Seraphina Dombegh is a musical genius. She moves people to tears with the simplest instrument. Yet she has a secret: she’s part dragon.

Seraphina’s mother was a dragon who had taken the form of a human, as all dragons can. While most dragons lock away emotions, her mother lets herself feel hers, fall in love with a human named Claude, and give birth to Seraphina. Only when she died giving birth did Claude see her silver blood, proving she was a dragon.

Years later, Seraphina is struggling to hide her scales, the telltale sign of a dragon, as she desperately tries to balance musical work, an inviting prince, and the coming anniversary of the thin treaty between dragons and humans. When revealing her secret might be the only way to save the royal family and the treaty, Seraphina puts her own life on the line.

This book is themed around prejudiced ideas against any who are different or even sympathetic to these differences. This belief blinds many people to the evils in their own society as well as the good in others. One needs to learn that, in times of trouble, it matters not one’s color of skin, religion, or ethnicity. It matters not one’s political views, gender, or culture.

 We are all people with thoughts and feelings, and while this book talks about dragons and humans, both can feel and think. Both can create and destroy, and both can be monsters or heroes. By what right does anyone have to say who is a monster and who isn’t?