Summary:
To the Depths and beyond.
Laanda’s led her weary people across endless mountains in search of a new home. Jagged Shard has everything they need: deep mountain tunnels, ready-made infrastructure, and a wealth of hotiron that will secure her clan’s future. It must be theirs.
Skiti’s seen her Queen like this before. Obsessed. Desperate. Willing to risk everything for her people. But Jagged Shard was abandoned for a reason. If Skiti can’t protect Laanda from herself, she risks losing her forever.
Their bonds tighten as they delve side by side into the many dangers and wonders of this forgotten place. Only together can they solve the puzzle of Jagged Shard and of their own reticent hearts.
Review:
Ahhhh, Jagged Shard, my third foray into the devilish mind of Dani Finn. It’s got romance, it’s got bloodshed, it’s got interesting tech, and, of course, it’s got spice.
This story is one of four Time Before novels that are loosely connected, and this one is almost a semi-sequel/spin-off of The Delve. I’ve not read The Delve yet, but the two main characters of JS, Laanda and Skiti, are side characters within TD, and here their story is expanded. In summary, a bad thing happened to Laanda’s dwarf-like people and they had to flee their home, coming to the ancient ruined city under the mountain Jagged Shard. This story is Laanda, Skiti, and their group resettling and defeating some monsters. And in true Dani Finn fashion, lots of sex in-between.
As far as the plot goes, I was quite entertained in this dungeon crawler-esque story because there was plenty of solid monster slaying action offset by a tender romance. I really enjoyed (and have enjoyed in the other two Dani Finn novels I’ve read – Wings so Soft and Cloti’s Song) the tech in this world. Like most dwarven people, the Timon as they are called here, live underground but have a very industrial style of engines and architecture. There is a specific ore called hotiron that emits radiation, so much of this story revolves around the characters trying to fix/set these purifiers while getting attacked by the beasties living within the ruins. I loved how Skiti (an artificer) was fully engaged in the levels of radiation, so much so that each character could only stay within the lower regions where the hotiron was for a certain length of time and each was measured by a necklace that pinged, and they counted a person’s pings, once at ten, they had to retreat. It made for gripping drama as the pings added up while the beasts attacked (I also couldn’t stop reading each ping call out in Sean Connery’s amazingly bad Russian accent – ‘that’sch one ping only, Vaschhhillly). The Timon, Skiti in particular, also have a piece of tech called an ‘omni’, and this Dr. Who screwdriver can basically be anything, aka a sword / trident / platform to jump off of / a bowl to communicate with a god in a box / a whip / bolas to wrap around dragon legs / vibrator / strap-on. The omni was a really fun device with plenty of uses.
Since the story is fairly short (about 175 pages), we spend most of the story focusing solely on Laanda and Skiti. Both are POV characters and both are quite different from one another. Laanda is the former queen (she hates being called queen) and is a warrior through and through. She carries a big axe and a bigger heart. She dashes head-first into danger and thinks second, always in defense of her people. She kills a bunch of beasties but also gets her butt kicked in return. Skiti is an artificer, a scientist, and not a warrior except when needed (mainly to save Laanda’s ass). Skiti is the brains to Laanda’s brawn and the two play well off of each other. Of course there are other characters we interact with, many of them becoming Red Shirts. But Hueli and Vee are scene stealers and play big roles within the plot.
Now, true to form, Jagged Shard is littered with secksy scenes. Basically we have the tried and tested Dani Finn structure here: plot building scene – secksy scene – plot building scene. Rinse and repeat. Most authors tend to have come down scenes for their characters after intense action scenes, but Mx. Finn likes to just have their characters come (ahem). Laanda and Skiti get it on quite often in this 175ish page story and I’d give the spiciness a habanero pepper level. It’s consenting, it’s sexy, it’s graphic, it’s visceral, it’s delicate, it’s domineering, it’s straight-up bang city. But there is also a sweet undercurrent of love between these characters, a building toward a future that makes every scene between Laanda and Skiti endearing and enthralling (enslaving perhaps???). I also really liked how Skiti was quite skittish toward all the danger Laanda puts herself in, but once a ‘session’ is about to begin, Skiti essentially becomes a total dom.
I also want to shout out the creatures in this work. We have a dragon species that is both intelligent and crafty, but a predator through and through. It’s always refreshing to have dragons be animals of a vicious nature. We also have two different kinds of original creatures. One is a giant species that gets dealt with rather quickly but the second is our main antagonist throughout the story. These golem/fungi creatures start off as simple beasties to kill but end up having some really excellent biology in relation to the hotiron radiation, not to mention intelligence. I found these creatures to be wholly unique and a fun add to the story.
Overall, I had a blast with Jagged Shard. This connecting world Dani Finn has created has a total sandbox feel and I fully enjoy it when an author can give us completely different types of stories while still staying true to their vision. Jagged Shard is a love letter to classic dungeon crawlers, and I enjoyed every single page of it.