Well, well, well, who’d expect a comedy of manners from this cover? Much to my amusement, Walton has written a clever parody of Victorian romances in this dragon-filled book. Reminds me of Anthony Trollope’s novels, actually.
Ok, this is the story of a family–a dying father, siblings struggling over their inheritance, evil, rotten husbands, and conniving churchmen in a time when a woman’s job is to be well married, and men fight duels of honor. What makes this book so much fun is that the characters are dragons–dragons who eat their weak children, who save the eyeballs of the dead patriarch for the clergyman, whose servants have their wings tied tightly so that they may never fly, and whose pure, virginal daughters instantly turn blushing pink if they fall in love, or, more importantly to the plot, if they are too closely approached by an unwanted suitor (in which case, they are “ruined,” of course.
I found this book in a list of the best Sci-Fi/fantasy books of the decade and I’m glad that I did. (I loved how the dragons felt more comfortable if they were sleeping on a pile of gold). Reading it was, well, simply a lot of fun. Look for more comments on Walton books in the future. I’m sure I’ll be reading more of her work.
TWO THUMBS UP!
Tags: adult fiction, fantasy, funny stuff
