Wyvern Awakening (Mage Chronicles #1)

First book in a series and I can’t wait to read the next one. One of the best books I’ve read this year. This is one of those books that when you start reading it, you can’t put it down. She’s the last of her kind. Astri is injured in an attack that killed her parents when she was a child and moved in with relatives that are humans. Her relatives were so mean that she was forced to live in the basement because of her screaming from the nightmares. She also had to come up with money to pay her uncle every month for living quarters and the bills she made when she was in the hospital. After 11 years, she leaves the family to go live at the castle to be a part of a contest to become the assistant to the Duke. If you want more, and I suggest you do, go check this story out!!

I enjoyed reading the book and look forward to the next one. It was a nice read, the characters development's were very well played out and were unexpected at the end. The end although I realized early on that it was not Jorgen who was the enemy was still a surprise as to how it was done and what they did to his dragon. I am anxious to find out what happens now and if they can somehow reverse the procedure and what it takes to do this.

To be able to pull a book like this from your imagination & put it down on paper while having it make sense, more than extremely amazing! I enjoy writing myself, making anything a daily habit with my ADD mind is next to impossible. I get easily bored or distracted by other things going on around me. But, this; I couldn't put it down. I had to finish it before starting a new book... I found it mysterious, fun, & true to life! For anyone over 13 years old...

...with a sad ending. The good guys characters are well done, as is the pacing and story. The bad guys are stereotypes.

First off I read a lot of books varying from: college romance to paranormal ones, so when I saw this one for dragons and Stevens I had to check it out. I was intrigued from the beginning and how the main character is a strong and determined female. I also liked the relationships that are between the main characters and I enjoyed all the twists and turns this book had and really looking forward to the second installment, so I can see what happens.

Astri is a dragon shifter who has nightmares of her parent’s death eleven years ago. In her dreams a Mage tells her that he has killed her parents and she seeks revenge for their death. Astri lives with her aunt and uncle who do not care for her. She has two Pixie friends she had rescued. Astri tries to payback her uncle for her medical bills due to her physical injuries she suffered when she was younger. When Astri has the opportunity to work for Duke Jorgen of Rivenna the person responsible for her parent’s death she wants revenge. I really enjoyed this young adult fairy tale novel.

I recieved an advanced copy of this book, which in no way affects my honest, and freely given, review. This book is different from any of the other books I've read by Joanna Mazurkiewicz. It was pure fantasy with wonderful believable characters. The world building was exquisite. There is action, and humor, but also pain and sadness. I can't wait to read what happens next to Astri and Jorgen. I can't wait to read about the future of the last wyvern and the town of Rivenna.

The beginning of this book was tough to get into. Astri is laden with self pity and self loathing. She is hard to root for. There is a lot of repetitive sentences and needless repeating of her pity party. Once she has a goal the story takes off. I want to read the rest of her story now. She grows into a more confident young lady. She does have a bit of a revenge agenda that causes her to make bad decisions. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here.

I received a complimentary copy of the book and am voluntarily leaving this honest review. I love starting a new series especially when the authors words hold me tightly in their grasp with scenes I can only imagine and characters to adore. Astri has not had a happy upbringing since becoming an orphan and appears weak willed at times and stronger at other times. We follow Astri throughout the story as she faces challenges she must overcome to reach her desired outcome but is it the right choice. You will not want to put the book down its that good. Roll on book 2

Truly awful. The first person narrative shows the 'heroine' to utter disadvantage. WAY too much angst, whinyness, and unfocused deliberation. The side kicks were SO unfunny, their magical usefulness only popping up out of the blue when the plot ran into yet another dead end. This unfortunately happened with a lot of other plot devices, as well. Things just come up when the protagonist needs them, then disappear again without a trace. Neither the good nor the bad characters were in any way interesting, and OH YE GODS THE CLIFFHANGER.

It's hard to say if having a particular nightmare just once is any better than having the same one time and again. That if you must have nightmares would you rather they're constantly changing. Sure, the first time you have it you're afraid or it wouldn't be a nightmare. If you keep having the same one you might be afforded a reduction of fear because something subconscious recognises what's coming, but not that there is any guarantee. Just being exposed to something more than once isn't any guarantee you won't react the same way again, though. But fear still exists regardless. It's just likely to now be related to the awareness that it's coming and yet you can't stop it. In addition, you now have a medley of new problems such as frustration, anxiety, anger and hopelessness. They're all aimed at the awareness over what's coming is known but without being able to change it. It's the additional emotions precipitated because you haven't any control that make it much more than just being afraid. Then, reactions aren't easy to control. Astri's erroneous assumptions in her repeated nightmare plaguing her dreams are evidence of that. Despite knowing what's coming, an overwhelming medley of emotions keep her making the same mistakes. Her inner wyvern whispers words of calmness, believing her fire magic makes her an apex predator among the pinnacle of shifters. The words fail to break through to give her the promised boost in her confidence, because she knows in the confines of whatever dark space where her nightmare plays out, it keeps her wyvern from being brought forward. As before, no matter how tightly or long she holds her eyes closed, it's the way it finishes that wakes her everytime. Except that this time there is a difference from all the previous times, when the same things have played out like a film segment stuck on a loop. Astri now gets a missing image of the face of the man responsible for murdering her parents and intending her's is next. In her dream eyes he's the Duke of Rivenna, in the very lands where she lives. As much as she tries to assure herself that remembered words have no truth and nor do the events, the realisation that sinks in about why she was disfigured rings too true not to consider them as the truth. Astri had always believed that finding this answer would mean so much more than it presently doe. All it's achieved is to swap one form of hopelessness for another. Now that she knows, she wishes she didn't: it's an undeniable dilemma because her dreams haven't ever been wrong in revealing a truth. For Astri, being taken in under protest by an uncle and aunt meant the beginning of just over a decade of daily taunts and reminders of why people around her point and stare. A ten years young girl eventually banished to the basement when she awoke screaming one too many times from a nightmare that didn't know how to cease. She never needed to leave home to know how she'd be treated in a world fixated on outer beauty instead of the inner. Be it her full-blooded shifter genes, or the embarrassment her scarring causes them when in the company of their friends. Be it more simply in the disgust present in their eyes and the grimace on their face, her disfigurement means that there's more than any solitary reason for the prejudice shown toward her. Astri is bereft of any shared family, including that of her second one who rejected her outright based on a bounce-back spell that turned her own magic against her. Absent any environment from which to draw strength during her time of grief and need, or as she needed during her immediate development for the next half decade, it's a life of absolute disillusionment she encounters. Fortunately a witch and hunter couple came to provide employment, and a home away from the roof over her head. A place where she was first given the only relationship that tried in vain to teach her she is more than her disfigurement. Her later adoption of two sibling Welsh Pixies discovered after traumatic experiences caused their amnesia. The brother and sister were found during a forest hunt for the supplies needed by her employers. Huddled and bedraggled under a fallen tree in a nearby forest, they came together to create a stronger environment for three wayward souls. That one of her two larakin friends can fart on command in the face of any rude enough to warrant it, repeatedly helped with the comic relief once absent. For others who don't warrant it, it's been an impossible effort to teach that farting in faces is rude. Besides, sometimes it suits her to a tea, like when they do it to her uncle and aunt every time they're being mean. Just to add further insult to injury, her human wsrdens were so generous that they kept her paying off a tally of the medical bills (in addition to the costs of food and schooling whilst growing up in their house, I won't say in their care because no care exists) incurred in the aftermath of her parents being murdered. Debt accrued by a ten year old girl forced to start paying off her loan monthly from the age of fifteen; essentially for the past six years. They truly give meaning to the statement that with family like these, her needs enemies. Inexplicably unable to gain access to the bill that was recorded by the human hospital, likely because of race discrimination for being a shifter, Astri cannot prove to her conscience that says she's paid enough. They were, after all, able to confiscate any inheritance she might've had. For a century magical beings and races have lived openly, but the divisions still exist and in Astri's own personal case she is forced by her uncle and aunt to pretend she is no more than a freaky human, so as not to draw embarassed attention on them from their peers. Now twenty one and holding a crucial memory relating to the murderer of her parents and her own disfigurement, it comes on the eve of news from the town crier that the Duke has chosen to run a contest between shifters to see who has the necessary skills to become his next assistant. A job requiring close association with him and completion of dangerous assignments. Serendipity or not, Astri needs to gain access to a place and person she otherwise would have no chance of achieving, if she is to get final answers to what's been plaguing her for the last eleven years. Useless platitudes are easy to say but not to match in the behaviours that give backing to it. Many people say that beauty is more than skin deep but then go and just books by their covers. As much as it's tough love, though, Astri is in many ways as guilty as those who judge her; not because of how she treats others, as is the crime they commit, but in how she treats herself. A wise person once said that others will be incapable of loving us if we don't first love ourselves. To accept love it's necessary to first feel that we are capable of being loved. It's not about false ego or having tickets on yourself. It's much more inherent in that to feel the love sent your way you must first love yourself so that you'll be capable of seeing what those behaviours mean. Wyvern Awakening is quite a deep book as much as it's built on fantasy through and through. It's about prejudice, discrimination, infatuation, and about the tricks and lies that are evident in our eyes. The characters are plentiful and the environment is rich in magical creatures with a good level of action, once the ball gets rolling. There's plenty of drama and waiting for the pennies to drop. Some do fall but others are still tumbling around. It has that mystery quality where you predict some outcomes and they're wrong, or still remain unanswered. Then there's those that are right but not in the way you thought they were, creating an air of bedazzled. Once you reach the end then you know that you must also reach the end of the next book, Wyvern's Secret - Mage Chronicles Book 2. This is my first Joanna Mazurkiewicz book and I'm impressed. It's always a buzz to know you've found another author. There's that notion of having new access to 'a lucky dip'. That state where you like the features and technical qualities, but aren't yet fluent enough to know what to expect. I'm rating this book at four stars, only because, though I suspect it's intended and therefore could be unfair to downgrade to over it, that I'm finished feeling a little puzzled which is new for me. It certainly makes reading the next book a foregone conclusion.

Romanzo carino, con una protagonista molto adolescenziale, peccato non abbia una fine e sia più lungo di una trilogia. Non so se consigliarlo o meno. Più che 4 stelle sarebbero 3 e mezza. Diciamo che se avessi saputo che non finiva forse non l'avrei letto. Ce ne sono tanti così e comincio a non poterne più di dover continuamente tenere a mente gli infiniti libri necessari per arrivare a una conclusione.

je lui aurais bien donné un 5 étoiles mais la question principale qu'on se pose au début n'a toujours pas de réponse à la fin, même si on nous laisse prévoir la réponse. Pour le savoir, je dois lire le tome suivant. Très bien écrit. Personnage attachant et le personnage principal n'est pas un superhéro qui ne fait jamais d'erreur. On pense deviner ce qui va se passer mais l'histoire prend des détours inattendus...