A Flight of Fancy

The Raek Riders Series #4

by Melanie K. Moschella

Meera is ready to fight. She’s ready to stand up for humans everywhere and end the war. But a single moment could turn all of her plans to ash …

After fleeing an attack by the Queen’s Council, Meera’s safety and—more importantly—her relationship with Kennick are both up in the air. Kennick goes back to treating her like the night of the ball never happened, forcing Meera to decide what she wants and whether she’s brave enough to ask for it.

Meanwhile, the knell queen reveals herself as an ally—maybe even a friend. But Meera is still far from she will have to battle a fearsome opponent in single combat, attend a potentially deadly dinner party, and face a hard truth if she is going to accomplish her goals.

In an effort to negotiate for peace, Meera will travel with the queen and find herself back in her homeland. There, she will be confronted by people and places from her past—and an instant of fire and loss may just make her give up the fight.

319 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 19, 2024

About the author

Melanie is an escapist reader and writer living in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. Her two true passions are parenting and writing—both of which require stamina and creativity, but only one of which allows her to sit down. Despite Melanie’s overpriced English degree from an overrated university, she attributes her debut work, The Raek Riders Series, to the isolation of new motherhood—after all, what could make a person crave adventure and romance more than dirty diapers?

Reviews

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am at a toss-up. I think it's a 4.5, but im giving it a 5. I devoured this book just as fast as the last three and am already onto the last one.

The only reason it is not a 5* outright is that there is a trope used that I really don't like. It was done well, and I can see why the author did it. They were using it not as a plot point so much as they were using it it to allow for modern political commentary to be exposed on a page, really showing both sides of an argument. Not passing judgment one way or another, but showing how even people you love may have drastically different opinions of yourself and how to manage / push through it.

So.. don't love the trope.. but I did like how it was handled vs. other series/novels.

Characters are just so good. Each are distinct, have their own draws for me as a reader. Meera, being a very honest person who does not shy away some self-reflection, has some major realizations in this novel, although she finally reaches a point where she does shy away from reflection. It was frustrating as a reader, her seeming to "shrink-down" in her development, but it made so much sense. It was done well and is realistic. No one is perfect and continuously growing in a positive / forward direction. Sometimes, to grow, you need to go back a step. 2 steps forward, one step back.

Love this whole series.. will be done tonight :)

[Katzen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've got so many mixed feelings about this story I don't even know where to start. As of this entry it has kind of lost my interest, but I'm going to read the last way anyway because I've come this far and I do want to see how it all wraps up even though the direction a lot of it has taken is disappointing to me. I got really invested in the characters here which has made some of those disappointments hit harder. Overall the writing is still quite good and the moment to moment scenes are charming but I just have the feeling of this story constantly spinning its wheels and leaving so much of its potential on the table.

I don't know if its a genre issue for me. This is ostensibly a romantasy series, even though the first entry has none of that. Maybe this is more normal in that environment? But it just feels like in book two the narrative abandons most of the plot it set up to focus entirely on character relationships and navel gazing. And the writing was so good for me I even liked that, to a point! I feel like this fourth entry took it to a saturation point where most of the charm vanished and I just started laughing at the wild turns things took.

Usually when I'm reading a book I'm struggling with its because I'm bored and uninvested, but in this case I have been quite invested but just gradually realizing its not going to do any of the thing I was hoping for. I'm invested enough that I wish I had someone with similar feelings that I could rant about it to, but sadly I am the only one I know who has read this. So I'm going to ramble about it here. Going to do this point by point, no particular order. A lot of this is going to be spoilers, and will be retrospective about earlier points in the series I couldn't fully have an opinion on until I saw where it was going.

- Shael just gets flat out demoted to a side character for most of the third and fourth books. Cerun is demoted to a side (or even background) character even earlier than that. So much of what pulled me in about the first book is just unceremoniously abandoned and replaced with romance with a character who wasn't even present for either of them. Shael gets a little love here and there but ultimately the narrative is no longer concerned with him or what he is doing besides his off camera quest to be less mentally ill, which he succeeds at mostly so he can congratulate Meera on her brand new True Mate destiny romance. This functionally means that the story lost a lot of the momentum it gained in the first two and a half entries.

- I really didn't enjoy the True Mate Meera and Finnick romance. It was so on the nose it felt like it was something that would be subverted somehow, but in reality its just exactly what it says on the tin. Meera and Finnick are just dragon-ordained soul mates... which I was mostly just resentful of when Finnick only waltzes into the story halfway through. It was all just too easy and too fast. Also the part about it making them super fertile gave me hives, though I know that's probably partly a me issue.

- I just couldn't care about Finnick, and he's not even a bad character! Out of context, he's charming enough, but his role in the story was just such a diversion that I spent the whole of this book hoping he would die. Not because I hate him, but just because I didn't like what he was doing to the story. The conflict that eventually does arise between him and Meera starts out reasonable (pregnancy drama) but eventually becomes completely ridiculous (Finnick thinks Meera is fucking the queen suddenly and gets so hurt he refuses to pause for an explanation, only to retroactively decide that actually Meera SHOULD get laid by anyone she wants before they tie the knot. What was the point?)

- Shael's best bud Finnick will do anything to make up for failing to rescue him from torture jail - anything except not immediately proposing to his ex-fiancé. I'm not even a big proponent of the Bro Code but I couldn't get over how flippantly and callously Finnick did this. One hell of a "fuck you, got mine" moment.

- Looking back I still cannot understand the point of the Shael romance arc. Why did they have to get engaged when it was going to last five seconds? Why did Meera have to get engaged again a few months later? Meera is even self aware enough to realize how she seemed to be repeating the same mistake, only then the narrative goes on to make it seem that actually it wasn't a mistake at all and was actually extremely correct, because Finnick and her and True Mates after all. Shael and Meera's romance arc had no satisfying pay off (Up till this point, at least, maybe the fifth book will do something with it. Even so, I think that's too long to expect a reader to wait.) It mostly just left me frustrated, once I realized it wasn't going anywhere. I wouldn't mind if it stopped being romantic if Shael continued to be a major player in other ways, but he doesn't.

- I spent this whole series anticipating when Meera would return to Terratelle. When it finally happens, though, it's only after the two antagonists of the first book have been taken out off screen. Like... why? What is the point? Why has everything been put on Prince Otto now, the guy we don't care about?

- I didn't necessarily like that the stakes of the Terratelle segment were non-existent because Meera could have just walked out herself at any moment, but I did like the way that Meera's mental breakdown was written. I like reading about the characters even when I don't like where the story is going, so there's that. I did wish that Shael and Meera could have had a moment there instead of it all being centered on her and Finnick, though.

- Meera doesn't really do much at all to actually resolve the war in books 3 and 4. She gets strong magically and physically but isn't really willing to use that strength for anything. The only actual progress she makes is when she yells at the council about how she isn't going to become a rider and they need to help her, at which point the queen is like "yes I agree" and proceeds to do the rest for her. Meera is extremely passive regarding the non-romantic plot outside of that. She spends so much time aimlessly waiting on the peninsula for other people to ask her to do things. She wouldn't have even spoken to the council if she hadn't been forced to by Hadjal. I like Meera, but for someone who is so bold and impulsive she is a surprisingly passive protag past the second book.

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


I haven't been this invested in a series for a while, despite everything. I wish it was in a more universally positive way. As Linus says, love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Maybe I'll change some opinions when I read the last book. We'll see what happens.

[Heather Stout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due to the plot content in this particular book I felt I had to rate it lower. I am sure if I were younger and/or my life experiences were different than I would have probably rated it higher. However Meera's reactions to certain topics, and certain things that happened in response to things topics just pissed me off and made me emotional (not in a good way).

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not put it down, riveting

[sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one loses two stars for me for two reasons-
1. Sex on top of a raek while flying… ?? That just felt weird and creepy. Seriously gave me the ick…
2. The pregnancy thing and how quickly she forgave kennick without him even groveling a little. But nooo it was her fault and she was in the wrong for reacting like that… I would have been chill if she was excited about it or at least had time to settle about it etc. just the way it went down was very… made me not like kennick. I understand pregnancy comes with complex emotions but she wasn’t wrong for not being excited or ready.

it was very sad when she lost the baby later on, and I felt the author really wrote that emotion well; tho this would have been better if she was excited the whole time- or not at all. War is a bad time for a pregnancy so honestly think it worked well with the plot, just went about it in a weird way.