|
Title | Dragon's Green
|
Author | Scarlett Thomas
|
Cover Art | ---
|
Publisher | Simon & Schuster - 2017
|
First Printing | Simon & Schuster - 2017
|
|
|
Title | ---
|
Author | Scarlett Thomas
|
Cover Art | ---
|
Publisher | ---
|
First Printing | ---
|
| |
Category | Middle Grade
|
Warnings | None
|
Main Characters | Euphemia Truelove, Maximillian Underwood, Wolf Reed, Raven Wilde, Alexa Bottle
|
Main Elements | Wizards
|
Website | ---
|
|
Dragon's Green
Effie Truelove believes in magic, as does her grandfather Griffin (although he refuses to do any magic, let alone teach Effie how to use it). After a mysterious incident leaves Griffin close to death, Effie is given an unusual silver ring and told she must look after her grandfather’s library of rare and powerful books. But then the books fall into the hands of shady scholar Leonard Levar, and Effie is propelled into the most dangerous adventure of her life.
Now, Effie and her friends—nerdy Maximilian, rugby-mad Wolf, helpful Lexy, and eccentric Raven—must discover their true powers if they are to get the books back. And Effie alone will have to travel to the Otherworld, where she will uncover the true meaning of the strange old book called Dragon’s Green…
She wore black turtleneck sweaters that made her head look like a planet being slowly ejected from a hostile universe...
This was on the first page, in the first paragraph, describing Euphemia Truelove's English teacher. I knew in that moment that this was the kind of book I was going to enjoy. One of those quirky and bizzare but delightful British middle grade fantasies along the lines of the Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones, or maybe something by Roald Dahl. And it did not disappoint.
The setting is our world, but there was a major event called the Worldquake that disrupted some, but not all, of our modern day technology. Cell phones don't work but there are still pagers. But even before the Worldquake this version of Britain is a little different from ours as magic exists. Not everyone believes in it, and even those that know about it try deny its existence, but it's there for those who look for it.
Our story centers on a group of school children finding their place in this mysterious, magical world. Some are Warriors. Some are Healers, Scholars or Witches. And some are Heroes. And the villains are deliciously, well, villainous. But it's not all black and white, as some of our protagonists have some dark secrets of their own or are forced to make difficult ethical decisions where what is the right thing to do is not exactly clear, and what the consequences of doing something wrong for the right reasons are.
And our world is not alone, there is also the Otherworld which you can journey to through various portals. There magic abounds and you find dragons and goblins, but even there a price must be paid for the use of magic.
I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to the following up with the rest of the series.
|