Book 1 of the Seraphina series
Read by Mandy Williams and Justine Eyre
Genre: victorian urban fantasy
Format: paperback & audiobook
About Seraphina:
In her New York Times bestselling and Morris Award-winning debut, Rachel Hartman introduces mathematical dragons in an alternative-medieval world to fantasy and science-fiction readers of all ages. Eragon-author Christopher Paolini calls them, "Some of the most interesting dragons I've read in fantasy."Source: Info in the About Seraphina was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12394100-seraphina on 08/07/2013.
Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.
Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered — in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.
I picked this book up because obviously I like dragons. And there are dragons in this book aplenty. Good and bad dragons. So no one is purely bad or purely good... Just like the humans. It is a fight of good versus evil. Plus dragons in a victorian setting is a new twist for me. It has always been in a medieval-like setting or the modern world. Very good premise! That however was toned down by the author's blatant attempt to create a situation where the heroes could show off and save the world by making some characters act stupid. What was that all about?! Pretty weak plot. And as if that is not enough, we get inconsistent and conflicting scenes/behaviour. The people just seems rude! And they are suppose to be victorian-like. Polite and civilized society?? For somebody to call someone else something like an "ugly demon" in front of a lot of people is to me, the height of impoliteness. Even I know that, socially inept as I am. But these people do it all the time. And they pride themselves to be a civilized and polite society.... right!!! Maybe it could be presented in such a way that some authors could pull it off and come off convincing. This author, however, did not. Another thing which drops the believability factor is that this is suppose to be a royal court right? So where is the court intrigue? Greedy manipulations? Political power play? There is a distinct lack of realism in the story. It drops the suspension of disbelief a couple of notches down. I think that is one of the reason why it took me so long to get into the story. The lack of realism. So much so that even with the convenience of the audiobook, it still took me something like two months to read the book. Another contributing factor to the book not being a fast-paced read is that I had to have breaks from the "stupids" and the inconsistent behaviour. It just annoys me. So you couldn't call the story telling quality very compelling. But in the end it is a dragon book and I like dragons but I don't think I would be buying anything from this author again.
Story telling quality = 2.5
Character development = 3
Story itself = 2.5
Ending = 4
World building = 3.5
Cover art = 3
Pace = 1
Plot = 1
Narration = 3
Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 cherries
Books In The Seraphina Series:
And besides, I am sucker for bad boys!!
However that also puts us 3 dragon books read less compared to 2011. So this year, let's see if we can top last year's record or would we read even less? We'll find out
...
Two adolescent drakis went on a dangerous escapade and almost got killed. Then Jacinda compounds that by being overconfident and got wounded. And it doesn't stop there. The entire book is peppered with a string of stupidity from cover to cover. I read the synopsis on the subsequent books and it looks like this trend continues through the entire series. The stupidity is so annoying it eclipsed the beauty of the world building, the mesmerizing voice of the narrator and the good story telling quality. That tells you just how TSTL Jacinda is! That there are times I wanted to shake Jacinda fiercely to knock some sense into her. Even I can see it was totally stupid. But our Jacinda, she can't see past her nose. Not only that, she's not only TSTL, but selfish to boot! Safe to say that I found it difficult to connect with this main protagonist. I think I would have cheered if the bad guys would actually catch her because then Jacinda would now actually get what she keeps trying to do! Would I recommend this book? This series? No. Don't waste your reading time. I don't know why the publisher wasted money on this book to begin with!
But here is the real kicker, it ends in a cliffhanger...
. I don't read gay books. Outside my comfort zone. And this book has an element of gay theme in it. However the author presented it in such a way that it wasn't sordid and overtly sexual. It came across as beautiful even to a non-gay-book reader like me. The sad thing about this book is that it is a novella ebook and there aren't anymore stories in this series. This is it! And I want more stories about how Yakov and Malachi fared. And how the kids coped and grew up to be. I want to read more of this world of Drekken which is wonderful, peopled with sentient beings capable of acts of great evil and of goodness. Strenght of the human heart in the midst of bleak circumstances and fighting for survival. And there aren't anymore of that
. Wish this author would write more books in this series. The ending is just slightly predictable but it wasn't the ending itself that I like, it was the journey towards it that I enjoyed!