Review: Dragon Thief by Blake and Raven Penn

Blurb:

Asher of Steel Rim is an outcast dragon rider who steals from nobles to help save what remains of his family.

But, when one particular job catches the eye of a band of magi outlaws, they want to recruit him for his biggest job yet: to steal a true dragon egg.

It might be the opportunity he's been waiting for. Not just to gain riches, but to get revenge on the head of the Mage Hunters—The Black Valkyrie.

Review:

This was a fun one! A YA fantasy adventure with a witty voice, fun characters, and dragon riders, but not in quite the same way as a lot of the others. I’m a bit burnt out on dragon stories, but I loved Dragon Thief. Blake and Raven Penn take what could have been a very traditional Dragon rider story and make it so much more. A fast-paced, character driven adventure; a heist story with dragons. Let’s get into it. 

Characters: This book was full of amazing characters. The Penn’s definitely know how to craft engaging, lovable characters that you can’t help but follow. 

Asher: I love Asher. He’s witty, he’s confident, and yet he’s emotional underneath it all. He was a super fun character to get into the head of.  There were few weird moments where he was flirting with two girls at almost the same time and seemed very unconcerned about it. I wanted a bit more tension as he’s trying to figure out which girl to choose, instead of him just going, “she’s hot, oh she’s also hot”  Asher is a very conscientious person and I felt like he would feel a bit worse about his behavior, even if as a teenage boy, he’s absolutely going to continute doing it. He also gets incredibly upset with another member of the group for flirting with two different girls, and I wanted him to possibly realize his own hypocrisy at some point.  Small concerns, but things I wanted from Asher. 

Elle: I also loved Elle. She enters the story relatively late on, but brings some great energy to things, and yeah, her and Asher? I ship it, okay?

Kai: Great best friend character, kind of the conscience to go with Asher’s chaotic wit. They play off each other really well. 

I also loved Valla, Solrac, and Boone. Oh Boone. I listened to the audiobook, and the voice acting for Boone was fantastic. 

Worldbuilding/Magic System:  The world is well developed. We have the magi, the evil mage hunters and, the Drekai, a group of outside agitants. There are wildshapers and different types of magi galore. They burn ether to use their powers, and the Penn’s do well describing all the different types of magi and their abilities. Asher uses his powers of levitation, while each other magi has their own power, be it wildshaping or reading minds. And when you use magic, you make yourself known to the wild dragons. Since dragons are kinda scary, the people of the world are prejudiced toward magi. They’d prefer not to be dragon dinner, so the magi are outlawed. If you’re caught using magic, you’re either silvermarked (basically a silver tattoo on their face that destroys their magical abilities) or executed.  I enjoyed the magic system. It has that everything and the kitchen sink style to it. All sorts of different types of magic coexisting, and it’s just a lot of fun!

Story:

This is a story of parts.   You have the team-building, the heist, and Asher’s personal journey to get revenge for his mother’s death.  The story moves along at a great pace and I was hooked from the beginning. Asher’s voice is fantastic, and pushes the story along. He has that wit and charisma that all of my favorite characters have. I will say that at the beginning, I wasn’t expecting where the story would take me. I expected Asher to spend most of the story fighting against the evil mage hunters and their leader, The Black Valkyrie, but instead that simmered in the background while Asher and the crew planned out their heist. And I’m glad about it. The team-building and planning was fantastic and kept me thoroughly engaged. 

One aspect that did take me out of the story a little bit was some of the switches between 1st and 3rd person POVs. In general, I was more invested in Asher’s 1st person sections, but the 3rd person parts did give us important plot information. There were definitely some plot points that were a bit telegraphed, and I knew what would happen before it did, but that’s how it goes with tropes. 

Overall:  This was a super fun story. It’s got adventure, humor, action scenes, romance, and some pretty cool magic. I’m looking forward to continuing the series, and you should definitely check this one out!