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The Last Namsara

The Last Namsara is a YA epic fantasy that I think will appeal to a lot of readers, including those who are a little leery of the genre. First of all, there’s no cliffhanger ending. We get full resolution, although I can certainly see the book being part of a larger series. There’s also a romance, but no love triangle.

Add to that a completely badass warrior heroine, a forbidden love story, dragons, and storytelling depicted as a powerful magic. Win!

Asha is a princess of Firgaard, a totalitarian kingdom with expansionist desires. Her father is the Dragon King, and Asha is his terrifying right-hand. She is called Iskari after the goddess of destruction. Asha has never been bested in battle, and she hunts dragons to prove her ferocity (thereby transferring some of that power over to her father).

Asha isn’t really comfortable with all of this, however, and as she gets closer to the day she’s supposed to marry the leader of her father’s militia, she begins to question what she’s always accepted as truth.

I really loved the world building in this book. Stories, specifically ancient tales, are portrayed as powerful (and thus forbidden). Also, dragons love stories, both hearing them and telling them (telepathically) and that made my heart so happy. However, some dragons were hurt in this book and that I wasn’t crazy about. I also love stories where the main characters have to reconcile that the world they think they knew and the things they accepted as true, might be lies. There’s a lot of that here.

Also

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Asha called Iskari because she’s terrifying, and part of the reason she’s terrifying is that her father has conditioned her to believe she’s dangerous and evil and somehow inherently corrupted since childhood. He controls Asha’s power by telling her that her power comes from a bad place, and Asha realizing that and reclaiming it was huge for me.

If you’re a fan of epic fantasy and of incredible heroines becoming more incredible, you may want to try The Last Namsara. It’s a truly fun addition to the genre.

– Elyse

In the beginning, there was the Namsara: the child of sky and spirit, who carried love and laughter wherever he went. But where there is light, there must be darkness—and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death-bringer.

These are the legends that Asha, daughter of the king of Firgaard, has grown up learning in hushed whispers, drawn to the forbidden figures of the past. But it isn’t until she becomes the fiercest, most feared dragon slayer in the land that she takes on the role of the next Iskari—a lonely destiny that leaves her feeling more like a weapon than a girl.

Asha conquers each dragon and brings its head to the king, but no kill can free her from the shackles that await at home: her betrothal to the cruel commandant, a man who holds the truth about her nature in his palm. When she’s offered the chance to gain her freedom in exchange for the life of the most powerful dragon in Firgaard, she finds that there may be more truth to the ancient stories than she ever could have expected. With the help of a secret friend—a slave boy from her betrothed’s household—Asha must shed the layers of her Iskari bondage and open her heart to love, light, and a truth that has been kept from her.