One of the things I said about The Bone Raiders, the first book in Jackson Ford’s Rakada series, was that you could go ahead and judge it by its cover. The cover of that book was five badass women of color, draped in human bones and carrying weapons, plus a giant, fire-breathing lizard that is not technically a dragon but may as well be.

I am tempted to point out that this cover features two fire-breathing lizards, hit “Publish,” and retire for the night.

I fucking loved the first book, about a group of raiders in a heavily Mongolian-inspired steppe setting, who decided to try and tame the aforementioned fire-breathing lizards so that they could ride them into battle. By the time this book begins, they have mastered taming said fire-breathing lizards (which are called araatan, by the way) and all four of them have their own. Which means that the psychic crazy lady from the first book who thinks she’s immortal until she makes good on a deal she made with God now rides a dragon.

Its name is Sponge Bath. I’m not sure there are sponges in this world. I definitely don’t care. Ford can have that little anachronism for free. Two others are Tooth Monster and Princess. The fourth’s name is a plot point and I won’t reveal it.

And then the araatan start getting sick, and all four women have the same vision at the same time, featuring the words “You can save them,” and we’re off to the fucking races.

Jackson Ford is so good that it makes me sick. My jealousy is off the charts; this shit is simply not fair. I’m coming off several books in a row that didn’t hit the way I wanted them to and I needed my ass kicked, and I’m glad I saved this book for when I needed my ass kicked, because damn. Somehow a book about four women wearing bones and riding dragons also gets way deeper into everyone’s character than the first one did, and the ending is so crushing that I didn’t believe it at first, fully expecting a particular plot development to let one character hit the reset button on everything that had happened, and … nope. If you are a crier, in addition to kicking your ass, this book will make you cry, and you won’t see it coming. I am not a crier and it still almost got me.

Violence and humor and violence and world building and violence and lesbians and violence and rebellions and violence and family drama and violence and betrayal and violence and possession and gods. Because like hell we’re not going to up the stakes on this one.

Go get it.