Do you or someone you know love dragons? I’ve been obsessed with them since I was a kid and first read Donita K. Paul’s Dragonspell. It awoke a long-held desire to have a small army of tiny flying lizards at my command.

If you’re looking for that perfect dragon-themed gift – or to treat yourself – here is a list of dragon stories I’ve compiled for dragon lovers, young and old to enjoy! They are all clean (content doesn’t move beyond kissing, no gratuitous violence or swearing).

I have to kick off with one of the greats:

Dragonspell – Donita K. Paul

One Dragon Egg Holds the Key to the Future.

Once a slave, Kale is given the unexpected opportunity to become a servant to Paladin. Yet this young girl has much to learn about the difference between slavery and service.

The first book in the DragonKeeper Chronicles is filled with dragons, a magical world, and personal growth. This book inspired me to write Silver Blood back when I was twelve. I’m re-reading the series with my daughter and remembering all the reasons I love it. 

Bard Tidings – Paul Regnier

The spirit of a warrior lies deep inside a bard. Deep down. Way, way down.

Jonas must go from lute player to monster slayer as he travels through dangerous lands on a desperate quest to stop an army. 

I had the pleasure of meeting the author at a conference last year. The cover for this book grabbed me immediately. If you want a light-hearted read featuring dragons and cursed treasure, this will be up your alley.

The Two Sisters of Bamarre – Gail Carson Levine

Twelve-year-old Addie admires her older sister Meryl, who aspires to rid the kingdom of Bamarre of gryphons, specters, and ogres. Addie, on the other hand, is fearful even of spiders and depends on Meryl for courage and protection. 

When Meryl falls ill with the dreaded Gray Death, Addie must gather her courage and set off alone on a quest to find the cure and save her beloved sister.

Just like DragonSpell, this book highlights personal growth very well. When I read this book as a tween, it affected the way I saw courage: as something you choose to have. I’ve reread this one several times. This story has everything: romance, worldbuilding, memorable characters, fairytale-like creatures and grandiose adventures. Let’s not forget the dragon; who doesn’t want to be able to out-smart one of those?

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C.S. Lewis

NARNIA… the world of wicked dragons and magic spells, where the very best is brought out of even the worst people, where anything can happen (and most often does)… and where adventure begins.

This one is a classic, and worth remembering. The third book in the Chronicles of Narnia (or the fourth, if you count “The Magician’s Nephew” as the first). The whole sequence in the book with the old dragon, treasure, and unknown islands is a great picture of the physical manifestation of greed and its consequences. 

Dragon’s Future – Kandi J Wyatt

What would you give to soar with dragons?

Every child of Woolpren dreams of being a dragon rider, but few are chosen. Twins Ruskya & Duskya are selected as children to join this elite group, leaving their home and all that is familiar to train for their new lives.

Fast forward fifteen years–dragons are becoming extinct and riders are rare. When Ruskya learns of a plot that could destroy the remaining dragon population, he and his friends must fight for their dragons’ future.

This one appeals to the young dragon-reader I was (and still am!) at heart. It’s free to download and read, click here to get it!

Age of the Behemoths – A Primal Lit RPG Adventure – A. F. Gaine

Hatch, Hunt, and Uncover Secrets in a Primal World In the savage wilds of Aluria, colossal creatures reign supreme and ancient magic echoes through the untamed landscape. For Noah Parker, a jaded IT technician with a thirst for adventure, the virtual realm of Age of the Behemoths offers an escape like no other. But when he stumbles upon a mysterious egg and bonds with a newly hatched wyvern, his true journey begins.

This one is intriguing to me. Did you ever pick up a Choose Your Own Adventure book as a kid? I did, and I always wanted to read more. It gives you a sense that you’re not just reading about a fantasy world, you’re in it. I’m planning to check this one out.

Silver Blood – Grace R. Pringle

A curse. A deal. Death.

When tragedy strikes, twins Meredith and Kaydin go into hiding from the Witch-Queen who wants them dead. While forced to keep their identities a secret, they meet and befriend Airith Shaver.

Airith’s life is, as far as he’s concerned, predictable. He’s destined for the king’s court and a life of military service. But a chance encounter with a wounded dragon leaves Airith infected with a deadly disease and a new goal in life: survive at all costs.

But what if the cost is his friends? His family? … His soul?

This book has dragons, good vs. evil, and redemption arcs. It explores sibling and parental relationships, both good and bad. It asks hard questions like who owns YOUR soul? It takes you on a journey reminiscent of the Chronicles of Narnia and the DragonKeeper Chronicles. And there are mountains – lots of mountains – along with dragons living in said mountains.

Prisoners of Thornbrill – Hannah Pennington

For five years, distrustful 20-year-old Melanie and her brother Jason thought the Grand Canyon would keep their dragon, Scalaed, safe. But none of that matters when all three wake up in another world as prisoners of the ruthless High Huntress, Helnah.

When a rebel hunter helps Melanie to escape, she must learn to trust him if she ever wants to get her brother and dragon back.

This one was written by an author at a young age who published the book as an adult. I think that will make young readers relate to this book. Who else wished for a pet dragon when they were a kid?

Lastly, if you like dragons, hold out for my novella Bone Threads – Soul Threads novella sequel. There’s an undead dragon coming to its pages soon! In the meantime, sign up for my newsletters so you can get ahead of the game and read Soul Threads for free!

Comment with your favourite clean young adult dragon-themed fantasy so I can add it to my to be read list!

Though it’s been awhile since I’ve posted on here, my writing has not been on the wayside. In fact, I’d say this past year has been one of my most productive in a long time! It’s just been more productive in a editing vs. writing way.

A week ago I found myself sitting in a hotel room by myself pouring my heart out to God and feeling His presence and love.

There’s a Christian writer’s conference called Realm Makers that my husband and I attended online a couple times. We greatly enjoyed the talks and speakers, but there was definitely the “people” aspect that we were missing out on. This year a friend of mine wanted to go in-person and asked if I’d come along. After talking it over with my husband and working out childcare I found myself on a 17+ hour road trip to St. Louis, Missouri!

We stopped at this beautiful hotel in Ohio along the way:

And visited the Ark Encounter:

Until we ended up in Missouri looking like this:

Well, we didn’t look like that when we arrived, but sometime afterwards we did when we attended the Realm Awards.

The missing element of “people” was definitely filled when I found myself surrounded by unapologetically Christian writers and creators. In the elevators, at tables, in the vendor hall; everyone was eager to talk “shop,” encourage, and pray.

There I was, standing in a crowd with a book I’ve poured so much of my time and self into. A book I’ve spent a year editing to pieces, pieces that hopefully fit back together into a coherent, thought-provoking story. And… I was undecided.

Is my book good enough to publish? Is it an accurate representation of my craft when I wrote it at such a young age and long ago? Should I shelf it sadly as the beginning but not the end of my writing career? As a learning experience I, hopefully, learned from?

Or… is it a story that someone will enjoy as much as I did? Is it a story that glorifies my God and He inspired me to write? Is it a story He wants me to publish?

So I prayed two things:

1. He would make me brave
2. He’d make it clear what I should do with my manuscript

And He did.

What started out as me reluctantly agreeing to pitch my book to one publisher turned into five pitches and requests from them for chapters and, in some cases, full manuscripts.

I went to my hotel room and cried. Being a writer is tied up in my personality because the desire to tell stories began as I was forming an opinion of myself, my world, and my God at only twelve years old.

I’ve asked God so many times:

“Why have you burdened and gifted me with a desire to tell stories if You don’t want me to use it?”

In that moment, in a hotel room alone with my Creator, through the positive reception by editors and publishers, I felt Him acknowledge my longing. He formed my brain and poured curiosity, wonder, and desire for “other” into it. I can only prosper if I let go of myself and trust who He made me to be. I’m not sure what He’s planning to use my brain and stories for yet, but I do know that God answers prayer:

1. He made me brave
2. He told me I shouldn’t give up on “Silver Blood.”

God knows the fragile state of my heart and didn’t crush it.

I want to urge you to take your wants, desires, and longings and place them into the hands of the God who loves you.

Dedicated to my Mother and all the other mothers in my life.

 

My friend Sarah got married this past summer! Whoo hoo! So, naturally, we hopped on a plane and threw ourselves on her family’s hospitality for a week and a half.

The last time I visited England I was twelve, I still remember that trip clearly, it’s one of my favourite memories, and I’d vowed to return one day – it looks like God decided to oblige me 😉 This time we traveled and met up with my sister, Vertimyst and a couple British friends.

I came back with a lot of inspiration, I could spend my whole life there and have no end of it. There is so much history known and unknown.
We spent a day in London and another in Bath, the rest of the time we explored Abingdon and Oxford. I had no idea there were so many universities there! I always assumed that “Oxford University” was one institution, it turns out it is many under one title. We were fortunate to have a friend who works at Oxford University Press and she took us on a tour of some of the universities. We got to see where Tolkien taught and walked.

I felt like there were more tourists in England than Englishmen.

My favourite part of our trip was Avebury. It’s a stone circle older than Stone Henge (they estimate about six to nine thousand years old), but not as large. When we visited it was sunset and there was a warm wind blowing. In order to see the stones you have to open gates and walk through fields filled with grazing sheep. It’s created a brewing story in me.

Synopsis: Taya soars over Ondinium on metal wings. She is an icarus — a courier privileged to travel freely across the city’s sectors and mingle indiscriminately among its castes. But even she can’t outfly the web of terrorism, loyalty, murder, and intrigue that snares her after a daring mid-air rescue. Taya finds herself entangled with the Forlore brothers, scions of an upperclass family: handsome, brilliant Alister, who sits on the governing council and writes programs for the Great Engine; and awkward, sharp-tongued Cristof, who has exiled himself from his caste and repairs clocks in Ondinium’s lowest sector. Both hide dangerous secrets, in this city that beats to the ticking of a clockwork heart…

What I liked: What first attached me to this book was the cover and then the back cover’s synopsis. I love steampunk and this book seemed to promise a good dose of that.
The story was interesting, it had some cool ideas; like Taya’s clockwork wings and the way the city’s society worked. It was interesting how computers and steampunk were combined.
Pagliassotti does a good job of assuming her audience is not dumb, her tone is not condescending or overly explanatory.

What I Didn’t Like: The first page was a bit overwhelming: there was a lot of information about the society and names given all at once. Once it plunged into the action scene it became interesting.

The book is aimed at a teen and YA audience: I found it in the teen section and the story is very much geared towards what that age group would be interested in; however, the main character is mentioned as being about thirty years old. That doesn’t have to be a big deal, in fact, it can be an opportunity to create a role model for younger readers. However, I took issue with the opportunity Pagliassotti missed; she has Taya and Alister’s intentions toward each other as being completely recreational and not at all serious. Pointless flirting is portrayed as fun and harmless, and Taya considers sleeping with Alister with clear indications of no commitment. It bothers me that Pagliassotti portrays these ideas to teens who are looking around for an indication of what relationships should be like. Her message is: commitment-free, sexual relationships can be fun and don’t really mean anything. That kind of thinking can be damaging.

There is a whole lot of blushing going on in the book. Taya blushes when she wakes up, blushes when she eats, blushes when she walks, blushes when talking to both the love interests, and blushes when anything important happens. Alister also joins in on the blush-fest. I might be exaggerating a little bit, but only a little bit…

At one point the story lulled and seemed to promise the end, only to have a whole other story line appear and the story start up again. In the meantime, I got bored.

The Verdict: One only needs to see the difference between the amount of “What I liked” in comparison to “what I didn’t like” to know the answer to that. I was disappointed. Though the story was okay, the morals sucked and, in the end, I got rid of the book.

Following my previous post: link in which I confessed my love of dragons, I decided to do another post about them. In honour of this occasion I will post a scene from my book, Silver Blood.

Excerpt

          “Useless, she says; a screecher, she says. Well I’ll have her know I have earned a living off of my profession!” Zray mumbled to himself as he stumbled along through the woods with two spear-points at his back.

          The sun had just risen and the light was filtering down through the tree tops to the forest floor around him. Zray tripped over a root and mumbled, “I happen to have sung for The Duke of Gasbal and he complimented me on my pluckiness.”

          “Would you just be quiet!” one of the guards, a man with no hair on his head, snapped at him.

          “Let’s hurry up and get this done with,” the other guard spoke fearfully, “I do not like the look of this place, whole bands of soldiers have disappeared from these woods.”

          “You do not suppose it was because of dragons, do you? Because that would just be ridiculous…” Zray’s voice trailed off when he saw a huge scaly claw a few feet away. His eyes rose up very slowly to see the gigantic creature before him. Zray let out a sudden exclamation of surprise and took a step backwards. He tripped over his own feet and found himself on his back staring up at the largest meat-eating animal he had ever seen.

The dragon was brown with a gold sheen to his scales and had enormous, black, cat-like eyes. The dragon brought his head very close to Zray’s and studied the minstrel with one of his penetrating, onyx eyes.

Zray threw his arms up over his face to protect himself and yelled out franticly, “I’ll give you anything you want! Please do not eat me! I promise I taste terrible!”

          “You needn’t tell me that, I can see it for myself,” the dragon sniffed and pushed Zray with his snout. Zray’s eyes grew wide when he saw six coloured dragons standing behind the first. The minstrel got to his feet and brushed the dust off his coat. He laughed rudely when he saw Sisinta’s guards backing away fearfully from the largest dragons they had ever seen. As the two soldiers scattered in opposite directions, the brown dragon standing over Zray let out a roar and spoke with a thunderous voice, “Catch them! We cannot let them get away and give away our presence!” Two dragons streaked forward and pinned both soldiers down in mid run.

Zray put his hands on his hips and yelled after them, “So nowyou run! Cowards! Why are you afraid of a few little dragons? I bet you wish you had themon your side, eh?” Zray let out a yelp when he suddenly found himself abruptly pulled off his feet and hanging in the air by the brown dragon’s claws. Zray started yelling and kicking wildly and he let out a scream when, for a split second, he was thrown through the air and suddenly caught hold of by the dragon’s tail.

          “This is not proper behaviour for a dragon!” Zray shouted while beating the dragon’s tail with his fists. The brown scales were thick and the dragon just chuckled at the minstrel’s futile attempts. The dragon spread his majestic wings and leapt into the sky followed by the other dragons, including the two carrying the screeching soldiers in their massive claws.

 

          I thought you guys might like to see pictures of my dragon knickknacks. Here they are: 

This is a set of tea coasters my friend Sarah made and sent all the way from England.

One is for my husband, one for my daughter and one for me.

This one is my favourite. I found it in a shop while visiting my home town. It cost more than I’d normally spend but I liked it so much that I figured it was worth it. It used to be only painted grey, but I took some nail polish and painted the highlights.

I don’t remember exactly how I came by these but I use them all the time when I have tea. I like my tea…and my spoons!

This was a gift from my family, it’s snake-like but I like to think of it as a Chinese dragon. The little hammer is used to hit the bell.

This was a pendent I picked up at a garage sale. I added the beads.

This is my husbands. I received his permission to post a picture of it here 🙂

Do you have any knickknacks that you are particularly fond of? I’d like to see pictures! Post a link in the comments.

 

This week I was at Chapters with a friend and picked up a book which I managed to read over two days despite food art and changing diapers. I’ll be posting a book review on it soon.

This evening I finished a picture I started a long while back. I have a lot of improving to do on my shading but I still like this one. And just so you all know, dragons are awesome; they are my favourite fantasy creature. This is a lightning dragon from my Silver Blood series.

You can find it here on DeviantArt

Do any of you have a favourite dragon picture? Link me to it in the comments!

Whenever I visit someone’s house I sneak over to their bookcases and peruse. I find that my bookcases make our apartment; they are what put people at ease and give it a cosy feeling. I feel slightly guilty that I haven’t read all the books I have, and that I keep buying more than I have room for. However, my husband quickly drowns out any complaining on the subject with: “You can NEVER have too many books!” And I believe him because of course he’s right. I do try to get rid of a book if I’ve read it and hated it, or read it and liked it and would never read it again.

An Ode to Bookcases

There is something about a bookcase that makes me curious,
Something about an empty one that makes me furious.
There is something about a bookcase that demands attention,
Something about a bookcase deserves mention.

I swear that my poems are sometimes clever!

If any of you have bookcases I would love to see pictures of them (filled with books of course >_> ). Link me to them if you want me to admire them too!

My bookcases:

 

Curiosity Killed the Cat