Dragon's Curse by H.L. Burke Series: The Dragon and the Scholar #1
on January 16th 2014
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 174
Goodreads
Amazon, iBooks
On her first assignment out of the Academy, young healer and scholar, Shannon Macaulay is summoned to the struggling kingdom of Regone to see to the wounds of a young but crippled king. When the unwanted attentions of an aggressive knight and the sudden appearance of a hated dragon turn her world upside down, she decides to take matters into her own hands even if doing so proves dangerous.
Finding herself strangely drawn to the company of the dragon, Gnaw, Shannon must force herself out of her safe world of books and botany to come to the aid of her unexpected ally in a strange kingdom, cursed by a fateful encounter with a dragon and the loss of a beloved prince. Can she learn to put aside her fears, and perhaps sacrifice her deepest desires, to help a friend and restore a family?
A young woman leaves the Academy for the first time and sets out to heal a king and ends up befriending a dragon. The plot was straightforward. The book was ridiculously fast to read. The writing was simple and easy.
I’ll admit, before I had time to decide if I wanted to continue reading, I was done. It’s such a quick read that I had no problems finishing it before completely deciding how I felt about it.
The characters were a little run-of-the-mill. None of them stood out. Shannon was fleshed out the most, but I found her to be a bit predictable. I knew where she’d end up pretty early on. The world was rather small, including the town where this story took place. Honestly, I had a difficult time imagining it, which for fantasy normally isn’t a problem I experience. It seemed to lack depth. Made things a bit odd. For those who love a detailed world, this one will disappoint. For those who like a fleshed out world but not crazy detailed, you’ll likely be disappointed. The world just isn’t much of a focus at all. It’s more of a character read, which I normally love, but I just didn’t love or hate any of the characters. I wasn’t invested.
The writing was clean, and as I said, it reads super fast. I guess that does attest to the plot moving along. Things happen that keep pushing the story forward, so you never feel like you’re stuck in any one scene. That’s a definite bonus in my opinion. Matter of fact, the pacing and clean writing has me curious about another of Burke’s works, just not one in this same series.
Overall, I can’t really say much. Nothing about it moved me or made me curious about the next book. Keep in mind, this is a rather light tale, and as of late I’ve been itching for something dark and depressing, so this just didn’t squelch my need. And this has tons of great reviews on Goodreads, which just goes to show that I’m probably still in my reading funk. So, if you want a light, easy read to pass a few hours, I’d recommend picking this one up, because if that’s what I was in the mood for, I probably would have really enjoyed this book.
About H.L. Burke
Born in a small town in north central Oregon, H. L. Burke spent most of her childhood around trees and farm animals and was always accompanied by a book. Growing up with epic heroes from Middle Earth and Narnia keeping her company, she also became an incurable romantic.
An addictive personality, she jumped from one fandom to another, being at times completely obsessed with various books, movies, or television series (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Star Trek all took their turns), but she has grown to be what she considers a well-rounded connoisseur of geek culture.
Married to her high school crush who is now a US Marine, she has moved multiple times in her adult life but believes that home is wherever her husband, two daughters, and pets are.
