Review:
This
is a lovely little fairy tale, complete with a time-traveling maiden – and a not-so-willing
dragon who is (of course) really a knight under a curse …
Well,
okay, the heroine doesn’t think it’s lovely to get dropped in the middle of a
bunch of medieval re-enactors – or are they really crazy cultists? – who plan to
sacrifice a maiden to an obviously non-existent dragon. Except he’s not
non-existent. And he’s not really a dragon, at least not entirely and not all
the time. And the townsfolk aren’t re-enactors, either. It really is the 13th
century. Welcome to Camelot Gone Wild …
It
seems that Baelin, knight of the realm and SLAYER of dragons crossed a witch
one day. When he refused to serve her she turned him into one of the dragons he
stalked. Once a year he had a chance to break the curse, that’s why he required
a village maiden. They must pass 3 tests – what tests he doesn’t know except
they will require the knightly virtues – and they must be completed by the next
full moon or he’s back to being a dragon.
This has been going on for 216 years…
Being
a take-charge kind of girl, Jill starts packing to go quest hunting. Baelin, who
has internalized a few too many dragonly attitudes doesn’t want to leave his
lair undefended and he really worries about his treasure.
Baelin
and Jill encounter many challenges, both from the quests and from simply living
in a medieval society. The problems are further compounded by the fact that one
of the travelers has bat wings and can turn into a dragon and the other has no
real clue … Lots of action and lots of interaction as the hero and heroine learn
to like and then love each other.
The
plot was exciting, and the characters were well-drawn people that we come to
care for. This is listed as Bestiary #1
so I’m assuming the author intends for there to be more. The threads are definitely laid for more
stories. I look forward to reading them.
Copy
received from Netgalley and publisher for an honest review.
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