Twilight Times Books

Reviewed by Annette Gisby, author of Writing the Dream

A mother waddle dragon, finds a strange golden egg among her brood, but doesn’t remember laying it. When the young dragon emerges, he is different to all the other waddle dragons, he hardly has any scales and when he talks, he stutters.

Everyone teases him including his brothers and sisters and he is very depressed. The only happy times are when his mother tells him stories of the Ancient Mother and Ancient Father. When his mother is attacked by a soarer dragon, he decides it was his fault and he tries to kill himself.

He is rescued and is told that he should seek out the wise queen, who will perhaps know the answers to all his questions. At the queen’s court, he asks to find his beauty, and is told that he must go on a perilous journey in order to find it. What he finds was not at all what he imagined...

This is a lovely fantasy, reminiscent of Watership Down, with a dash of the Ugly Duckling thrown in. Magic, quests, the fight between good and evil, they are all here, with dragons as the protagonists, but with all too human emotions. The young dragon's treatment is heartbreaking, but his quest is also a quest for his identity, who he really is and what he is.

A great read for any age.

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