Book Review - Dragonspell

Book Description:

 

    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.

 

    A Desperate Search Begins…

 

A small band of Paladin’s servants rescue Kale from danger but turn her from her destination: The Hall, where she was to be trained. Feeling afraid and unprepared, Kale embarks on a perilous quest to find the meech dragon egg stolen by the foul Wizard Risto. First, she and her comrades must find Wizard Fenworth. But their journey is threatened when a key member of the party is captured, leaving the remaining companions to find Fenworth, attempt an impossible rescue, and recover the egg whose true value they have not begun to suspect…

    Weaving together memorable characters, daring adventure, and a core of eternal truth, Dragonspell is a finely crafted and welcome addition to the corpus of fantasy fiction.

 

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 Dragonspell by Donita K. Paul is the first book in the DragonKeeper Chronicles, a five book Christian fantasy series. Considering my love for the genre, I began the book anxious to see if I would be adding another series to the shelf of my slowly growing Christian fantasy collection. After finishing it, I have to give the book about 3 1/2 stars. It took me several days to finish, a sure sign that it didn't hold my interest like some books I devour in two or three days. Though full of action, it almost seemed to move a little slow.

 

I would say the book is well written. I did, however, find the description a little lacking. I hate pages and pages of description as I've seen in some fantasy novels, but I think Dragonspell needed more considering the many different races inhabiting the fantasy world. I noticed this especially because one of my favorite characters, Dar, a creature called a doneel, I could never clearly picture in my mind.

 

Some of the names of the characters, places, and things were also unnecessarily complicated. It's one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to fantasy fiction. Having to take time to pronounce a name syllable by syllable completely shatters your imagination as you're reading. Thankfully, the majority of the names were easily pronounced once I figured them out and I only had to skim a couple.

 

I enjoyed the scenes with Paladin (though the name didn't seem to fit well), a representation of Jesus, and I just loved Gymn and Metta, the two little minor dragons. The characters were all very different creating an interesting group to follow. I will certainly read on to see how the they grow and the story unfolds, and I do recommend the book to other fans of fantasy fiction as the things I mentioned may not be any bother to other readers.