I got this book as a birthday present from someone (I don’t remember who) when I was about 10, I think.
An alarming book, for a couple of reasons. I didn’t realize until midway through it that this book was NUMBER THREE in a trilogy, and I was reading it first! The horror!
I like to think I’m a little less of a compulsive completionist, but as a child, I took it as an immense failure if I didn’t complete a book, for whatever reason. This compulsion included series of books as well. To be reading the last book in a series first was very troubling to me. Very very troubling.
And so I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. I felt compelled to finish the book, but I was reading the series out of order. I ended up just reading the book and feeling bad about it the whole time.
At some point, I managed to track down the first book, THE HORSE LORD, but I never did find Book 2: THE DEMON LORD.
Oh yeah, the rape scene was pretty alarming too, which is pretty much all I remember about this book. And there was a dragon in it.
That’s 3-5 hours I’ll never get back… (Or however long it took me to read it.)
The funny thing is, I held onto this book for a long long time, even though I didn’t enjoy reading it, but I think because I kept hoping that I would find Book 2 at some point.
I’m glad I stepped off that completionist train a while back. Mostly.