Awakening the Dragon-Book One of the Dragon Clan Trilogy: A Review

Magical Fantasy Awakening the Dragon-Book One of the Dragon Clan Trilogy: A Review
By
Michael Gleason

Awakening the Dragon--Book One of the Dragon Clan Trilogy  by Theresa Chaze © 2006 Valkyrie Publishing ISBN 978-0-9798406-0-9

First thing I want to do in this review is to dispose of the problems I found with this work, and then I will go on to why I thoroughly enjoyed reading it in spite of those minor glitches.

This is a production of a small publishing house and suffers from what I have found to be endemic problems associated with books from similar sources. It is a reissue of a book I reviewed in 2003 (Dragon’s New Home) and still has some of the editing glitches (dropped words, and an occasional formatting problem).

Okay, so much for the negative part of the review. Now on to the good stuff.

As I said in my original review of Dragon’s New Home, this is a well-told story with characters that are both believable and familiar. By familiar, I don’t mean you’ve seen them in books before, but that you know people like them in your own life. There are no “over the top” characters here.

Even though some of the fantasy elements have a touch of Hollywood about them, the story relies on character development to hook and hold the reader. And let’s be honest – if you don’t care what happens to the characters, a book is a failure. This book is most definitely NOT a failure.

This book was a pleasure to read (even with the glitches noted above). The story is compelling and fun and the characters are individuals. I’m sure you will enjoy it.

My one complaint about book series, especially good ones for the adult reader, is that there is usually a long gap between the appearance of each volume, and I freely admit I am an impatient individual. The good thing about this book is that it is available as both a paperback (for those people like me who like a physical book in hand) and as an e-book (from) Dragon Domain. Of course, we will still have to wait for the concluding volume of this trilogy to come out to know how it all ends.

Magical Fantasy Dragon Domain-Book Two of the Dragon Clan Trilogy: A Review

Dragon Domain--Book Two of the Dragon Clan Trilogy: A review.
By
Mike Gleason

Dragon Domain--Book Two of the Dragon Clan Trilogy by Theresa Chaze © 2006 Valkyrie Publishing ISBN 978-0-9798406-1-6 281 pages Paperback $15.95 (U.S.)

This second book in the Dragon Clan trilogy is a darker work than the first. Whereas the antagonists in the first book (Awakening the Dragon) were, for the most part, merely misguided albeit sincere believers in their faith's rightness, the antagonists this time around have made a conscious decision to embrace their darker sides for the simple's pleasure of power.

Theresa writes a compelling story with characters that are, in the main, believable without too much "Hollywood special effects" about them. Oh, for sure, there are those moments, but they don't dominate the plot lines.

This book suffers from some of the shortcomings of the previous work (dropped words, homonyms slipping by, etc.), but as with that previous book they don't affect the enjoyment of a well-told story. While I definitely wouldn't recommend it for the younger reader, it can be enjoyed by adult fans of Harry Potter, Eragon, and other series which dip into some of the darker sides of human behavior.

Some of the solutions are a bit too pat and, obviously (since this is the middle book in a trilogy), there are issue which remain unresolved. The third book should bring all the disparate stories and energies together. Nonetheless, this book is a good enjoyable read. Let the story sweep you along, and don't worry about the minor bumps along the way.

I am hoping that the author will be completing the concluding volume relatively soon. I hate having to wait to find out what happens to characters I have become attached to. On the other hand, the longer it takes, the more time I have before I have to say goodbye to them.