Book Review – A Darkness of Dragons by S A Patrick

After playing a forbidden spell-song to save a village from rats, 12-year-old piper Patch Brightwater is thrown in jail. But there he meets Wren – a noble girl under a rat-shaped curse – and together they befriend Barver, a fearsome dracogriff, and set off on a grand adventure filled with sorcerers, dragons, bandits… and one very deadly enemy.

From the depths of the Tiviscan dungeons to the highest peak of Gemspar Mountain, this stunning book reminds us of the soaring joy of adventure, the captivating danger of magic, and of the delight of finding friends in unexpected places.

My rating:

4.5 stars to this glorious middle grade book. It has magical questing (yes, again, I really do love a quest!), a dracogriff, the pied piper of Hamelyn, a cursed girl, and a misguided but brave boy. I mean what’s not to love?

I love the piper mythology, and think the author did a fantastic job of weaving a known story into something more. Plus I love that it’s one I’ve not seen a retelling of before. 💙

I super loved Wren the rat, she is so cute and smart. I am definitely looking forward to seeing hopefully more of her story in the next book. And similarly, for all three of our heroes, given how it ends!

It really is a good story of exploring and a little mystery. My only real criticism is that I thought we may not get all the answers by the end as we don’t start seeing things come through to fruition until pretty close to the end. But we did get them, or enough of them, plus some lovely hints as to the next in the series.

I’m so pleased I picked this up!

Buy A Darkness of Dragons from Amazon UK (affiliate link)