Ignite

by Nancy E. Dunne

THE WORLD WAS ALONE - AND THEN THE DRAGONS CAME. "The humans have named them dragons, but I do not think that they have ever seen that many. They are the children of one of us, not created by your work at all but by Kaerinth, the Progenitor. She is the mother of all of those you see now, and has until now only come above ground to find food for her many young." Orana felt that Rumerus was concerned. "Is this a bad thing?" she asked, worried. "It may be," he said. "The dragons could go the way of the dark elves, shunning relations with the rest of the races. Or they could live with and among them. Only time will tell, I'm afraid." Return to the beginning of the world, of Orana - to a time when dragons roamed her surface alongside the other races, and the Mother Dragon, Kaerinth, dreamed of conquering the world for her brood. Discover the origin of the Guardians - within the tales of the Forest War.

240 pages, Paperback

Published August 31, 2019

About the author

Nancy E. Dunne lives and works in the Upstate area of South Carolina with her husband Simon, her Irish Wolfhounds Bryn and Ciaragh, and her terrier mix Willow. Nancy is a nationally certified American Sign Language/English interpreter and the author of the Orana Chronicles (NA epic fantasy), the Proud Racer series (YA), the Clobberpaws series (YA), and the Arcstone Series (NA litRPG). She spends many weekends performing at the Georgia and Carolina Renaissance Festivals and the Enchanted Chalice Renaissance Festival with the group she helped to found, The Hounds of East Fairhaven. Check out her photoblog, Our Daily Bryn, for more Bryn (and Willow).

Reviews

[Noelle Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thrilling tale of discovery set in a rich world.

Ignite was the first book I picked up in the series, as it was recommended to me by the author on Twitter (Surprise! people do buy from author's on Twitter!) because I wanted a story where characters didn't rush into battle.

Which, I am please to report I was satisfied with.

This book follows a lot of different characters, which is typical of epic fantasy. Since this is a spinoff of another series, I imagine I would have a great affection for some of the characters had I read those first. I gravitated toward the Nature Walker and D'Anya so at time I was sort of impatient for the story to get back to them. After about 150 pages, I was sort of waiting for something to happen as there's a lot of POVs to jump back and forth between as the story begins setting up the action and the plot unfolds.

This is a very, wonderfully dense world where the author's skill at weaving together history is seen in casual conversation, Except for the beginning (which I actually enjoyed), there's very little to no info-dumping. There were a few things I didn't feel I needed to know, but most of them were cool and had me thinking "oh, that's neat!".

I quite like the gods and dragons sort of watching as their creations went about their lives, and then, to their horror their creations begin scheming and plotting their own ways in the world.


Throughout the book, we see some good character development, mostly with D'Ayna as she seems to be mostly the MC of the series. Other characters we came to know, but I didn't have too much of an affection for others, which I assume would change as I continue reading.

There were a few writing things that irked me, more as a writer than a reader. Some of the writing I found to not be "professional". A few nit picky things like: words were all capitalized when shouting (instead of letting the descriptions and words speak for themselves), an overuse of ellipses in dialogue, spaces between paragraphs (I read the paperback), "widows" on pages (which is a few words of text on a page by themselves (paperback), and the wonderful thing authors love to which is having characters smile way too much.

There are different languages in this book (which often I roll my eyes at), but the author handled this very well, saying it was a different language and then having the characters either speak the common tongue or sort of translating them with italics. Which was wonderful done!

All of these, of course, will irk an author more than a reader, but I point them out because I aim to encompass all of my general thoughts toward a book. I would have combined this book and the next book, personally, as this one feels like not enough has happened and it may have fixed the pacing a bit. However, I was aware of it being more than one big and books trend more towards being split this way. I just like big books. ;)

Overall, this was a very enjoyable read!

The author's writing flows very smoothly, often lyrical at times, and anyone who loves the more classical epic fantasy books with different races like elves, dragon-kind, and dragons, will surely love this book. The author has put a lot of care into weaving the lore of the world into the story, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time visiting.

[M.A. Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had no time to read recently, so it took me far too long to finish this book, something which drove me crazy. It was well worth the wait though. It's such an incredible world and so beautifully written.

I've only just finished so am still collecting my thoughts, and will come back to add to the review soon, but I would highly recommend.

[Robert Liam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I give a star because some of the lore is interesting, and the opening chapter is a pretty creative way to introduce it all. But after that, it's just a bit of a mess. The prose is bland, the characters are stocky, and the conflict is both confusing and underwhelming. It reminded me of how I wrote in middle school.