Tigerpetal Press

Dragonia: Revenge of the Dragons by Craig A. Price Jr.

Great Story, Decent Writing

Zaviana has been freed by Derkas, and yet she is still enslaved. She wants to fight the empire, but he just wants her to be safe. So when she discovers a group on the hunt for the resistance, of course she escapes him and joins the search. Meanwhile, Naveen has just witnessed the death of her best friend. The empire is hunting for resistance sympathizers, and all they suspect are deemed guilty without proof. This spurs her into action, and she leads a large group in search of something she hasn’t had for a while—hope. Now she and Zaviana have joined the resistance together, and they have something new. Something that can be used against the empire. They have magic.

This story begins with another flashback to the emperor’s youth, showing what he did after getting his dragon. Then, we meet Zaviana, and while we know who she is from the epilogue of the last book, I was expecting to be back with Devarius and the resistance. Instead, the story hops back and forth between Zaviana and Naveen—a new character we meet—who both have magical abilities, though Zaviana’s are more advanced than Naveen’s. Because of this, the book felt like it could’ve been another “book one” since they were going on the same journey as Devarius and his group in the first book. We eventually did get back to Devarius and the resistance, but it felt strange at the beginning.

With the arrival of Zaviana, this book introduces the concept of magic as a viable source (not just from the dragons/wyverns) and thus introduces a magic system. It works the same way as the wyverns’ colours. Some people are born with an innate enhanced sense, and from there, they can affect the same elements as the wyvern’s colours—fire, ice, wind, acid, lightning, and metal. These abilities are further enhanced if they use the wyvern scales or oil. And they are overwhelmingly enhanced if they come in contact with something called the dragon stone, which steals magic from the dragons and, I guess, redistributes it. I’m interested in this system, and the narrative wonders why some people are gifted and others are not, but it has not yet revealed the answer.

Something that really peeved me about this story was the confusion of pronouns throughout. “He” and “she” were used nearly interchangeably, and none of the characters were portrayed as genderfluid, so this is chalked down to an editing mistake. This issue didn’t affect just one character, but multiple different ones, and it was highly distracting. I definitely think this book could’ve benefited from another round of copyediting at the very least to solve this issue and the rare spelling mistakes that I also found.

Overall, though, it was a decent read. The point of view (third person omniscient) remained consistent, giving an accurate description, but also diving into the minds of some of the characters. I read this book quite fast, but the pacing still seemed good to me, as the action came swiftly, and while there was character building in between, there weren’t any drastically slow sections. I actually think the author could’ve taken some time for better character building because even though Devarius’s romantic relationship was put on hold, I still couldn’t feel the bonds between him and other people from his past. I understood his need to find his sister because of the familial connection, but other than that, nothing about their past is shown. Same with Paedyn. He is shown to be a comedic character who is also an arson, but most of his quips felt awkward in the writing as if the author was constantly trying to remind you that he’s funny. This, I think, is because most of their past is told through dialogue when I think the story would’ve benefited from flashback scenes instead.

Now, to talk of the writing. As I said in the tagline, the idea was great, but the prose was only decent. I can see real potential in this idea as one of the generic dragon-packed action-adventure stories, but I didn’t find the words compelling. I’m not sure what it was—maybe the flow, word repetition, or just some awkward sentences—but the writing didn’t impact me like some authors do. It was hard to picture scenes at times, and my eyes wandered a bit as I was reading, getting lost as I tried to make sense of some of the more confusing sentences.

That being said, it was an entertaining story, and I’m set to read the next two books in the series.

I recommend this book to lovers of cliché romance with a bit of adventure sprinkled in. The war is still going on, continuing with more urgency from the last book, but there is a lot more focus on intercharacter relationships, as well as self-discovery through magic.