With a dragon’s magic, even a memory can be dangerous…
Austin is an American grad student, on leave to mourn the death of his girlfriend, Rhi. Yet during a pilgrimage to her favorite place on the Welsh coast, he finds she may not be as dead as he thought. A pickpocket named Corinna claims to have stolen her memories. Rhi was a wizard from another world, she insists, and if Austin doesn’t trust … and if Austin doesn’t trust her, that world will perish in an apocalypse of dragons.
Austin rejects Corinna’s story. Magic? Stolen memories? Dragons? Yet soon, a sinister figure begins stalking him. A glowing crystal speaks with a voice in his mind. When a creature too horrible to be natural attacks, snarling Austin’s name through mangled mandibles, he must reexamine his grasp of reality, or die.
Corinna might be his only hope. Can he trust her, an admitted thief, when the voice from the crystal calls her a liar? Meanwhile, Austin’s stalker creeps ever closer, murderous, implacable, and seeking a confrontation on which hinges Austin’s life, Rhi’s death, and the fate of two worlds.
Memory of Dragons, the latest novel from award-winning author Michael G. Munz, imagines that our fairy tale monsters are another world’s criminal castoffs, and that magic can exist, if we can stomach the cost. If you like thrilling, heartfelt fantasy set in the modern world, grab it today!
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This is a book that is basically good: interesting story with magic and dragons, fairly good pacing with a lot of action from the start, and plenty of twists and turns. Yet I never quite got into it, and it took me forever to finish. I’m blaming Austin, the main character, who I never really warmed to. He was too dithering and I like my heroes with a bit more decisiveness. Other than that, there was nothing obviously wrong with the book, so if you like fantasy with a hero who isn’t like everyone else, this is for you.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Michael G Munz’s ’Memory of Dragons’ is an incredibly well-written fantasy novel set predominantly in the true land of dragons; Wales.
What initially drew me to the book was the idea that ’our fairy tale monsters are another world’s criminal castoffs’. I have always wondered where the basis for our monsters came from and the idea created by the author is both fantastic and believable. I am so very glad that my curiosity and love of dragons in fantasy stories had me read Memory of Dragons as the world-building is so well-done and I could easily visualise the many places our male protagonist, the grieving Austin, travels to.
We are introduced to Austin and his need to find peace at the loss of his partner in such a gentle manner and I felt his pain as if it were my own. The idea of seeing somewhere that matters to someone he loved for himself is a beautiful concept and it introduces you to the main plot of the book in an new and therefore unique manner. I cannot recall reading a tale done with the same concept which is refreshing.
Austin and Corinna are both brilliantly written and are also very real. Both characters have their faults, their strengths and their weaknesses and whilst there is the well-loved idea of ’underdog being the hero’ it is far from predictable. I really enjoyed how the two are brought together by the most unconventional of ways and that Corinna is far from our weak and feeble heroine, (finally, that stereotype in fantasy novels is dying off.) She is strong-willed and independent and the nudges to a life spent being reliant on herself to survive from a young age is told to both Austin and the reader in a sensitive and subtle manner.
Austin is fiercely loyal and whilst normally it is that trait that is a strength, for Austin at times, it is a weakness. He’s vastly ill-prepared for the battle he find himself in and perhaps I’m awful, but I liked that he struggles, that when things go wrong for them? Austin doesn’t immediately have the answer.
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I loved this book so much, and couldn’t put it down as I wanted to know what happens next for the two protagonists against the threat of an escaping dragon and a bad guy whose way of survival on Earth is to kill. I really hope that this is the first in a series as Memory of Dragons had me with lots of questions and the desire for ’What’s next ?’ to be answered. I do hope the author does as I highly doubt when readers come to the end, they too will be left shocked and wanting to know what else happens to the characters we have left behind.
Thank you, NetGalley for my arc in return for an honest review.