AMAZING CLOUDLANDS WORLD
Dragonfriend
Dragonfriend Series
By Marc Secchia
Paranormal
Fantasy
Steampunk
Kickin' Female Lead
Dragonfriend by Marc Secchia is, by far, one of the best worlds ever written, ever - in my opinion. He takes an approach to world building that leaves many other fantasy books in the dust. Cloudlands is a place where both dragons and humans inhabit islands surrounded by a sea of poisonous cloud rather than water, and this leads to some pretty amazing modes of transport. Zeppelins and hot air balloons fight and battle it out over these poisonous clouds and if one happens to sink below the cloud then there is not chance they will be coming back. The nature of dragons and dragonets, flying machines and contraptions, thunder storms and crystal clear island lagoon lakes, tropical forests and massive volcanic mountain ranges and island kingdoms battling it out against island kingdoms, it really is an amazing world.
Hualiama’s life as a ward of the King Fra’anior was cushy as best, frustrating at worse but she lacked for nothing. That all gets thrown overboard when the King's man and traitor Ra’aba stabs her and throws her to the clouds in an attempt to silence her in his rise to take the throne. Wounded and slowly dying, Hualiama ends up on the edge of a small volcano with nothing but the clothes on her back. Then a small dragonet nurses her back to health and the two forge an unlikely friendship. Lead by her small dragonet friend Flicker, Hualiama ends up exploring the volcanic island home of the ancient dragon kind where she finds friendship and love in the most amazing places.
Taken in by a monastery full of boys on a neighbouring island, Hualiama's life takes on meaning and purpose as she decides to train with the monks in powerful and lost arts of fighting. She decides she wants to take her revenge on the evil Ra'aba and free her adopted family and King and restore him to the throne.
While training and learning to fight, our heroine witnesses an aerial clash between two incredible dragons and watches a beautiful blue majestic creature fall and crash into the side of the volcano near the monastery, where is it buried alive. What starts as a mission to save the beautiful creature ends up as a quest to save her kingdom.
I LOVED LOVED LOVED this book and the other Cloudlands series by Marc Secchia. I really can't get enough of his writing. Pure fantasy at its best. Definitely worth the read.
5 stars out of 5 for Dragonfriend, 5 out of 5 for the series.
