Rebecca Miller is hosting another Christian Fantasy blog tour this week. I’ve known for about a month that June would feature Donita K. Paul’s newest book (out this week) DragonKnight. I’d been hearing good things about the DragonKeeper Chronicles of which this is book three, but couldn’t seem to be able to Interlibrary loan them in. (Books have to be available in a BC public library and more than one year old, and apparently Paul’s books haven’t made it into a BC library yet.)
Long story short, because I knew this was coming up AND because I found books one and two in the bookstore when I visited my daughter last month, I bought them. Book three was to have hit my mailbox already, but it hasn’t arrived yet. That’s okay, I’m mid-way through the second book at the moment and will survive a little longer without the third!
Donita Paul’s series is labelled A Fantastic Journey of Discovery for All Ages. The stories revolve around a girl named Kale, once a slave, who finds a dragon’s egg. In the land of Amara, this means that she must go for training in The Hall. In DragonSpell, Kale gets waylaid before ever reaching The Hall and discovers that she is needed to locate a meech dragon egg stolen by the evil Wizard Ristro. She travels with her new companions Dar and Leetu and has many adventures in the course of recovering this precious egg.
In the second novel, DragonQuest, Kale, who is now a student at The Hall, is summoned by the Wizard who is to care for the hatched meech dragon. It seems that because the egg quickened while in Kale’s care, the dragon has bonded to her. She is needed to tend and help train the young dragon.
While these novels are aimed at a YA market, they aren’t childish in any way. Recommended reading for anyone who enjoys fully formed worlds and fantasy quest type reading.
I asked Donita Paul a couple of questions about her worldbuilding choices and will talk about those tomorrow. Meanwhile, the blog tour will be traveling around to many blogs starting Tuesday. I got a bit of a jumpstart because I’ll be away later on in the week, and wanted a chance to promote these books before I left.
Becky says
Great post, Val. A nice summary of the first two books.
I’m surprised you didn’t get the third book yet. I knew there was some snag about sending to Canada. Did you get a request to give more contact information?
I know you’ll love the third book–I finished this morning.
Becky
Donita K. Paul says
Thanks, Val, for including me in your blog. This is fun. I am enjoying reading everyone’s comments. It is such a pleasant way to procrastinate when I should be slaving over the next manuscript.
Valerie Comer says
Well, I have a complicated method of getting books into Canada, Becky. We live fairly close to the US border so I have them sent to an American friend and she brings them across on a Sunday morning. It wasn’t in yet by last Sunday.
Thanks for stopping by, Donita! Is it that hard to write and procrastinate at the same time? 😛