Dragons. Right. Teenage girls don’t believe in fairy tales, and sixteen-year old Elena Watkins was no different. Until the night a fairy tale killed her father. Now Elena’s in a new world, and a new school. The cutest guy around may be an evil dragon, a Prince wants Elena’s heart, and a long dead sorcerer may be waking up to kill her. Oh. And the only way Elena’s going to graduate is on the back of a dragon of her own. Teenage girls don’t believe in fairy tales. Now it’s time for Elena to believe – in herself.
Title: Firebolt ( The dragonian #1)
Author: Adrienne Woods
Published: September 19th 2014 by Quill Publishing
Genres: YA, fantasy, draons
I recieved a copy of this book via NetGAlley in exchange of an honest review.
I’m not much of a fun of books about dragons, but the beautiful cover and the synopsis got my attention. The story’s not really what I was expecting, it was even better.
I was expecting a medieval setting, instead we get world that is a more advanced but still full of magic and fairytale like creatures. It is a beautiful and colorful world, perfect for the mysteries and excitement the book presents. The author writing style is great and the story flows easily. The whole installment narrated by Elena who is new to this magical place so we experience every little detail alongside with her. Her reactions and emotions come through spectacularly. It’s strange how easily magic and technology work together in Paegeia, but if we break down the story, the bare core of it a simply fairytale where the heroic prince who saves the day is replaced with Elena.
Beside the beautiful world the book has a fantastic cast, too. Elena, the heroine, has no clue about magic and dragons so everything is quite a shock to her. The acceptance comes slow and hard and however much hers is the most realistic reaction I ever read about, sometimes she acts so dumb and infuriatingly hysteric. Then in no time she accommodates to her new life and genuinely tries to understand her new surroundings. That is until the first hardship, when she returns to the dumb, hysteric girl from the beginning of the book, some instance she even acts as a brat. So even if she portrays the most realistic reaction from someone who just finds out about the supernatural world I was expecting a stronger and more resilient main character. Becky and Sam, her room-mates personalities aren’t constant trough the story. My first impression about Becky was that she is a quirky, scatter-brained, mouthy and more of a laid back person, later she shows a more badass but also entitled side of herself. Sam transforms from strong and free-spoken to a skittish and gentler character. But they have a really strong friendship and they quickly include Elena in it, too. They are also extremely loyal, understanding and have a rebel spirit. Then there is Lucian, the quintessential prince charming with more determination and stubbornness than anyone. He is a stereotype through and through. I wasn’t too happy about his advances but as my other reviews show I usually like the dark ones.
Blake stays an enigma and acts like somebody with multiple personalities. There are also a lot of interesting secondary characters, whom add to the book complexity.
I have two big problems with the story. One is the pacing or at least the pacing of Elena change. In the first ¾ of the book she struggles to adjust to her new life then in a blink of an eye she starts to plan her grandiose world saving mission. It’s too fast change for my taste. The other is a minor detail which is the fact that a lot of “mystery” or secret is really obvious and predictable. You can guess almost everything from the clouded stories if you play attention. Unfortunately it has the potential to ruin the further books. So I’m hoping for a twist in the installment.
Despite the little kinks I really enjoyed the story. It is well constructed, exciting, interesting and has a little bit of everything a fantastic fairytale needs. Looking forward to Thunderlight.
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