#nampeshiweisit — Public Fediverse posts

I just bought To Ride a Rising Storm, by Moniquill Blackgoose, on bookshop.org and I am on the verge of tears I'm so fucking excited to read this during my upcoming vacation

It's the sequel to To Shape a Dragon's Breath which was my favorite book I've read in, I dunno, maybe decades?

Check your local library or support the author *and* a local bookstore by buying through bookshop!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/to-ride-a-rising-storm-the-second-book-of-nampeshiweisit-moniquill-blackgoose/c532be7a1116caa9?ean=9780593498309

#books #fantasy #altHistory #dragons #indigenous #nampeshiweisit

Book Review: To Ride a Rising Storm by Moniquill Blackgoose

Author: Moniquill Blackgoose
Title: To Ride a Rising Storm
Narrator: Charley Flyte
Publication Info: Books on Tape, 2026
Summary/Review:

I greatly anticipated this second book in the Nampeshiweisit series – the follow-up to To Shape A Dragon’s Breath – and it did not disappoint.  The series is set in an alternate history of 1840s New England where, among other differences, dragons are real and bonded with individual humans. In the first book, Anequs, a teenage indigenous girl from the island community of Masquapaug, is chosen by the newly hatched dragon Kasaqua.  But the ruling Anglish colonizers insist that Anequs and Kasaqua train on the mainland at Kuipers Academy.

Having defied the prejudiced expectations of the Academy’s professors by excelling in her first year, Anequs and Kasaqua return to Masquapaug for the summer.  But Anequs’ notoriety has brought unwanted attention to the island with the Anglish establishing a presence on the island for the first time. Amid rising Anglish control and surveillance, members of the community attempt to meet to organize resistance.

Returning for a second year of schooling, Anequs faces new challenges, including learning to ride Kasaqua now that she is large enough to carry a person. In her personal life, Anequs continues to pursue romance with Liberty, a servant at the school, and Theod, the only other indigenous student. Since Theod was an orphan raised by the Anglish he struggles with concepts like open relationships and same-sex attraction that Anequs grew up with as natural, but he does return Anequs’ affection.  Indeed, the expectations of Anglish society for a young woman are a continued hindrance to Anequs’ goals.

Bubbling under everything happening at the Academy is a rise in white supremacist violence.  By the end of the novel, Anequs and her allies find themselves in the middle of a spreading conflict, and possibly a civil war.  Like the first novel, Blackgoose uses a lot of alternate language for people, places, and concepts that makes the book a bit hard to follow.  But I really enjoy how she weaves folklore of different traditions into the narrative so that, for example, we hear stories from what we would call the African, Jewish, and Norse traditions along the way.

I once again am looking forward to the next installment in this series.

Recommended books:

• His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
• A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
• Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity by Joseph Lee

Rating: ****