Dragon and Phoenix by Joanne Bertin
Joanne Bertin’s Dragonlord plot has been rather weak overall. However, Dragon and Phoenix is a huge improvement on The Last DragonLord.
The Dragonlords are no longer the sole concern and in fact, they are hardly mentioned for a good deal of the novel. They’re much less overbearing this time around and while the whole “soultwin” bit is still silly, it isn’t quite as absurd as it was throughout The Last DragonLord.
There is an intricate plot, full of intrigue, woven through this book, which is both a blessing and a curse. It strengthens the story in some ways, but also weakens it. The intrigue is so well done that the Dragonlords’ part in it feels tacked on like an afterthought. Joanne Bertin may have done better to have shucked the Dragonlord trappings and followed her ability for intrigue and politics to its end.
I hope a third book in the DragonLord trilogy will be forthcoming because there is so much potential here.
DragonLord — (1998-2012) Publisher: Dragonlord Linden Rathan, last-born of a race of immortal weredragons, has spent six hundred years alone, searching for his soultwin while his fellow Dragonlords watch over humanity’s Five Kingdoms. When the Queen of Cassori dies mysteriously, Linden and the other Dragonlords are called upon to prevent civil war as two human claimants vie for the regency.As the battle for Cassori rule escalates, Linden becomes the target of the Fellowship, a secret society of true-humans who could actually destroy his immortal life.Then he meets a beautiful young ship captain named Maurynna who may be the only one who can help Linden bring Cassori back from the brink of chaos.
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BETH JOHNSON, one of our guest reviewers, discovered fantasy books at age nine, when a love of horses spurred her to pick up Bruce Coville’s Into the Land of the Unicorns. Beth lives in Sweden with her husband. She writes short stories and has been working on a novel.
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This review is typical of the “instant gratification” generation.
Joanne does an AMAZING job of building up the scene, actually slipping into your mind and creating imagery. I fear it’s reviews like yours that have made her go silent, there’s so much more I’d like to know about her characters, her world.
I bet you would’ve said Tolkien was a bit slow and boring at the beginning, too.