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Formats
Paperback Details
  • 12/2021
  • 462 pages
  • $14.99
Ebook Details
  • 12/2021
  • 419 pages
  • $2.99
Raven McGory
Author
Stormsilver
Raven McGory, author

Adult; Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror; (Market)

Young is an unruly dragon god, found guilty of creating a human catastrophe and sentenced to a monitored punishment among humans. Thirty years later, he’s an amnesiac ghoul-hunter in the heart of DC—living with a god of fate, a husband and wife from the 1300s who share a body, demon sisters, a grim reaper, and more in a large penthouse he calls Calamity Cave. Forced to fraternize with the charming, ghost-seeing human Arella after she steals his sword, constantly being spied on by those overseeing his mysterious punishment, and with strange coincidences popping up all around him, Young starts to wonder if there might be more to the story—and more to him—than meets the eye. Stormsilver is a hilarious, contemporary fantasy romance book full of questions, answers, reflections on the nature of love and life, and the dark web that connects the various characters together in ways that they never imagined.
Reviews
McGory’s debut, the first in her Second Dawn of the Dragon God series, incorporates demons, deities, ghosts, wolves, reapers and a sprite into a contemporary fantasy story blending mystery, romance, and a welcome comic spirit. At its heart is a dragon named Young and Arella, a slightly absent-minded and reckless woman living with her half-brother Theo and his werewolf clan. As punishment for an unfortunate incident that wiped out an island full of people, Young has been living his life with only the memories of the last thirty years when, in his human form, he meets Arella, after she accidentally picks up his celestial blade, Stormsilver, while it’s in the form of a coin. Refusing to return it, Arella–who at first assumes that Young is hitting on her–soon coerces the dragon to train her with the sword so that she can protect her brother’s clan from other wolf packs.

As the pair’s relationship evolves, McGory’s inventive, tangled storyline does, too, introducing the ghosts of Luciana and Oslo, grim reaper Will, frog princess Rumi, equine demons Zeba and Pona, and more. This variety of characters, perspectives, and plot threads offer amusements, especially for readers who crave more than a fantasy romance, but they also at times bog down the narrative momentum. Though it takes some work to track the story’s different threads, fans of high-spirited contemporary fantasy will appreciate the attention McGory pays to the dynamics between her cast, especially between Young and Arella, who grow increasingly intimate while facing threats from those closest to them.

Despite being full of characters who are either dealing with death or the nuances of immortality, the story stays largely light-hearted, with much entertaining banter between the players. The novel is long, but as the first in its series it introduces a promising world and builds to some satisfying cliffhangers, with plenty of action and romance.

Takeaway: Fantasy lovers will find much to enjoy in this contemporary series starter featuring a dragon, a sword, ghosts, and an unlikely romance.

Great for fans of: Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, Darynda Jones’s Charley Davidson series.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B
Marketing copy: A

Formats
Paperback Details
  • 12/2021
  • 462 pages
  • $14.99
Ebook Details
  • 12/2021
  • 419 pages
  • $2.99
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