Imora

by Daniel Steeves Connaughton

For centuries, Imora the Ice Dragon has watched the fierce Dengals expand their empire across the high, cold mountain ranges. While she works to drive them back, claiming the mountains as her own, each time she sleeps for a century, they regain their footing.
When they kill her son, she finds his heart struggling for survival in a pool of its own blood. First, she must find a way to preserve the heart while she prepares to resurrect her son. Her journey takes her deep beneath the mountains and to the highest cloud tops. Forced to surrender to the long dragon sleep once again, a thief steals away with the heart. When she loses her wings in battle, she must not only find a way to exist as a creature of the ground, but find the thief and save the heart before he uses its powers for himself.

Genres: Fantasy

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 3, 2014

About the author

Daniel Steeves Connaughton lives in Massachusetts with his wife and son, three cats, and nine chickens. While he was one of those kids that thought he'd never use geometry in the real world, he now uses it every day as a CAD Operator. He tosses on the Cloak of Creativity to write late at night or early in the morning and finds that writing the first draft on paper (the good old composition books are the best!) really gets the creativity going before taking it to the computer.

Reviews

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 3 out of 5]

With some time off over the holidays, I'm doing some much-needed house cleaning in the Ruins, taking care of the towering TBR pile before it topples and totals our toddler. While I had the best of intentions, life (as is so often the case) intervened in some major ways that I won't bore you with here.

So, with the end of the year fast approaching, I made the difficult decision to make a clean break and start fresh with the new year. Over the past two weeks I indulged in a little something I call the 50 First Pages Experiment, giving each title 50 pages to make an impression. There were three titles that compelled me to keep reading, and this was one.

Imora by Daniel Steeves Connaughton was one of my recommended reads to come out of the experiment. I really enjoyed this. It starts out with a suitably epic fantasy feel, as a small group of thieves infiltrate a dragon's lair, only to draw her out into an ambush. From there it takes on a faery tale or folktale sort of feel as the dragon barters the promise of death for her own healing. The twist here is that the entire tale is told from the dragon's perspective. A novel concept, and remarkably well done.

[Seth Skorkowsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imora follows an Ice Dragon’s journey to save her son’s life. It takes place during the periods between century-long slumbers. Each time she wakes to see how the world around her has changed as she continues her quest. The wakes are non-sequential, so the reader sees her lowest point before learning how it all came to be.

Connaughton’s world is very rich, with all the little details that make it fun. Following the dragon’s point of view is also a unique experience. She is not human and does not think like one. We also learn of the dragon’s religion, customs, mating rituals, and much more.

I enjoyed it a lot. The only small criticism I have was the order of the wakes. However that’s more a style preference than any actual problem with the book itself.

Recommended.