"Dragonlight" Book Review

It is June FIRST, time for the FIRST Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and his/her latest book's FIRST chapter!

The feature author is:

Donita K. Paul

and her book:

DragonLight
WaterBrook Press (June 17, 2008)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Donita K. Paul is a retired teacher and award-winning author of seven novels, including DragonSpell, DragonQuest, DragonKnight, and DragonFire. When not writing, she is often engaged in mentoring writers of all ages. Donita lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado where she is learning to paint–walls and furniture! Visit her website at www.dragonkeeper.us.

The Books of the DragonKeeper Series:

DragonSpell
DragonQuest
DragonKnight
DragonFire
DragonLight

Visit her website.

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

To read the first chapter click on the FIRST button and go to the website. I worked hard this weekend to get not only Dragonlight read, but also the first in the series Dragonspell so I'm going to share my thoughts with you on these books...

MY REVIEW:

Since Dragonlight is the finale (Book #5) in the series and I had the 1st one but hadn't read it yet, I figured now was as good a time as any to read the 1st one to lay the groundwork for the 5th one. So I started off with Dragonspell and entered a world of dragons, high races, low races, the Creator, the Pretender, mystical places and magical things. Donita does an excellent job of letting you follow right along as she explores this place she created. Kale is the unlikely heroine who was a slave and now has been sent to be Paladin's servent (Paladin would be the equivalent of Jesus) because of special giftings that have been discovered about her. It is really interesting to watch Kale as she struggles to let go of the "slave mentality" she has had all her life when Paladin wants to be her friend. The spiritual depths and meanings in these books are unbelievable and deep, I just kept saying "Wow..." as another one would show itself. Since this post is not about Dragonspell I won't go anymore in depth other than to say that it was a great start to an enthralling series...

So I picked up Dragonlight as soon as I put Dragonspell down. I was pleased to see that even though I had not read the 3 books in between I didn't miss a beat. Obviously there were some new characters that had been introduced in the middle books, but Donita does a great job of keeping you in the loop even though you might not know the whole story. I didn't feel like I missed anything, but it does make me want to go back and read the other books just because I could sense how exciting the missing quests must have been. Here again, the spiritual depths are incredible - one of the big plots in this book involves The Followers. Those that claim to be followers of Paladin at a higher level than most people. It quickly becomes obvious that they are a cult that speaks some truth mixed with just enough lies to make them dangerous. It was good to see how that played out. That is just one example of how Donita makes these books relevant in a really interesting way.

I would definitely recommend these books as read alouds for the family or a great series for young adults (though I really enjoyed them myself) so if you like fantasy then delve into this awesome series!