Kiernan hoisted Edna onto the dragon’s back with a grunt, but it took several minutes to convince Benjamin to touch the beast at all. At last Edna said, “Benjamin, I love you, but if you don’t get on this dragon this minute, we’re leaving you behind.”
When you’re a geriatric armed with nothing but gumption and knitting needles, stopping a sorcerer from wiping out an entire dragon-fighting organization is a tall order. No one understands why 83-year-old Edna Fisher is the Chosen One, destined to save the Knights from a dragon-riding sorcerer bent on their destruction. After all, Edna has never handled a magical weapon, faced down a dragon, or cast a spell. And everyone knows the Council of Wizards always chooses a teenager—like the vengeful girl ready to snatch Edna’s destiny from under her nose.
Still, Edna leaps at the chance to leave the nursing home. With her son long dead in the Knights’ service, she’s determined to save dragon-fighters like him and to ensure other mothers don’t suffer the same loss she did. But as Edna learns about the abuse in the ranks and the sorcerer’s history as a Knight, she questions if it’s really the sorcerer that needs stopping—or the Knights she’s trying to save.
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Where do I even begin with this book?
Maybe I’ll start by saying how happy I am that people I know personally on Twitter are publishing such amazing books!
My participation in the Twitter writing community is sketchy at best, but, even from the sidelines with the occasional cheer here and there, I still love watching talented writers get the recognition they deserve.
Anderson has managed to weave together a heart-wrenching yet touching story with world-building that was so vibrant and fresh, I was thrilled from beginning to end.
Edna, our leading lady, is highly relatable, as someone who could be described as an elderly person trapped in a 30 year-old body and I had so much fun rooting for her. Maybe I’ve read too many books with unlikable main characters recently, but I LOVED how likeable Edna was. I really wanted to see her succeed, even if I wasn’t sure how that was going to come about.
And I’m such a sucker for found family stories. The somewhat haphazardly thrown-together group of characters went straight to my heart. Okay, Clem took her time getting there, but even she made it in the end.
These characters inhabit such an interesting world. Before I sat down to write this review, I was trying to find the best words to describe it.
It’s almost Arthurian in scope, with dragons and knights and wizards, yet is much more expansive and diverse than that. These fantastical elements are layered on top of our very modern world, which leads to things like enchanted cellphones and flying cars.
Anderson clearly made an effort to make their world realistic while still bringing it with the magical elements. It’s very obvious as Edna moves through the world that this is a richly diverse place.
It’s a world I would like to live in, even with its flaws and dragon attacks.
Speaking of diversity, I couldn’t help but be tickled by the representation in the novel. As someone on the ace spectrum, I appreciated how Anderson addressed the topic of asexuality without being too dismissive or forceful about it. We got to see a couple variations of asexuality, which is amazing.
The writing was clear and easy to lose yourself in. I find sometimes with fantasy novels, the writing tries to be overly clever or it gets bogged down with too much detail or the dreaded “info dumping”, but Anderson did not fall victim to this at all.
And, maybe it was just me, but the twist… I did not see coming.
I gasped.
Anyway, not to give anything away, but the ending was so heartwarming and wonderful. If you like cozy fantasies that will simultaneously rip your heart out and also heal your soul, you will really enjoy this book.
Considering this is Anderson’s debut novel, I’m so excited to following along on their writing journey and read anything else they let me read!
Jenna Goldsmith 