Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn

​Kay loves her small town. There’s great rocks to climb and everything is pretty quiet. When one of her climbs ends with her falling into the ice cold river that separates the human lands from the dragon’s, a young dragon named Artegal saves her and the quickly become friends. When conflict over the border leads to an all out war, can Kay and Artegal’s friendship help put an end to it?
I enjoyed this novel and am happy to report that is was exactly what I was expecting. Which was nice.
The setting was simplistic and in many ways it reminded me of the small town where I grew up. Kay’s town seemed small without being obsolete. Though, I would add having an active air base so near the town made me wonder why it wasn’t larger.
Kay is an intriguing charater, very realistic in her thoughts and actions. Her reasons for climbing that rock in the first place and her natural fear upon encountering a dragon for the first time are exactly what one might expect in a young teen. Well, not every teen goes rock climbing to deal with stress, but the stress she is feeling, and what is causing it, are realistic.
The friendship between Artegal and Kay is born from rebellion, the knowledge that they are both breaking the law in order to learn about each other, doesn’t deter them. This is, of course, nothing new as countless friendships have been formed under such circumstances.
There wasn’t much to the war itself, it was a background event that played a very small part in the long run. Besides some obscure references to it, and one death, there was little mention of what was actually transpiring.
The ending was not anything like I was expecting and was somewhat unsatisfying. I feel as though the book was meant to draw the reader toward book two, but in my opinion it was more like it just stopped. That said, I would like to continue with the series.
I would give this novel four out of five stars and I would recommend it to fans of modernized dragon novels.
I bought my copy of this novel from bookoutlet.com and the picture above is my own. 

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