I REALLY REALLY liked this book.

The Last Namsara takes place in an extremely interesting world. Stories are illegal to tell, dragons are being hunted to extinction because of the threat they pose. Years ago the First Dragon burned half the city down, and left our main character, Asha with a scar covering half her body. Stories not only lure dragons, but they make the teller sick. Asha has her scar because she summoned the dragon with a story.
In present day, Asha is betrothed to this horrible guy who is the commandant of the army because her father, the king, hopes that her marriage to a prominent person will help her reputation with their people. And she's hunting dragons for her father. Her mother died from telling stories, and her father has completely banned the stories, and dragons. The people used to follow the tellings of the "Old One" but that 'religion' (I guess you could call it that - or 'magical being') caused too many stories.
This book that fights the "strong female protagonist has to be a coldhearted bitch" trope. At the beginning, Asha is very loyal to her father and his ways. She's dedicated her life to exterminating dragons, she supports enslaving the skrals, and she agrees upon the laws put in place to protect her and others. But throughout the novel, she undergoes an extremely smooth flow of character development. One of my pet peeves is choppy character development, but I didn't find that in this at all. Asha starts out not coldhearted, but very unmoved by the struggles of others. Slowly, she begins to see how valuable empathy can be, and it works slowly as secrets are unveiled around her.
Also: strong female friendship! sibling bond! exploration of social hierarchy! stories within a story! cool world structure! political debate!
I may review this on my blog when it comes out so lookout for it on emilyspeaking.blogspot.com