Between Dragons and Their Wrath is the first book in the epic dark fantasy series The Shattered Kingdom, written by Devin Madson, and published by Orbit Books. An ambitious and intricate multi threaded story, with big political and romantic stakes, set in an incredible sand-sea world, glass-scaled dragons, plant magic and dangerous alchemy.

Madson introduces us to three really different POVs, throwing us into the complexity of the world and the schemes that are being played. The first will be Tesha, a glass smith apprentice who ends being involved into the high society politics as an insult bride, hoping to use her sharp mind and her cunning in order to help preserve the independency of her home. With her, Madson portraits the complex relationships between the noble families, their lifestyles, and how the kingdom shattered into different independent cities is coming to an end by conquest.
In the desolate Shield Mountains, Ashadi is a noble turned into dragonrider, part of that force that protects the cities from the monsters that appear from the Sands; however, when an impossible shot shatters one of his dragon's scales, it will unleash a chain of events that will make him the hunted, together with his assistant Mana. This run will also put him in the way to discover the secrets that are being hidden from most, and that only the natives of this land remember. Not only Madson uses this point of view to depict more about the creatures that threaten the cities, but also introduces an excellent discourse about how colonialism aims to erase the original culture of the place, while including an intense queer slow burning romance.
And finally, we have Naili, a laundress that ends being entangled in the criminal underworld; as a result of the experiments of her former employer, she ends developing plant magic, an ability that will put her between the rock and the wall, as she need to choose between using it to change the world and put a bullseye onto her head, or keeping a lower profile. A different way to see the world, showing us the ugliest aspects of the cities, how the lowborn people struggle to survive and become simply flesh in the hands of the powerful.

Madson masterfully ties together the three POVs, painting a complex story that spawns across the world, the power fights and the bigger threat that is coming from the outside; characters are well-fleshed, making difficult to not empathize with our characters and their struggles to play the role that the rest of the people are expecting from them.

The world-building is inventive and imaginative, shaped by Madson's Australian influences, with touches of steampunk, but also including excellent ideas such as the scaleglass and the plant based magic (Niali definitely is one of the highlights of the books). We have a world with a previous history that has driven the situation towards what we are reading, but also with fully fleshed relationships of power. And certainly, I loved the sand seas.

Between Dragons and Their Wrath is a promising first novel on a series, a read that will hook you and will make you crave for more of Madson's writing; I can't wait to continue reading The Shattered Kingdom, because all the elements needed for a memorable series have already been placed.