Breath of the Dragon

• Author: Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee
• Genre: YA Fantasy
• Publication Date: January 7, 2025
• Publisher: Wednesday Books/Macmillan Audio
• Series: Breathmarked #1

Thank you to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and Macmillan Audio for providing me with ARCs of this ebook and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

CONTENT WARNING: violence, gore, murder, death of a parent (off-page)

The first novel in a sweeping YA fantasy duology based on characters and teachings created by Bruce Lee!

Sixteen-year-old Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Earth to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s honor—righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother.

But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. There is no future in honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breathmarked, born with a patch of dragon scales and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place.

As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life, but the fate of the country itself.

It wasn’t until just before I started reading this that I looked up who Shannon Lee is, because my first assumption was that she is related to Fonda Lee, one of my favorite authors. Thanks to the marvels of the internet, I discovered that Shannon Lee isn’t related to Fonda Lee, but she is the daughter of martial arts legend Bruce Lee. And it made perfect sense for these two authors to work together and create a story that gives me The Combat Codes x Jade City vibes.

I read this book primarily through audiobook, because the narrator, Eric Yang, is fantastic and made this story jump off the page with his narration. I really enjoyed his portrayal of the characters and how he told the story, making it the kind of audiobook that I couldn’t put down. 

Initially, we get to meet Jun and Sai, twin brothers who are extremely enmeshed. Jun is a fast learner, extremely determined even at a young age to show that he is equally valuable despite not having the patch of dragon scales on his skin that his brother has, which indicates that they are breathmarked, blessed by Dragon, and have a special talent. Sai’s talent is that he can learn anything after seeing someone else do it, and without having to practice, he can excel. Jun, on the other hand, works hard and learns every skill before his brother, but is discounted because of his lack of a breathmark.

Jun also demonstrates some negative characteristics—he’s hyperactive, impulsive, and rarely thinks before he acts. Due to these flaws, he and his father are separated from his brother and mother, who are sent away so that Sai can train to be an Aspect, a person who keeps public and social order. It is Jun’s actions that lead to this, showing off the secret and forbidden martial arts that his father has taught them. Jun and his father are sent to a neighboring country for a five-year banishment period. In that time, Jun’s father got a job at an opera house, organizing the fight scenes and playing the villain, since martial arts aren’t forbidden in their new home. Jun trains at a local school, and is determined to participate in a tournament that is held every six years and determines who will be the newest Guardian, entrusted to keep the magical Scroll of Earth safe.  

We don’t get to see much of Sai, since the story is told entirely through Jun’s perspective. He does maintain a connection to his twin by having imaginary conversations with him, even though the letters stopped passing through the border after the creation of a wall between the countries. Jun’s perspective is interesting, especially since we meet him at age 6, and then again ten years later. There’s obviously a lot of growth that he experiences in this book, and we start to see him changing once he impulsively stows away in Chang and Ren’s wagon. This transitions him from an overactive and honestly, kind of obnoxious child into a young man who is actively working on himself and trying not to keep making the same mistakes repeatedly. 

One of the things that stood out the most to me about this book is the realistic nature of the martial arts in the story. I love Fonda Lee’s style of writing, especially her fight scenes, but when she paired up with Shannon Lee, another martial arts expert, the descriptions of the fight were so clear and well-choreographed that they were so easy to visualize, even without having any knowledge of martial arts. This is on display in Fonda Lee’s Greenbone Saga series, and it really made me think of The Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin, in how the fighting is depicted.

The way that Jun connects to the people around him is relatively abrasive. He’s great at the physical activity of martial arts, but the structure, discipline, and forethought is an area that he struggles with for a good portion of the book. I also liked seeing how much harder he works to get on even footing with someone who is breathmarked. 

This book isn’t just about one young man who fights his way, literally, to the tournament, there’s also some political intrigue occurring in the book. It sets the tone for a duology so that I’m already excited for the next book before this one is even out yet. But I enjoyed seeing how all the different story threads intertwined and created a cohesive plot that was perfectly paced. I can’t say enough great things about the characters in the story, how they interact, and the complexity of the plot, which comes on slowly enough to grasp everything, even while reading the audiobook version. Sometimes I struggle to focus when listening to an audiobook, and have to reread certain chapters, or even switch to reading along in the ebook while I’m listening, but I never had to do that with this book, despite the complex and layered nature of the story.

Overall, this book is fantastic, and I want to just throw copies of it at people like I’m Oprah. You get a book, and *you* get a book, and everyone gets a book! 

It’s the best kind of underdog story, in my opinion, and there’s so many positives about the book that I didn’t even notice any negatives. If you enjoy books featuring martial arts, Bruce Lee’s style and teachings, stories with lots of action, YA books with characters who are morally gray in what they’ll do to succeed, and fantasy novels with excellent world building, then you’ll love this book!

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