Book: Rogue by Julie Kagawa

Published April 2015 by Harlequin Teen|457 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the hardcover from the library

Series: Talon #2

Genre: YA Paranormal/Dragons

From the limitless imagination of bestselling author Julie Kagawa comes the next fantastic adventure in the Talon Saga.

Deserter. Traitor. Rogue.

Ember Hill left the dragon organization Talon to take her chances with rebel dragon Cobalt and his crew of rogues. But Ember can’t forget the sacrifice made for her by the human boy who could have killed her—Garret Xavier Sebastian, a soldier of the dragonslaying Order of St. George, the boy who saved her from a Talon assassin, knowing that by doing so, he’d signed his own death warrant.

Determined to save Garret from execution, Ember must convince Cobalt to help her break into the Order’s headquarters. With assassins after them and Ember’s own brother helping Talon with the hunt, the rogues find an unexpected ally in Garret and a new perspective on the underground battle between Talon and St. George.

A reckoning is brewing and the secrets hidden by both sides are shocking and deadly. Soon Ember must decide: Should she retreat to fight another day…or start an all-out war?

I randomly picked up Talon when I was at the library, being really about what happened in this book.  I thought the first book in the series, Talon, was okay, and definitely my least favorite Julie Kagawa book, but she’s one of my favorite authors, and I knew I wanted to read this one.  Surprisingly, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, and it makes me want to re-read the first book to see if maybe I just read it at the wrong time.

We pick up a while after where we left off in Talon, and there’s a lot going on in this book!  Like, we learn more about Cobalt, and why he left Talon, which I really liked, because I felt like he was really mysterious, and his chapters reveal a lot more about him than I expected.  I also liked his chapters (and Dante’s to an extent) because they show the lengths Talon will go to in order to eliminate those who aren’t with the program.

And everything with Ember’s brother hunting her down!  It’s not that surprising, and I totally get why Talon would want to test his loyalty.  Ember is important to him, but he’s in too deep with Talon, and I don’t think anything will change that.  Even though I want him to change his mind so badly!

I think what I liked the most was how Garret realized that not all dragons were bad, and that St. George really wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be.  And while it was never outright said, somehow I got the impression that there’s something either Talon and/or St. George is hiding.  Maybe it’s because we see Garret change, and I want someone to be hiding something, but I feel like there’s more going on than what we see in the book. There’s something about this book that’s very big picture.

Maybe it’s because we see different narrators- it worked really well in this book, and you see how big this world really is.  That might be why it seems like there’s something else going on with St. George and Talon.  You really do see a little bit of everything in this book!

We also have a love triangle, and I quite like this one!  Yes, Garret and Cobalt represent two different sides of Ember, and she is torn between balancing human and dragon, but you see how torn she is and how hard of a choice it is for her. It’s not clear who she would pick and in a weird way, I’m rooting for both.  It’s not the main focus of the book, since there’s so much going on, but it’s still a pretty important part of the book.

4 stars.  I didn’t love it, but it was everything I wanted Talon to be.