Breakaway Books

Authored by Jean Kwok; Published July 2026; Romantasy

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

Dominion creates a fantastical world that’s easy to get lost in, with a divided world and rival fictions with rich mythology. The narrative, however, leaves something to be desired. 

In Dominion, Rubi has lost her memories after the destruction of her domain—the land of the Azure Dragon, overrun by demons from the underworld. She and her friend Edith are barely making it as refugees in the territory of the Silver Tiger when she is thrown in jail and exposed to the dangerous tigers themselves that serve as mascots for the territory as punishment. Miraculously bonded to the tiger queen, Rubi is forced to serve under the king’s right hand man, Blake Axefire, to help save the realm from the same fate that the Azures suffered.

I will admit that most of this novel did not impress me. Virtually every major element of it comes off as similar to parts of Fourth Wing, except that the romance at the center of that series is far more compelling than this one. There are the fierce creatures to which our heroes are bonded, the ire and suspicion with which the heroine is confronted by her supposed allies, the aggressively dangerous initiation experience. It all smells so strongly of another novel that it’s difficult not to conclude that it is merely a poor replica, and it made it very difficult for me to take the novel seriously. Even when that idea was not at the forefront of my mind, I did not love the romance between Blake and Rubi, which seems to move at light speed, far faster than one would consider rational.

But if you can make it to the back half of the book, you will be rewarded. Once the characters from the different dominions are interacting, I found the novel to be much more engaging. I love the way the different cultures are depicted, with their strengths and weaknesses. Of course, a world with so much going on does require quite a bit of exposition, and I wouldn’t say that it was handled particularly smoothly, but in the end, the richness of the world saved the novel for me. At the very end, the obstacles that are in place for the next novel become clear—and a few more than I was expecting, at that. In fact, the set up for the next novel is more exciting than the climax of this one!

Dominion may not be your favorite romantasy, but I’m pretty sure when you close it, you’ll be intrigued enough to pick up the next one.