Magic needs a spark.
Welcome to my review post for The Color of Dragons by R. A. Salvatore & Erika Lewis!
I am a member of the HarperCollins Canada influencer program and attended the HCC #FrenzyPresents YA fall preview event where this was one of the titles covered. I was then granted the opportunity to access an eARC of this title via NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
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About the Book
The Color of Dragons
by R.A. Salvatore & Erika Lewis
Published 19 October 2021
HarperTeen
Genre: YA Fantasy
Page Count: 416
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
Magic needs a spark.
And Maggie’s powers are especially fickle. With no one to help her learn to control her magic, the life debt that she owes stretches eternally over her head, with no way to repay it.
Until she meets Griffin, the king’s champion infamous for hunting down the draignochs that plague their kingdom.
Neither has any idea of the destiny that they both carry, or that their meeting will set off a chain of events that will alter every aspect of the life they know—and all of history thereafter.
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My Review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
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I am a member of the HarperCollins Canada influencer program and attended the HCC #FrenzyPresents YA fall preview event where this was one of the titles covered. I was then granted the opportunity to access an eARC of this title via NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
Saltvatore + YA fantasy + dragons + Merlin origin story? The marking for this book had me extremely excited to get my hands on it and devour it! What a great combination of things I already love to read! I expect this book will attract a huge audience regardless of the reviews coming in, and I do hope those who choose to read the reviews won’t be scared off by the less than perfect 5 out of 5 average.
The first half of this book is full of absolutely gorgeous, intricate world-building and character introductions that made me want to just hang out in this world forever, even if nothing else happened. Maggie’s story is a classic nobody from nowhere turns out to be the Chosen One bonded to a misunderstood dragon sort of deal, while Griffin’s is the young nobleman unsure of how he measures up to the expectations put on him flavour of character arch. When their paths cross, interesting things are sure to happen. I particularly love the magic system in this book and how we got to watch Maggie discover and learn her powers. The set-up, magician’s assistant who turns out to be the real source of power behind a stage trick turned miracle, reminded me of the premise behind Hutchinson’s latest, Before We Disappear.
The storytelling is split between two POVs, Maggie’s and Griffin’s, but while Maggie’s parts are first person, Griffin’s are third person. I’ve seen this done in YA recently and sometimes it’s very effective, but something about the combination just didn’t work for me in this one. When it works (like Reintgen’s Ashlords duology) the different type of perspective serves a purpose. In that example, one POV is second person because the reader is meant to take that character’s view of the world and understand how completely different the other two POVs are from the second person POV. In this book, I didn’t see a point to the different POVs. If it’s simply because “this is Maggie’s story” then why give us a Griffin POV at all?
Around half way through this book it suddenly devotes a whole bunch of time to the tournament, and at this point the experience becomes more flat and detached. The sheer depth of detail that made the first half so immersive is left out. My editor’s mind wonders if the first half of this book got more revisions than the second. Are Salvatore and/or Lewis chronic revisionists who backtrack before sitting back down to write more? It really feels like that first half got more attention and care.
Overall this is a charming YA Fantasy that vaguely resembles an Arthurian origin story. It has a few more YA tropes than I’d like to see and not enough on-page dragon action, but otherwise it’s a solid debut for Lewis and a great first stride into YA for Salvatore. I’m looking forward to more YA Fantasy from both authors and I would encourage fans of the subgenre to check this out!
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Want more? Check out my 5-star review of The Keeper of Night!
That’s a little disappointing. I expect greatness of Salvatore!