It's been a good while since I looked at the first Elementals book, Ice Wolves, but I'm now finally getting to book two! After this one there's only one left! Spoilers ahead.
In this second book in the trilogy, Anders is finally reunited with his (yes, they're actually related) sister Rayna. Now at the home of the feared Scorch Dragons, him and his friend Lisabet enroll in a school of sorts originally meant for only young dragons, together with Rayna and her new friend Elukka, plus some others. With the Ice Wolves being in possession of an artifact that can create a cold that'd incapacitate and eventually kill the dragons, Anders and his friends set out on a quest to find a magical object that can counteract the Snowstone and save the dragons.
My overall stance on these books so far is just this: they're good. Not amazing, but definitely good. It has some good representation, I like the world Kaufman crafted a lot, the whole cultures of Ice Wolves and Scorch Dragons are interesting and I do care a lot about our main characters (particularly Anders, Rayna and Lisabet).
I'm also glad that this book answers the question of whether or not Anders and Rayna were really related. Book one made it really seem like it was downright impossible for them to be blood-related, but book two shows that it's not actually impossible, rather just very, very unusual for a dragons and wolves to have offspring that can both turn into each form per person respectively. But heck, even before the truth got revealed, I loved how Anders and Rayna just had the mentality of "we're siblings, whether we're biologically related or not". Turns out they are, but even if they weren't it was clear that they weren't going to let that impact their immensely close bond.
The conflict between the dragons and the wolves furthers and I like how our main crew is actively not picking a side and trying to prevent the war in general. It'd be so easy for either Anders or Rayna to be like "the wolves should win" or "the dragons should win", especially with them both being associated with a completely different opposing culture (Anders with the wolves, Rayna with the dragons), but instead their mentality is just that the fighting has to stop and that peace can be made. Heck, that is even proven in the younger generation, since Anders' Wolf friends and Rayna's dragon friends end up getting along pretty well once they realize that both sides have been prejudiced as hell. Yes, most of the book is them looking for an artifact that'll save the dragons from the wrath of the wolves' Snowstone, but that's only so that they can make peace in the end and no more lives are lost.
The writing was still strong, the characters great, and I just genuinely care about this world. I'm still not calling it more than good so far, but it this trilogy definitely deserves a look. I just hope Battle Born has a satisfying conclusion to this conflict.
Rating: 4/5
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