by Shami Stovall
DETAILS:
Publication Date: July 17, 2026
Format: e-Book
Length: 340 pg.
Read Date: August 18-19, 2026
What’s The Last Rift Dragon About?
We meet Richter Whitlock on the final day of his training to be a Knight of the White Fog—the force that are bonded to dragons to defend the city of Bridgehaven in the ongoing war against the city of Whettin. Richter’s parents had been killed in this war while serving as Knights and he’s eager to join the ranks and take up their battle.
The first step is passing the final tests and then getting to select a dragon egg, so that he can care for it during the final weeks before the dragon hatches and he can bond with it. bond with it when the dragon hatches. He and most of his cohort pass their exams and get their eggs. After their bonding, these Knights will have their own magic enhanced by their dragons.
Tragedy—along with human depravity and duplicity—strikes, and before he really understands what’s happening, the stakes get higher for Richter and the others. (I knew something was coming, but I was about as prepared for it as Richter is).
He and the others have to bond with their dragons—and take some major risks along the way—to try to stop the latest incursion to save their city. But will it be enough?
Lex
Second only to a couple of the dragons (including his), my favorite character in this book has to be Valex Thorn—better known as Lex, Richter’s brother in all but name and genetics. This guy is Samwise Gamgee, but more positive. Samwise Gamgee as played by Leslie Knope, maybe.
I liked him from the get-go, and it didn’t take long for me to care more about what happened to him and his dragon than Richter and his (although, given the first person narrator of it all, I’m not that worried about him).
I can’t say too much about him now, because I’m saving it for a post this Friday—but come back for it, will you? Let me just say for now that Lex is fun, he is the beating heart of the story, and my budding Stovall fandom will come to an abrupt termination if anything bad happens to him.
The Magical Creatures
So the primary magical creature this book focuses on are dragons. I don’t need to explain why this is a good thing to have as a focus. Actually, I don’t know if I can—but since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I’ve just known that dragons are cool in the same way that I know that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches should not be underestimated by anyone. And here we have several types of dragon—and once the rift dragon shows up, what Richter, the Knights, and the Church know about dragons expands.
On the other side we have vessrik.
…giant magical centipedes with ebony exoskeletons as dark as a starless night. They had massive pincers and hundreds of skittering legs that came straight from a feverish nightmare.
We get some more description elsewhere, but that’s enough to put the idea in your mind (and, yes, there’s an illustration a little bit after that—just in case the description didn’t make you feel like something was crawling up your back).
Richter also tells us,
Vessrik didn’t have red blood— their insides were a mix of dark blue and green. Their bleeding always looked nightmarish to me, but then again, everything about vessrik made me queasy.
You and me both, buddy.
These vessrik are ridden by the opponents of Bridgehaven, and not only are they creepy in concept—they’re deadly when deployed. If the Knights of the White Fog and the church in Bridgehaven are correct, dragons are sent by the Heavens, and I’m sure that vessrik are from the Bad Place.
But wait, there’s more! Not only do we have these cool critters—we get some great fight scenes between them. Dragon v. dragon (feral dragon vs. sentient dragon) and dragon vs. vessirk. Those scenes are some truly “nature, red in tooth and claw” kind of thing. These are powerful creatures doing great violence toward each other and Stovall depicts it so well—you just never know how those scenes are going to play out. Except that they’ll be worth your time.
Why did I pick this up? Why did I keep reading?
I picked this up because The Write Reads asked for tour volunteers—and I’ve been wanting to read more Stovall, so it seemed like a good opportunity.
I kept reading because it’s one of the fastest reads I’ve had this year. Not fast as in “time spent reading”—that’s not really a compliment, and because I’ve read plenty of novellas, so it wouldn’t be accurate. Fast as in smooth, Stovall just sweeps you along with her storytelling and the pages melt away. I was consistently about 20% further along than my mental tracker had me. If not for work and sleep, I’d have done this in one sitting comfortably. You just get into the story, and everything else is gone. This came up in a conversation, and another blogger said much the same thing—so I feel safe in advertising this as a feature.
But also—fighting dragons. Come on, who isn’t going to keep reading?
The Driving Force
In comparison to some of the other characters we meet, the Knights of the White Fog show the appeal and power of a sense of duty. A sense of responsibility. They believe in their duty enough that they’re eager to live by it—sure, they sometimes get distracted from that. But a good reminder gets them back on track—because they don’t see their duty as an obligation, but an opportunity to serve their city and its citizens. And by doing so, they serve the Heavens.
They don’t hold everyone to their standards—not everyone can be a Knight. Some are called to bake, to serve the church, to buttle, and so on. The duty of the Knights is to make sure they can do so in safety.
Some novels would take the opportunity to show some Knights chafing at their duties, finding ways around them or to fulfill the spirit rather than the letter of the law. And I can and do enjoy those. Here, however, we see what it’s like for diverse group of people commit to a common set of principles and respect each other (while not really appreciating their background or personality).
Call me a sap if you will, but I love it.
So, what did I think about The Last Rift Dragon?
This book left out all the bits of fantasy novels that slow things down—yes, I wouldn’t have minded a bit more detail here and there—but Stovall has no time for that kind of thing. We get the essentials, the headline-making moments, and we just glaze over the day-to-day life kind of bits. Not that the text is neglecting anything; it’s just prioritizing things. I recently finished Howey’s Wool (as an example), and I kept thinking, “Stovall wouldn’t have given us this chapter.” Neither is a better approach; they’re just very different. Stovall is assuming a lot for her readers—we understand the idea of dragons bonding with a human (she does add her particular tweaks), that we have a mental image of a typical Fantasy world (again, she has her own spin), and so on, whereas Howey had to invent an entire world from the ground up.
It’s an efficient approach to story-telling that works well here. While reading, I was reminded of the conceit of The Princess Bride novel, that it was “the good parts” from the original S. Morgenstern text. Well, Stovall just gave us “the good parts.”
Would I have liked to see a bit more about the motivation for a couple of characters? Yes. Would I have liked a bit more about the religious/political war between the two cities? Oh, yeah. Do I need them to enjoy this novel and for it all to work? Nope. Not at all.
I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get more from the adult knights, but it’s a YA novel; it makes sense that we focus on the young adult characters. I enjoyed them all, and am more annoyed with Stovall for a couple of deaths than I should be for the time I spent with the characters because they had so much promise. Sure, that was intentional—she needs you to be riled up by the deaths, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
There’s a lot that can be done with this series in terms of character, world-building, and action. Even if the war between the cities is resolved in a book or two—the series could really keep going with what has been set up. That’s vague, but I don’t want to give too much away. I don’t know that there’s a Shannara-length saga here, but we could easily be in Dragonlance territory. *
The action scenes are top-notch. They’re fast-moving and furious—whether we’re talking about characters racing away from feral dragons, dragon v. dragon conflict, human v. human conflict, or human and magical creature(s) versus human and magical creature(s) conflict, Stovall nails each of the scenes both in terms of the actual action and the emotional impact on reader/character.
Lastly—and this is the big selling point for many—the dragons themselves. Whether we’re talking about their particular abilities, their appearance, or their personalities, they’re just great. Not a one of these is a cookie-cutter, they’re all distinct from each other, and I want novellas starring them individually. I’m going to call out Lex’s dragon, Diamond, here specifically. I want to adopt her. I think she’d like my dogs, and they’d probably like her. Not only is she great, but the relationship she and Lex have is adorable, and not what I’m used to seeing in dragon-human bonds.
In a nutshell, The Last Rift Dragon is a fast-moving, rich Fantasy novel featuring compelling characters, fantastic action, and some of the best Dragon characters I’ve read in a while. Stop reading me (just for a while, mind you—I need the views) and go read the novel.
* I should fact-check myself there, but I’m not going to. It feels right. Especially if you only focus on the Weiss/Hickman Dragonlance books.
note
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
My thanks to The Write Reads for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided, including the novel.
JCM Berne has reached middle age without outgrowing the notion that superheroes are cool. Code monkey by day, by night he slaves over a hot keyboard to prove that superhero stories can be engaging and funny without being dark or silly.
