part of the fate that you get to still choose it. And that's something with the reincarnation magic. Actually this choice part I thought was so well done and well represented because long as your, thread exists, then there's still potential that your fated one will return or something like that. But if it's black there past and they have the potential for a future life, but unfortunately you won't reconnect with that particular mate again. And then if it's red, they're out there somewhere and you always have the potential of meeting them. And then if it's gray, something has gone down between you and the relationship potential has been blocked off. So it's not chosen anymore, at least in that lifetime. I thought that was a really fascinating way of. visually representing that to us as the readers, whether or not the characters have chosen it or will choose that. It teased us with, with Jyn where she started to let down her walls a little bit and the, the string charted to change colors.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

was like, yes, yes, yes. And she was like, no,

Zinzi Bree:

Nope. Wall. I can't.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Turn around, face the other

Zinzi Bree:

Yep. I can't soften. I'll just get hurt again.

Sage:

early on, I think it's, it's page 95. There was, something about finding that person and he says,"please, I rasp. I think you're my fated one.""Know I am. She says, her green eyes are cold now leave me the fuck alone." And I loved that because it was like, oh, this is not gonna be as easy just because you're fated. Just because you're on the other end of the thread doesn't mean like, okay, and now happily ever after. It was like, oh, we have to work for it. Do we even want it? Like you were saying, Katherine like making that choice. And Sai goes through a lot before Jyn starts to let down her walls and let him in. And he really struggles for it.

Zinzi Bree:

going back to you reading from page 95, the, I think you're my fated one. I love authors who do this full circle structure. Page 306, it's,"I think you're my fated one. She says, I grin so wide that my cheeks ache. I know I am Now if you'll drink your tea, I would share with you a story." And that's so, that's so the grumpy sunshine aspect, and it's the reverse our saying those lines. And I just, I was like, oh, here's my, this is my kick my feet happy giggle. Just flipping those, mirroring them. And the both getting to say it and it being so, you know, fuck off being Jyn's character and here, drink your tea being, and I'll share a story with you being Sai's, character that epitomize them.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

I adored that.

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

One of the things that I liked is as Sai traveled, he would come across people who he, you know, he could see all their threads and he would come across people who didn't marry their fated one and still had happy lives. And I was a nice,

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah.

Sage:

nice minor detail, right? Like you didn't have to meet your fated one in order to have a full life. And then there was other times where you did have people that had married their fated, one were living happily.

Zinzi Bree:

All right. For you how soon in the book did you figure out that Sai was the red Dragon? How long did that take you?

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

I think I figured it out when they were looking at the tapestries and stuff.

Zinzi Bree:

so when, when he's figuring it out

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah.

Sage:

I read the back of the book, I thought that fated one was gonna be a dragon and thought that he was going to eat a dragon scale. I didn't realize the dragon scale medicine was for his mom. I thought that his fated one would be a dragon, once we realized that she was a dragon, I was like, well, he's gotta be a dragon too then,

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

I think that was clear.

Sage:

have this.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah,

Zinzi Bree:

Okay.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

the author did really well with foreshadowing the fact that he was a dragon. That he wasn't just human, but I don't think I realized that he was like the red dragon king of the lands until they were going and looking at the tapestries, and he was like, wait, where did this dragon go? What happened?

Sage:

What about you,

Zinzi Bree:

So, I knew he was gonna end up being the Red Dragon. Page 44. The Shaman says A violent end, you shall meet your final breath drawn in the arms of his red majesty." And that's because the guard

Sage:

Oh,

Zinzi Bree:

dies in Sai's arms.

Sage:

Right.

Zinzi Bree:

as soon as I saw that, I was like, okay, we're talking reincarnation. We've got the red dragon, then the green dragon is the fated mate. but what the author got me on is because the emperor showed up with a blue dragon on his robe. I thought he was the blue dragon. I thought he was the son that had gone amiss. Not that he had consumed the son. And that he was the fated one who'd gone evil. but then I spent the rest of the book looking at"a broken son, a lover shunned, the shaman Rasps three, now two, soon to be one." And I went, okay, who's gonna be the final one standing? Is Sai gonna die yet again at the end? And then poor, poor Jyn will just have to wait for him to show. And I love that it was a reversal where, you know, at the end, Sai goes,"I am the last dragon of the east."

Sage:

I loved that.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

that Moment.

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage:

I thought it was really nice for Jyn too because by being reborn, she got to shed, I think, a little bit of the weight of that really long lifetime that she waited,

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

she regained her, it doesn't specify how much of her memories or how strong her memories are. She regains at the end. She does regain her memories. She remembers him. She remembers being a dragon, but I, I like the feeling that there is maybe enough of an emotional distance there that she didn't have to carry all of that heaviness with her. And she had

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

it was a rebirth. She had a chance at happiness, whereas even if they had to defeat the emperor without her dying as the green dragon. would've still carried that with her

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah. Particularly that the really difficult betrayal of attempting to kill Sai, to break the connection, to break the cycle, and not being able to go through with it, to have. Maybe a cloud or feeling like that's a far away memory instead of so present.

Sage:

Yeah, exactly. Like

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

and she kind of got a new chance at it. So Zinzi, maybe you remember better than I did about this, but when I had a little pet peeve in the character development, which was that when s started to bring on his dragon form, it was through anger and his eyes

Zinzi Bree:

Hmm.

Sage:

and he got

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

and I didn't feel like there was any hint at all to anger being a part of his character when he was younger or in the early, any part of the earlier part of the book, I didn't feel like he had anger inside of him. And I almost wanted like a little flash of that early on, like if something didn't work at the tea house a little.'cause he was so charming and so happy and he was the sunshine.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

enjoyed him as a protagonist. But when the anger started to come out I was like, well wait a minute. Shouldn't he be the dragon that turns through happiness? Right. I think that was the son that,

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah, that was. And then he couldn't escape, because he couldn't transform. And then the heart gets eaten. It did feel a little incongruous that there wasn't a stronger connection to anger, but I also thought that Sai did have it, if you can think about it as righteous anger, because he throws himself into, saving the girl who's being harassed at the beginning

Sage:

Oh

Zinzi Bree:

the soldiers and, you know, tries to rescue her and pull her away. He throws himself in and gets mauled when there's a fated couple, they had found their fated ones and they were together and he goes in and tries to defend them again from the soldiers. So there is that. If it's like that righteous anger that protectiveness,

Sage:

Okay.

Zinzi Bree:

That's what made the connection for me. If it's righteous anger. And also the king dragon and the majesty like that fearsomeness and that level of intensity of power doesn't necessarily even always have to be anger. But, that strength being rooted in protection, I'm protecting my kingdom. This is mine. Like even if it's an unhealthy,'cause this is mine protectiveness or possessiveness,

Sage:

he had that with his mother in the tea house also,

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage:

very protective of her working really hard to try and figure out how to keep her healthy. Not eating meals so that she could eat when they were low on money, that kind of thing.

Zinzi Bree:

Yep.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

With Sai he has the internals that he fights off about how shameful and how angry that makes him want to be and how he chooses to like, let it go and let it be. And I think they used his mom as the reason he was letting those

Zinzi Bree:

I,

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

because he didn't want any harm to come back to her. So

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

how anger was his trigger. I do wonder if it wouldn't have been better to label it as protectiveness or something. Not that anger can't be out of protectiveness, but. Yeah, or maybe it is perfect as anger because then that also encompasses the negative side of that. So there are pros and cons, and Jyn definitely teased the side that his anger could be bad sometimes.

Sage:

It also could be that after so many lifetimes of rebirth, his memory of that dragon power had faded

Zinzi Bree:

Hmm.

Sage:

her. He was protective of the strange girl and his parents. but it wasn't until his, life was being threatened very physically and then Jyn's life as well, that that anger started to really come out. So maybe it was just that he was far enough removed from that dragon lifestyle as his little tea house self.

Zinzi Bree:

his first life, like he dies, he comes back, but he dies as a child. he makes it to five years old before he dies of the plague. And the emperor has dragon scales to heal people and chooses to let them die on purpose.

Sage:

He was

Zinzi Bree:

there's,

Sage:

I thought.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

yeah.

Zinzi Bree:

He was a good villain. I found it interesting that he tried to be manipulative at the end. Like, if I have enough dragon blood, I can bring your son back. like, he'd lived long enough to have regretted killing his fated one and then consuming him. Yeah. Even though at no point did he give up the power that came with that decision, he just wanted everything. He wanted that power and he wanted to not be alone.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Yeah, so he was haunted, but not haunted enough to make genuine changes to his lifestyle.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

In fact, he used the life that he had gained through eating his former lover in order to. Justify the crimes he was doing, finding the dragons and everything so that he could bring that lover back. Like, he's like, oh yeah, but if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't be able to do this. Now.

Sage:

I really liked his story and the story of the son was told even though you didn't know who it was about, but like, so you had Sai telling stories and talking about,

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

histories, but then you also had these little interludes where it told the story of the emperor and the blue dragon slowly in little snippets. And I liked how that kind of reinforced the idea of the mythologies and the storytelling. without being too heavy handed, it would've not made sense if Sai had known all of those things or just happened to find them on tapestry. So it needed to be brought in. But I thought it was well done to where it gave enough, it kind of like gave little hints that

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

else going on that, I didn't realize it would be the emperor until pretty late in those little interludes. But I started to see that, He was taking on more and more power and it made me wonder,

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

was such a person of like wanting total power.

Zinzi Bree:

Yep. Or he'd conquered all the surrounding lands and done it badly in a way where he then has the land, but he's not protecting it anymore. He's not caring for it. It's not healthy. All right. I have a compliment sandwich I love the structure of the story. I love the full circle moments. That was fabulous. My complaint is I could not

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

out.

Zinzi Bree:

out the timeline. Were was Sai and Jyn together. Did this adventure happen over a month? Did it happen over three months? Is this two weeks? Like the, the sense of time was not well described, and that just, that's a pet peeve of mine where I'm like, I need to know how long these characters have been together. I will say though, this story so much of this that's an adventure story a kin to it makes me think of the Mummy, where it's just like there's thing happening moment after moment after moment. Nobody's really taking a breath or resting or relaxing for more than a sentence on the page. Which is good because then it meant, you know, any misunderstandings could stay misunderstandings for as long as they needed to be for the point of the plot. But it just, just, you need time to rest. You need, you need time. And I need to know how much time has passed in a story when people fall in love. That said, I really loved the, the dynamic, the, the grumpy sunshine. I loved having a love story told, like this is from a guy's perspective, which is not the norm in romantic fantasies, this is a Romantasy in particular because it's about their romance. So that also I really enjoyed and felt was really refreshing is to get the guy's perspective, with that kind of story instead of it being yet another ingenue young woman and he is 25, like these are, they're grownups in this lifetime. I mean then lots of other lifetimes.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Okay. I have a comment on the timeline thing though. I not mind the quicker pace, but I am with you. When it comes to romances, I get really skeptical when people fall in love over the course of say, a week or three days. They're like, all of a sudden you're my it forever. I'm like have you ever met a real person? But

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

I do think that the author gave me just enough timeline that I felt okay with it. And also because of all the backstory, it was clear that there was. Prior relationship material between them that added to the dynamics. So I didn't feel too weird about it in the end,

Sage:

so I actually have an answer to the timeline on chapter 43, page 2 91. it's after he's transformed and after the emperor has been slain, Sai says"It's strange coming home again after a whole moon away." So it's about a month, which feels like a short timeframe for everything that happened because he did travel like across the lands all the way to the islands, and then got brought back somehow by emperor

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

Right? But, and then he returned to his village from the Winter Palace. So I don't know how long the travel from the Winter Palace back home after Jyn died had took,

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

maybe that took a few days or a week, then they were together for three weeks or so. One of the elements that wasn't working for me at first as I was really enjoying it. And I was loving Sai as a protagonist. And I really liked a perspective from a man, which is more unusual in this genre, but I felt like he didn't have, I wanted more like emotional. He was sunshine, grumpy. Sunshine is not my favorite. Also, I think because

Zinzi Bree:

Hmm.

Sage:

often kind of bugged me.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

So he was,

Sage:

so he was, he, but I was really enjoying him as a character. But then I wanted him to have like more emotional depth. And I realized maybe like thirds of the way through the book that it, he was playing the role more. His role was more like. arc. Like he did have a transformation where he remembered being the red dragon and transformed into the Red Dragon. But he

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

effect on the world around him. And the actions that he took affected the lives of everybody else around him. So he didn't go through that much character change. Yes. He remembered his past life. Yes. He found his fated one and righted the wrongs from the past,

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

didn't like make a huge transformation for himself other than becoming the red dragon and re tapping into that magic.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage:

the same person, right? he didn't have like this

Zinzi Bree:

His arc, did that do this? It went,

Sage:

it was a straight arc, but he affected the lives of everyone around him the entire realm was affected positively by his actions, right? Because he stopped the emperor. And hopefully that meant that, the lives of everyone in the realm were positively changed. Through the course of that adventure that he took on. So once I kind of realized that that was what was going on, I was like fully on board with it. At first I was really worried about the revelation of all of the past lives. So I thought the author did a good job of like all of the concerns that I kind of had. Maybe after like a third of the way into that, the first third, I was loving it. And then about a third of the way in, I was like, Hmm, I don't know about this aspect. I don't know about that aspect. But she kind of resolved all of those and made me very happy by the end of it. Do you

Zinzi Bree:

Do you feel like if at the start of the book, Sai had been shown as an impatient person and then at the end because he has to choose to wait for Jyn, that would've been like a nice little,

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

a little

Zinzi Bree:

a little personality change,

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

That's a good one. I like that. Or He was so passive when the story began. And I do think that at the end he was a lot more active, but he was choosing patience opposed to just

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

letting life go on around him. Yeah, I do think that there could have been more fault to the character. And we did bring up his anger thing and maybe at some point in one of his lifelines that was a fault, but. In this particular one, it definitely wasn't. So maybe there could have been a little bit more character development.'cause I also think Jyn was very flat too, I do think that she kind of had a coming back to herself kind of moment, but it wasn't much of an arc. She didn't change much of herself. Unless you guys would think that her drowning Sai earlier in this lifeline, if that was the break in her character development line. She never fix it necessarily, but they definitely like let it go, let it be accepted.

Zinzi Bree:

I think she had development after going through the tragedy of being stuck in this cycle, Contemplated self harm had harmed herself, had thought about, okay, if I die, I am too much of a coward to die, But but if I do die, I'm gonna go up the steps. I'm not gonna keep this cycle going. It's too awful. And I think she had some character growth by the end of the story where Sai has demonstrated because he keeps choosing her, that it would be worthwhile for her then if she does die, to go down the steps and come back and choose him too.

Sage:

Yeah, he broke

Zinzi Bree:

she spends most of the book not choosing him. Right. Like she's done the lifetimes where she did it was awful. Think bad things happened because the emperor, and now finally she's getting to a point where, no, I'm just, I'm gonna keep going for us being together as much as I can.

Sage:

It's like she had shielded her heart and

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage:

through that.

Zinzi Bree:

And I will finish off my, this is what I loved with, I have a quote here that I highlighted that I felt like this is the, the core line of this book. My love for this dragon transcends lifetimes, transcends our corporeal forms. I would choose her for all eternity over a seat in heaven,"

Sage:

Mm. That's beautiful.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

It is beautiful.

Sage:

So next month on our book club, we are going to be reading For She Is Wrath by Emily Varga. So go ahead and pick that up now. Start reading so you can join us for our next book club without worrying about spoilers.

Zinzi Bree:

Our next episode, the topic we'll be covering did marketing make you read it? What motivates your book choices?

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

those are separate episodes, right?

Zinzi Bree:

No, that's all in one. That's one episode where we're gonna, that's what we're gonna talk about. That's the whole thing.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

okay, can't wait to see you there.

Zinzi Bree:

You will find links to the book that we just read in our show notes. You can find us on TikTok. We are on Instagram. We're on YouTube. we look forward to chatting again. And thank you so much for tuning in. That was such a panic. It's the end, but it'll be good. Hey, we're learning as we're going. Enjoy the ride with us. It's funnier when we screw up. So stick around for that. I've got welcome to book Dragon Banter, uh, podcast, where, oh gosh, I'm too far away from reading my stupid post-it notes. I'm really angry.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

Okie dokie. Welcome everybody. I was excited to have you here today. We are getting ready to chat about nine. Oh, okay. Why am I doing the intro today? My brain.

Zinzi Bree:

All right, spoiler free recommendations. Uh, sorry guys. My robot processing noises. I swear I'm not a bot. I would say if you like legends and latte wow, lattes, there is with words.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

I'm, I'm sorry, my cats. So they've been playing around my feet this whole time. You guys, is that the only thing that Sage has had trouble with?

Sage:

I had said I am panicking internally

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

panicking

Sage:

the entire time.

Zinzi Bree:

I'll just have to like, add that layer where it's like blue screen or green screen where you're disassociating. Here's a little, just like the little words will show up above sage's head. It's disassociation moment.

Sage:

because I am a Enneagram

Zinzi Bree:

Buffering.

Sage:

know if any of you go into Enneagram very much, but I'm a nine and our key way of dealing with fear is to disassociate.

Zinzi Bree:

Okay.

Sage:

You should end every episode saying, ah, panic. It's the end.

Katherine Suzette | Book Coach:

That was cute.

Zinzi Bree:

Yes. Yo panic.

Head Shot

Katherine Suzette

Co-host
Head Shot

Sage Moreaux

Co-host
Head Shot

Zinzi Bree

Co-host

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