A Building of Empires

Realm Breaker, Book 3

By: Jasmine Young

Narrated by: Sabrina Morvillo, Alex Wyndham

The Lords of elves, dragons, and dwarves are brandishing their blades for what will be the largest war in continental history…for it is known a Bael walks the Nine Realms once more.

Skálda Branwright races to take her dragon south to escape a continental hunt. But when the ruthless Order of True Light joins the hunt, bringing with them inquisitors, masters of torture, and an old friend ripe for betrayal, she will face an inevitable decision.

She must keep running or help advance her dragon to become the Bael he was born to be.

Meanwhile, Sorenthor the Dragonslayer has returned from the dead with the North's greatest dragon...a weapon that could turn his own people against him.

The Astoraines are far from fallen, for theirs is a bloodline never to be betrayed.

Two on Elondria will rise to build the next greatest empire. Only one will succeed. But to do so will mean plunging the high powers into a war for an ancient weapon that could be the key to unleashing Bale's full power....

And the hunger to break the last habitable world.

©2024 Jasmine Young (P)2025 Podium Audio

A tremendous piece of work

This is another outstanding read from my all time favorite author. It has great characters and the world building is fabulous. I have to say that the audio version is superior. I read the books but adding voices changes everything.. It's full of excitement, drama, epic battles, magic, struggles, triumph and death. So many things happen in this one. Bael is no longer the small funny dragon. He is now like a smart mouthed teenager who bickers with Scalda constantly which is comical.
Scalda and Bael are still on the run. It seems everyone wants Bael dead but Scalda would give her life to save Bael. After helping someone out she gets an idea. She gets to ask for 3 things in return and the most useful was to change their appearances to make it easier. Her wish was granted but to Skalda's horror she now looks like a hag. Bael is turned into a white dragon which is better than black. When the Order of True Light captures her, she will face the inquisitors and their masters of torture, and an old friend Kael will show his true colors and its then that Scalda will dismiss old feelings. Scalda is desperately trying to advance Bael's chapters. She buys a war zone and together with her second they begin buildingi. I absolutely loved their recruiting tactics. Scalda keeps trespassing into higher level war grounds trying to advance Bael and they face many creatures along the way but she won't stop until Bael is what she knows he was meant to be. Bael on the other hand has been suffering from night terrors regarding things he saw when falling in his egg & the fear of his true riders return. Bael doesn't want that rider because he chose Scalda and he will avoid that at all costs. That rider returns in the epic ending of this book and the grand finale is truly awesome.
I loved this and can't wait for the next one from this amazing author.

I can’t take it anymore

Most of my misgivings with this book are in the review section of the first book in this series. I’m sad to say that they did not improve by the third book. I really tried to give this series a chance. I don’t think it’s an easy thing to be an author or an artist.

However, this book feels like one of the biggest AI slops of video game fanfiction and Game of Thrones with a little bit of how to train your Dragon all thrown in together. I am not convinced this supposedly female author is a real person.

None of the characters have believable flaws or redeemable qualities. There are huge inconsistencies in their relationships and their personalities. There are so many different factions and cultures and world building elements in this book that are left half finished or never explained in the first place. Even worse, my friend and I have spotted several contradictions and glaring mistakes within this series’ own established lore.

Epic fantasy can have a lot going on and it can be very challenging for an author to pull it all together. I can promise you that several books in…nothing pulls together.

The wereguild (Viking rip offs that are never really explained why they are called this) aka Viguardians, aka Svenish (????) are one of the most confusing elements featured heavily in this third book. Their presence feels like it belongs elsewhere. They don’t really serve any purpose in the story other than as a vehicle for some truly immaturely written battle scenes and to show how tortured and masculine the new poorly written MMC is. If you love gore and torture “corn” this is for you.

More and more the FMC and her brother prove to be utterly unlikable people, inconsistent in their experiences and personality. There is no growth or empathy within either of them. These two, along with the random wereguild king, have the depth of a pebble and the personalities of wet cardboard.

Jasmine, if you are indeed a real person and not a man using AI to write for him… you have got to pull it together and not do epic fantasy such a disservice.