Review: Rogue (Talon #2), by Julie Kagawa

Title: Rogue (Talon #2)
Author: Julie Kagawa
Format: ebook
Source: NetGalley

From Goodreads: "Ember Hill left the dragon organization Talon to take her chances with rebel dragon Cobalt and his crew of rogues. But Ember can't forget the sacrifice made for her by the human boy who could have killed her—Garret Xavier Sebastian, a soldier of the dragonslaying Order of St. George, the boy who saved her from a Talon assassin, knowing that by doing so, he'd signed his own death warrant. 

Determined to save Garret from execution, Ember must convince Cobalt to help her break into the Order's headquarters. With assassins after them and Ember's own brother helping Talon with the hunt, the rogues find an unexpected ally in Garret and a new perspective on the underground battle between Talon and St. George. 

A reckoning is brewing and the secrets hidden by both sides are shocking and deadly. Soon Ember must decide: Should she retreat to fight another day…or start an all-out war?"

My Opinion: I received a copy of this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am in total awe of the amazing Ms. Kagawa, as I've mentioned before, but even I wondered how she was going to take dragons and assimilate them into the everyday contemporary world as sleeper agents, even if they had learned how to look, talk and act human. The catch is, dragons can mimic humans, but they don't have the emotions to back up the feelings. Until Ember Hill, that is. She embraces life 100%, both her dragon side and her human side, and finds the constraints of the dragon hierarchy in Talon (the group of dragons all over the world who work together to prevent the extinction of their race), too much to accept. At the end of the first book, Talon, she goes rogue with the very sexy dragon Cobalt, human name Riley, and vows to break her human boyfriend, Garrett, out of the worst place a dragon can go: into the belly of the beast, which in this case is a compound crawling with soldiers from the Order of St. George, an order put in place hundreds of years ago with the sole purpose of eradicating all dragons from the face of the earth. As Garrett got to know and love Ember, he realized that the Order had been lying to him all of his life about how all dragons were evil, even hatchlings, and had to be killed, and as Ember learned more about Talon from Riley, she realized that they were doing the same thing, only with humans. Because Garrett helped Ember, Riley and two young hatchlings escape from a much older dragon, Lilith, who was a Viper, which is a dragon assassin sent out to hunt and kill rogue dragons, he was caught by his own Order, and scheduled to be put to death by firing squad because he maintained that the soldiers were wrong about all dragons, which was considered treason. And while Riley would love nothing more than to get rid of the annoying human who had feelings for his Ember, he goes with her to break Garrett out before he is executed,  Yes, people, this is exciting stuff!!!

I haven't even mentioned Ember's twin, Dante, who is team Talon through and through, and who turned Ember in when she was leaving to go rogue and asked him to join her, but in his defense, he doesn't see Talon for what it is and honestly believed that Lilith would bring Ember back alive and he would be able to make her see the light and drink the Koolaid and join Talon 100%. But you guessed it, that doesn't go down quite as planned and he ends up scrambling to save face and come up with a new plan to bring her back. He is determined to become one of the executives of Talon eventually, and maybe even run the organization one day, but will he sacrifice Ember to do it? 

Once again, Ms. Kagawa has proven that she is a master storyteller by weaving romance, both between two dragons and an unheard of human and dragon, intrigue, action, and much, much more. I already love this series and can't wait to read more. I give this book a very, very enthusiastic 5 stars!!!!!