It felt like How to Train Your Dragon (movies) meets Big Hero 6 meets Pokémon/Digimon.
The first ~11 chapters were a bit of a struggle, but that’s more on the industry than the author. Debut authors don’t have the luxury of starting a book slow. Once we hit the inciting incident, it was hard to put this one down!
The positives:
A really incredible magic system that made a dragon rider book feel original.
The development & pacing of Darren’s character was wonderfully frustrating.
The twist at the end. It made complete sense and I never saw it coming, which makes it a perfect twist!
The other five bitten wards were all unique & enjoyable. I loved being one each of their heads for a chapter.
The negatives:
Ryker’s chapters did not have me nearly as invested. His story felt off with pacing & muddled character voices. A little more time would have done that arc some good, but I wouldn’t want to lose any Darren chapters for it.
The book was riddled with typos and grammatical/tense issues.
This book was just a few more rounds of editing away from possibly being a five star read.
Verdict:
Overall, I loved Darren & co so much that I couldn’t wait to pick the book back up. That makes a book good to me. 3.75⭐️ easy! I’ll be starting book 2 tonight!