I received Second Skin by Sue Bentley to review, a fantastic fantasy featuring shapeshifting dragons! This is the first book in the Bridge of Fire books published by Endeavour Venture available from Amazon.
Second Skin
Estranged from birth and raised on tales of the great mountain castle of Idrith-Core, where her distant father serves as Lord Commander and confidante of the King, Aledra Jewel-Wing was now going there to court.
As one of the Drakkoni, a race of powerful shape-shifters and conquerors of a wild land, she joins her stepmother at the festival for all peoples. But when in attempting to save a life, Aledra shifts into her Drakkoni Secondskin – her beautiful second soul: a giant flighted lizard with flaming breath – she breaks an ancient oath, and the tremulous peace between the Drakkoni and Esrans is shattered.
Branded a fugitive, hunted by her father, and aided in escape by the master-mancer who raised her, Aledra begins a journey for survival across a war-torn continent.
Sue Bentley
Sue lives in a house surrounded by a wildlife hedge so she can pretend she lives in the countryside. She enjoys reading, walking, cinema, researching her books, and painting and printmaking, when she’s not writing — which isn’t very often!
My Thoughts
I thoroughly enjoyed Second Skin, Aledra’s quiet life quickly changes with joining her mysterious father in court. When things go wrong, she ends up being held in a cell where she finally meets her father. The master-mancer who taught her, helps her escape. Throughout there are complicated characters such as Aledra’s father, Aledra herself and Penda. A mixture of love, war and dragons, Second Skin is a fantastic start to the Bridge of Fire. I can see