Book Review: ‘When The Moon Hatched’ is the Start of What Could be an Amazing High Fantasy Romance Series

I get it. I get why Booktok and Bookstagram are going feral for When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker. On the surface, it’s got it all: dragons, elemental magic, a high fantasy setting, a badass FMC with a tragic, mysterious past, and a broody, protective love interest. Sounds perfect, right? There’s so much potential here for this to be an incredible read. But one of my first thoughts when I finished was how was this 700 pages when hardly anything actually happened?! There’s such a thing as too little exposition. I want to know how the magic system works. Where was the plot?! Other than the prologue, we pretty much know nothing about the gods and their motivations. I was left with so many questions, and very few answers. Perhaps this was on purpose, as a set up for the second installment, which I absolutely have high hopes for. Overall, I had fun reading this, and I completely understand why so many readers new to fantasy are loving it. It fell short for me in a few places, because I had a lot of epic high fantasy expectations going into it. This is absolutely not a ‘traditional epic high fantasy read with a romantic subplot’ like I was lead to believe. It’s a character driven fantasy romance with lots of vibes in a high fantasy setting—which is totally fine if that’s what you’re expecting out of it. While there were moments of brilliance in book one, I have a feeling book two is going to really shine in this series. The set up is totally there for book two to reveal so much, and true villains to emerge, and rescues to take place. Second book syndrome? We don’t know her. Ok, but let’s get into why I think you might love this book, or why it might let you down.

Grab the limited first edition with sprayed edges.

Things to Know:

• Book One in an unfinished series

• Fantasy Romance

• High Fantasy setting with gods and magic

• Character driven (very little plot)

• DRAGONS

• Several spice scenes

• TW: SA, torture, and animal abuse

***SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD***

If you’re a fantasy romance girl (or anyone who’s new to fantasy), you will probably love this book. If you’re a seasoned epic high fantasy reader, you might be a little disappointed. I immediately liked Raeve, an assassin for an underground Rebellion who we first meet on a side job. She’s clearly been through a lot, but we don’t really know anything about her past. The land appears to be divided into three kingdoms with the three evil Vaegor brothers on each of the thrones. And of course, dragons are around, but seem to only be used for transportation, or by royalty and their courts.

Like I mention above, I felt like not a whole lot happens in the first half of this book. I definitely preferred the second half as we get several more POVs added to the mix, and a peek into some answers of Raeve’s past. In between her chapters, there’s also diary entries from Elluin, a young princess from over 100 years prior, and I LOVED these chapters. We meet her as a young girl and she and her brother get dragon eggs and raise them. Then her entire family is poisoned except for her because her father refused to marry her off to the son of the really terrible King Vaegor. And she’s basically forced to leave her home and be betrothed to the horrific son who just wants to rule her Kingdom. And her beautiful Moonplume dragon is maimed in the process. It’s enough to make your blood boil. Then we have Kaan, now the King of the Burn, and not as evil as initially suspected by Raeve. In fact, he might be the perfect book boyfriend. I feel like I can’t say more without giving major spoilers, but you’ll like him.

The book ends on a cliffhanger, of course. But everything is definitely set up for a pretty epic book two, and I’m hoping we’ll get a lot more plot and worldbuilding. It’s such a cool world, it deserves it!

Things I loved:

• Is it possible to love an inanimate object so much?! Nee was the cutest thing EVER. And aside from the wondering how they possible survive the elements to deliver things hundreds of miles away, I LOVED the idea of the paper larks as the way people send and receive messages.

• The diary POVs!!! Honestly, these were absolutely some of my favorite chapters! I wanted more and I absolutely fell in love with Slatra, the loyal Moonplume dragon, and Elluin’s story.

• The tragic love story of Kaan and Elluin. I’m obsessed with them.

• Kaan’s sister. I feel like she’s going to be such a great character in book two.

• I LOVE the dragons. Also the different breeds Parker created were so unique and interesting.

• The elemental magic system is super cool, BUT (see below)

Things I didn’t:

• The elemental magic system is pretty loosely goosey. I would love to better understand why the gods sing to people, how they are chosen, and what all the powers entail, because it’s not super clear.

• Honestly, I was hoping for more dragon time. I mean, they’re definitely there, don’t get me wrong, but I wanted more!!!

• Creating an incredible, strong, badass FMC, and giving her the emotional EQ of a gnat. Why is she so immature? I know this is a very specific nitpick, but I detest when the FMC sticks her tongue out at the love interest like a five-year-old. Can we not?

• If you know me, you know I ALWAYS harp about my dislike of modern lingo in a fantasy book. When I see it, I’m like, “What is SHE doing here?” If I wanted modern lingo, I’d read a contemporary book. IMHO, it has no place ruining a perfectly epic fantasy setting (I totally understand this doesn’t bug some people, so it’s totally a me thing and may be a moot point for you).

  Here’s a couple examples that were “straight to jail” for me:

  • “Released my inner crafty bi*ch and let her shine.”

  • “I think that’s a plop of spangle poop.”

• A character is unalived pretty early on that for me, which made it less impactful, since we literally got like a page and half with them, and I’m kinda bummed we didn’t get to know them more because they seemed really cool.

• The spice was just not it for me. I’m not a big spice fan though, so the spicy readers may love it.

I would absolutely recommend this book to readers who are just dipping their toes into fantasy or who really like fantasy romance. While long, it’s super easy to understand, IMO, and especially if you like character driven stories. If you’re looking for an intricate plot with lots of deep worldbuilding, this probably isn’t the read for you. But like I said above, book two has the potential to absolutely be epic, so I’m very excited to read the next installment of the Moonfall series!

Quote:

“He’s fire and brimstone. I’m shattered ice. Our collision is steam and destruction, destined to dissipate, but I’ll gladly burn benath him until the world comes crumbling down.”

—

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