Set in a world of dragons, song-spells, pipers and battles, S.A. Patrick’s lively YA fantasy A Darkness of Dragons works its magic on a fairytale that’s been neglected for far too long – the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. By casting the Pied Piper as an evil villain who’s sprung from jail by dragons, and pitting him against a disgraced young lad called Patch Brightwater who is already in deep trouble for playing a dangerous enchantment on his pipe, Patrick has taken all the familiar good guy/bad guy archetypes, thrown them in the cauldron and concocted a brew that’s wildly entertaining. He’s also given his young hero two marvellously playful sidekicks in the form of Wren, a girl who has been cursed to live as a rat (and you know what happened to rats in the Pied Piper story) and a fire-breathing dracogriff called Barver. Now, Patch, Wren and Barver must find out why the dragons broke the Pied Piper out of jail and do everything they can to prevent his latest, greatest, most heinous plan from reaching fruition. As YA fantasies go, there’s nothing radically new here but S.A. Patrick certainly gives the familiar a whole new lease of life.
Having said that, the way music is used within A Darkness of Dragons (and the way S.A. Patrick evokes the cadence of music within his prose) is something quite special, and- maybe because we’re of a certain age – it made us nostalgic for all the ‘satanic panic’ furore of subliminal messages in songs and the intriguing myth surrounding the Devil’s Tritone. As a vehicle for magic, music is perfect. After reading A Darkness of Dragons, we wondered why more fantasy authors don’t use it as an element in their work.
Unsurprisingly, A Darkness of Dragons is supposedly the first book in a new series. Normally our hearts sink when we know that further adventures are planned even before the first adventure’s been published but, in the case of Patch and his friends, we’re curious to see what comes next.
Oh, and like all good YA fantasy, this is a novel that grownups who are still big kids at heart will enjoy too. In fact, they might even have more fun with it than the target audience.
A DARKNESS OF DRAGONS / AUTHOR: S.A. PATRICK / PUBLISHER: USBORNE PUBLISHING LTD / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
