Tagged: marc secchia
Book Blast: Dragonlove by Marc Secchia
When a woman loves a Dragon, that love will change the world.
Six years have passed since Hualiama and Grandion defied the Island-World’s most sacred law. They burned the heavens together as Rider and Dragon. For his crime, Grandion the Tourmaline Dragon suffered exile and imprisonment. The Dragons forced Hualiama to forget her past.
Now, the suns must set upon the age of the Ancient Dragons. Amaryllion Fireborn, last of his kind, bequeaths Hualiama an astonishing legacy. She is the Dragonfriend. Raised by Dragons. Burned by Dragon fire. Oath-bound to a Dragon. Crossing the Island-World in search of her Dragonlove, she will forge an indelible mark upon history.
As war between Dragons and Humans engulfs the Islands, Hualiama must unravel the secrets of her tragic past in order to confront an evil that threatens the very existence of the Dragonkind. For love that is tested in the crucible of fate must burn, or die.
Marc is a South African-born author who lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night there are also hyenas patrolling the back fence.
When he’s not writing about Africa Marc can be found travelling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.
Dragonfriend by Marc Secchia
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Stabbed. Burned by a dragon. Abandoned for the windrocs to pick over. The traitor Ra’aba tried to silence Hualiama forever. But he reckoned without the strength of a dragonet’s paw, and the courage of a girl who refused to die.
Only an extraordinary friendship will save Hualiama’s beloved kingdom of Fra’anior and restore the King to the Onyx Throne. Flicker, the valiant dragonet. Hualiama, a foundling, adopted into the royal family. The power of a friendship which paid the ultimate price.
This is the tale of Hualiama Dragonfriend, and a love which became legend.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received an ebook ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
Beautiful. Enchanting. Hilarious. Tragic. Touching. Empowering.
You could use any of those words to describe Dragonfriend but in truth to do this book justice you’d have to use them all. It is so many different things woven together into one book that you can’t help but fall in love with Hualiama as well as her companions Flicker (the dragonet) and Grandion (the dragon).
Hualiama is one of those characters that you’ll never forget after finishing the book. In the beginning she’s nothing but a royal bastard, the half-daughter of the king who stands up to his captain-of-the-guard, the usurper of the Onyx Throne. She doesn’t even particularly like her father but she likes Ra’aba even less and for her trouble she gets her back and stomach sliced open before being tossed off the Dragonship to die. But thanks to Flicker breaking her fall, carrying her to safety and patching her up, Hualiama isn’t so easy to get rid of. (If you don’t know, dragonets aren’t much bigger than a couple of feet long and just a little bigger in wingspan so for Flicker to carry a human, even a tiny one, it was a huge sacrifice on his part.) As Flicker nurses her back to health and teaches her to speak in a civilized manner—Dragonish, of course—she grows stronger and more and more determined to seek revenge against the man who deposed her family. No one in her family save for her adoptive mother may like her, but Hualiama loves them with a fierce, protective sort of love that leads her to the gates of hell and back in her quest.
What I found really interesting about Dragonfriend is that it’s set 425 years before the ‘main series’, Shapeshifter Dragons. It’s set almost 275 years before the spin-off series, Shapeshifter Dragon Legends. So all of the technology that’s introduced first in Legends and then in the main series is just in its infancy. There are no meriatite-fuelled Dragonships; they’re powered by the back-breaker, the machine that soldiers have to pedal in order to keep the ship moving. Dragons and humans have no contact with one another whereas in Legends it’s the peak of Dragon Riders and in the main series the Dragon Rider era has waned and dragons are hunted. You really don’t have to read Aranya and Shadow Dragon from the main series or The Pygmy Dragon from the spin-off in order to appreciate Dragonfriend, but it does make the whole experience more enjoyable. However, if you start with Dragonfriend, go to The Pygmy Dragon and then move on to Aranya and Shadow Dragon, you’ll actually be reading the series in the in-universe chronological order. So really, either way works and whether this is your first Marc Secchia book or not, you’ll really appreciate the sheer amount of detail he puts into all of his world-building.
One of the things that constantly surprises me is Marc Secchia’s ability to write from a female perspective so believably. He creates these amazingly strong characters but they’re not all Action Girls! Hualiama tries to fight but is hopelessly clumsy and has to really, really work at it. Pip from The Pygmy Dragon was born gifted at fighting but is at a huge disadvantage because of her small size. Aranya is better than Hualiama but that’s because her father made absolutely sure she became good at fighting whereas Hualiama’s father the king actively discouraged Hualiama’s more masculine pursuits. Each female main character has her own journey to womanhood in unique ways and Hualiama’s is just so amazing. She goes through so much in order to achieve her goals and even though she tries her hardest, sometimes (much like in the real world) things don’t work out. Her life is one of pure happiness and pure tragedy and even though I’m not a very emotional reader I must admit I balled my eyes out at the ending of this book. I defy anyone not to become attached to Hualiama throughout this book. It’s impossible because Marc Secchia not only writes believable and diverse female characters, his writing has such an emotional quality that you won’t be able to remain impassive during their struggles. You’ll really be rooting for Hualiama, trust me. Even when she makes mistakes, you’ll root for her.
The plot starts off pretty fast-paced compared to the other three books in the Island World and although it does slow down in terms of action, it always remains interesting. There’s always that undercurrent of tension as Hualiama is rehabilitated and learns from Flicker and it helps that the point of view changes quite naturally between the two friends. With any other characters I’d say changing points of view with no clear page break would be nothing but trouble but the points of view of Flicker and Hualiama are so different that you’ll never get confused. There’s a tremendous difference between a dragonet and a human being and the difference is even more pronounced when our dragon, Grandion, joins the story. The point of view switches definitely keep things interesting but in reality you could have had the whole book from Hualiama’s point of view and it would still be able to keep readers’ attention. It really is just a fascinating story with so many plot twists your head will spin.
If you haven’t already guessed, I really did love this book. This is definitely one of my top 10 favourites of all time and considering I read on average 200 books per year, that’s really saying something. It’s an incredible book and everyone should buy it. It will make you laugh, cry and just generally have an amazing time. The cliffhanger will also make you as eager as I am for the next book. If my review has intrigued you at all, please go and pre-order Dragonfriend on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. It’s only $3.20 and $3.49 respectively and you absolutely won’t regret it.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Cover Reveal: Dragonfriend by Marc Secchia
Genre: Young Adult Epic Fantasy
Release Date: April 11, 2015
Marc is a South African-born author who lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night there are also hyenas patrolling the back fence.
When he’s not writing about Africa Marc can be found traveling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.
Shadow Dragon by Marc Secchia
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Chameleon Shapeshifters, uncontrollable storm powers, and the rise of Sylakia’s Dragon-elite. The battle against evil scales new heights, but the price of victory grows ever dearer.
Once, a Shadow Dragon ravaged the Island-World. Insatiable. Unstoppable. A Dragon-killer. Now the Shadow Dragon has reappeared, on a collision course with Aranya and King Beran’s campaign to liberate the Islands from the scourge of Sylakian tyranny. He is dark, beautiful and deadly, a predator of untold power.
Meantime, Thoralian weaves his web of guile and betrayal right in the hearts of Aranya’s friends and allies. He will bring them to an encounter only he can win.
Incredible aerial battles. An Ancient Dragon bent on enslaving Aranya. The treacherous secrets of Dragon magic. This is the fight for which destiny has shaped a heroine of rare courage–Aranya, Princess of Immadia. Criminal. Shapeshifter Dragon. A woman who will confront evil at any cost. Spite her at your peril.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
As you may or may not remember if you’re a regular reader of my reviews, I absolutely gushed about Aranya. It had everything: solid and inventive world-building, a cast of characters you couldn’t help but love and a fairly fast-paced plot despite being largely character-driven. I think I was understandably a little worried about Shadow Dragon because how could it live up to my expectations, let alone keep up the high quality of the first book?
In the end, I didn’t need to worry so much. That unpredictable and fast-paced plot remained, the world-building was even better and I really felt for all of the characters. It’s also a good thing I read The Pygmy Dragon first. You don’t have to read the spin-off first but let me just say you’ll appreciate some of the plot elements way more if you do.
What I really enjoyed about Shadow Dragon was that aforementioned unpredictable and fast-paced plot. With Aranya and her father King Beran waging war on Sylakia there are surprises around every corner and there’s nothing Thoralian wouldn’t do to stop their rebellion. Yolathion, who has now joined the Immadian cause, is sort of a wildcard in the whole mix because although he did betray Sylakia for her, he still carries many of the attitudes from that country with him. He doesn’t approve of things like Aranya fighting all of the time, her wearing trousers as a more practical alternative to wearing dresses during fighting, etc. It can be extremely infuriating, just like the actions of some other characters I won’t mention, but Marc Secchia is playing a deep game here, folks…nothing is as it seems!
Where can I start with the characters? Aranya of course is still as awesome as she was before only this time she’s helping Zip cope with her new found powers as well as dealing with the Yolathion issue. And she’s fighting a war, which sort of puts all of the personal drama on the back burner a lot of the time. In the first book, Aranya is a sort of spoiled Immadian princess who matures into a young woman who wants nothing more than to use her Dragon powers against Sylakia. In the second book, we see more of a tempering of her character as she goes through trial after trial and heartbreak after heartbreak. I don’t want to give away too much but by the end of the book, the change in Aranya is startling and very believable given all that happens to her. Will she be able to overcome these new personal demons to defeat Sylakia in the third book? It’s hard to say, honestly.
On a side note, one of the things that I really enjoy in Marc Secchia’s novels is that he writes incredible female characters. Not just Aranya, but Zuziana and Kylara and even Pip from The Pygmy Dragon spin-off. Unlike a surprising number of male writers, he makes sure that they all have believable motivations and unique personalities; they don’t just exist for the gratification of the male characters. Yes, they have romances and relationships but they’re not the sole motivation and/or focus of the characters. And not only that, all of the characters come from such diverse backgrounds and cultures. There’s actual racial and cultural diversity in his novel! Sometimes there are tensions between cultures and yet sometimes there are interracial relationships. It’s actually kind of shocking to see such diversity in fantasy and it’s done in an unforced, believable manner.
Aranya isn’t the only main character in this novel. We get to meet the mysterious Ardan, a man who wakes up stark naked under burned prekki-fruit tree and falls into the hands of the fearsome female warriors of the Western Isles. He remembers very little from his past so his journey with the warriors is interesting to say the least and at times his banter with them is quite funny. But of course in Shadow Dragon there’s a darker side to everything and as I said before nothing is as it seems in this book. There’s far more to Ardan than meets the eye and once he meets up with our main cast of characters, the Island World will be shaken to its core by the changes he brings.
The world-building is…there are really no accurate adjectives to describe how awesome it is. Of course there are the Dragons we met in the first book when Aranya transformed into one but we don’t know much about their history. Why did they essentially vanish after the Second Dragon War? And why did the Pygmy Dragon seem to do something to alter the memories of Nak and Oyda, who took part in the war? And what is everyone to do now that there’s a Shadow Dragon loose in the Island World? In this second book we do learn so much more about the history of dragons and the extent of their abilities in part because Aranya discovers she isn’t the only dragon outside of Thoralian’s immediate family.
Since Beran and Aranya are waging a running war against Sylakia, we also get to see a lot of the different kingdoms in the Island World, including Jeradia. When we go to these islands you can tell just how much effort Marc Secchia has put into his world-building because all of the cultures we meet have their own history, customs and ways of making war. Some greet Beran’s forces as liberators and others fight almost to the death which makes it far more realistic than having Aranya and her father go from island to island, liberating a jubilant populace every single time. As I noted in my review of the first book, the Shapeshifter Dragons series nearly veers into political thriller territory simply because of how complicated the plot and world-building are.
Here in Shadow Dragon, you have everything you could possibly want in the second book of a series you love: no plot drags (particularly in the middle), believable and three dimensional characters, an expanded fantasy world and so many plot twists you won’t see the end coming. You can’t ask for more and if the blurb or anything I’ve said in my review has intrigued you, I can’t encourage you enough to go try out the first book, Aranya. You’re pretty much guaranteed to love it.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Pygmy Dragon by Marc Secchia
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Yesterday, a Dragon kidnapped me from my cage in a zoo.
Stolen from her jungle home and sold to a zookeeper, Pip knows only a world behind bars, a world in which a Pygmy warrior and her giant ape friends are a zoo attraction. She dreams of being Human. She dreams of escaping to the world outside her cage.
Then, the Dragon Zardon kidnaps her into a new life. Pip rides Dragonback across the Island-World to her new school – a school inside a volcano. A school where Humans learn to be Dragon Riders. But this is only a foretaste of her magical destiny, for the Dragon Assassins are coming. They have floated an Island across the Rift and their aim is nothing less than the massacre of all Dragons.
Now, the courage of the smallest will be tested to the utmost. For Pip is the Pygmy Dragon, and this is her tale.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
I have to say that I fell in love with Marc Secchia’s writing just a few pages into the first book of The Shapeshifter Dragons series, Aranya. So when he took me up on my open submission announcement, I was so excited to begin the spin-off series, Shapeshifter Dragon legends. In Aranya we heard passing tales of a pygmy dragon while Aranya was learning about dragon lore in general, but the story of that singular occurrence was never fully fleshed out. In The Pygmy Dragon, we get to see the Island World several decades before Aranya’s birth, when dragons roamed free and shapeshifters were respected.
Into this totally alien world to the readers of the original series is Pip, a Pygmy girl taken from her home island at a very young age to be placed in a zoo with dangerous apes that she eventually befriends. The squalid conditions, the dehumanizing behaviour of the ‘people’ that come to the zoo to see her are all horrific and Marc Secchia shows that horror without belabouring the point. We get a very, very clear picture of her suffering and desperation until a regular person begins to talk to her to learn about the Pygmy culture. He treats her like a real human being and they learn from each other until the dragon Zardon whisks Pip away to a new life as a dragon rider.
You really can’t help but cheer for Pip the whole way through. From her horrible treatment in the zoo to the bullying and tormenting she finds at the Dragon Rider Academy, you’d have to have a heart of ice not to feel for her. Despite everything, she works so hard to prove herself every bit her fellow students’ equal and in some ways, surpasses many of them. It’s there at the Academy where she discovers a secret that she never expected she had: she’s a Shapeshifter Dragon. A Pygmy Dragon to be exact. And because of her hidden power, she’s now flying around with a giant target on her back. All of the dragons are as a war begins to brew between the different factions.
As always, Marc Secchia’s world-building is second to none. The Pygmy Dragon can absolutely be read as a stand-alone novel, but for those of us that read Aranya before reading the spin-off series, it expands upon what we’ve learned. We even meet some of Aranya’s friends, the unrepentantly lecherous Nak and the love of his life, Oyda. I love how Marc Secchia finally let us see the mysterious gigantic original dragons that created all of the regular dragons. And how he gave Pip the special power that would make her a legend. I don’t want to give too much away, so I can’t gush as much as I would like, but needless to say you won’t find any better world-building out there in YA right now.
He also includes some pretty powerful themes without beating his readers over the head with a stick. The theme of freedom is so central to the whole story and it makes you really appreciate just how good you really have it. No matter how bad your life gets, you’ve never been locked up in a zoo, treated like an animal and forced to befriend animals that were once your natural enemies. There’s also a theme of redemption throughout the novel. Not everyone who appears to be evil is and sometimes truly bad people can be redeemed. The little subplot with the Silver Dragon Pip meets is just one such example of that.
Marc Secchia has a beautiful writing style. He’s able to write highly emotional scenes without getting too sappy and he can describe things beautifully without going overboard. His descriptions of the dragons and the flourishing dragon culture at the Academy made me both happy and sad because so much of that is lost by Aranya’s time. His characters are so vividly sketched out that you expect them to just come up and walk off the pages. And the amount of thought he put into dragon anatomy and the descriptions of their powers, language and emotions is just amazing.
Basically, if you’re going to read any book about dragons, read The Pygmy Dragon. I seriously can’t recommend it enough.
I give this book 5/5 stars.