Rebel QueenDragonkin Chronicles Book 1by David TemrickGenre: Fantasy
Cassandra has a problem, and it's only the first of many. Being raised as the youngest child in a family of great heroes would be a challenge for anyone. Until a few days ago, Cassandra was content with her role as a child of greatness. She was studious, spent most of her waking hours with her mother and other heads of state and at her father’s insistence, learned how to duel. As her siblings had before her, Cassandra knew she would likely be matched with a partner for political reasons and had long since accepted her role in the world.
That was, of course, before her mother died, and before her...transformation. Overnight, her soft pale skin sprouted gorgeous golden dragon scales.
Presented with a future she no longer recognizes, as the first of her kind, she must overcome a whole new set of challenges if she hopes to survive the unknown threat that comes from across the Careless Sea.
The Sakwa dragonkin are a dying race, fueled by a tribal system that failed them centuries ago but yet unable to adapt to a new way of life. In a desperate bid to keep the people focused on outside conflict, Jenya of the Toho has declared war on Cassandra's country. An ocean may separate the two cultures, but the Sakwa see the Seven Kingdoms as their opportunity for a new start; a new start they will willingly kill and die for.
Goodreads* AmazonTowers smoldered as Tristan picked his way through the rubble of the eastern wall. He cursed under his breath as he kicked a scorched piece of limestone. Above him a blue youngling used her elemental power to extinguish piles of waste along the lone intact parapet. Draconis watched him closely from a distance, torn between rage and concern.So much of their lives had been given over to diplomacy and alliance building, who had the unmitigated gall to so brutally attack them? His own usually peaceful mindset was being put to the test. How had the attack been orchestrated to such alarming success was cause for re-evaluation of their mandate.It was one of nature’s most base emotions; anger.Perhaps anger was the wrong word. Rage. Near uncontrollable rage. Yes, that was the correct word for what Draconis was feeling at the moment. Since recovering from the attack, Draconis had been working at steadying his simmering fury. Lesariu was still recovering in the west wing of the palace, curled up near a hearth as the heat from the flames facilitated her healing. Ideally, he would have liked to place her in the sunlight of her Guisian landscape, but this was serving for the moment. Her left wing and side of her maw had been utterly pulverized by a landslide. It had taken a score of green scaled Draconic healers to restore Lesariu’s lovely features.Even with their aid, it was going to take some time before she was healed enough to fly again…if ever. The healers had done their best, but the damage had been extensive. It hadn’t been limited to her exterior either. The resulting psychological scars would remain long after the physical manifestation of the assault on their home, a location long believed to be the safest in the world.Along with the physical assault had come a cerebral one as well. Dozens of younglings and newborns lay dead in the breeding halls of the Dragon Hold crèches in the mountains. Some oozing blood from their orifices and some had quite literally torn their heads open trying to stop the pain that racked their fragile minds. Adult minds were more than capable of handling the barrage, but even some of them had lost consciousness during the incursion. There would be a reckoning for this attempted genocide, but first Draconis needed a target to spend his wrath on.
David has been writing for most of his life, though only began putting together full-length novels in 2008. His first two novels were distinctly fantasy, containing the usual fare of dragons, princes, swords and sorcery.
With "Daughter of Vengeance", he took leave of the more common tropes in fantasy and instead wrote a book predominantly from a female point of view. The story follows a young woman coming of age while apprenticed to a master assassin.
His strengths lie in compelling stories with a satisfying mix of action, dialog and plot building. He doesn't believe in waxing philosophical to fill pages or fluff his word count, there will be not be entire paragraphs dedicated to the painfully long-winded description of a button. He also uses his extensive martial arts and marksmanship experience to create believable and easy to follow action.
Most genre fiction uses the genre to drive the plot, David believes that the genre should merely be used to supplement a great story. A mystery is just a mystery, but a Holmes mystery is infinitely more entertaining in his opinion. There are still inalienable requirements to any genre fiction and as a fan of the fantasy genre, he still loves to read and write within fantastical surroundings.
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