Dragon's Mage

Ragond's Witch Hunter, Book 1

By: Ava Richardson

Narrated by: Rebekah Nemethy

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

She was brought up to hate magic...but now she's learning the truth.

Yanna Gray is part of her family’s Virginia based witch hunting enterprise, helping rid Earth of anything—and anyone—magic. It's the only life she's ever known. But that all changes when a mage opens an interdimensional portal, flinging Yanna into a frightening magical world.

Ragond is straight out of the forbidden fairy tales Yanna once read. Mythical creatures, witches, and mages live in harmony with humans. Here, all she’s grown up believing is turned on its head—especially when she discovers her own magical abilities.

Without access to a portal to Earth, Yanna is invited to shelter at Stonehaven—the training ground for witches, mages, and dragon riders—where she discovers true friendship, camaraderie, and a surprising bond with an ancient dragon. But all too quickly, Yanna’s magic-hunting past catches up to her.

Now, to save her friends and the dragon who partnered with her, Yanna must decide what she believes and who to trust.

Or her past might become Ragond’s downfall.

©2022 Relay Publishing (P)2023 Relay Publishing

Honesty and forgiveness are great healers

I like that this book for YA shows that your view of things isn’t always right and that there are different sides/ perspectives to everything

Great new series

I’ve listened to all of this authors stories and the Ragond set is probably my favorite. Also love this narrator. Excited to start the second book in the series and really hope the third comes up on audible sooner rather than later!

Excellent Magical Academy New Series Start

I'm familiar with this author's complex magical world of Ragond, and I found this first book of a new series set in that world to be a worthy addition. First, she does a fantastic job showing us the Earthen realm the young heroine comes from; let's just say she's not treated well by her family and so has massive trust issues that will have repercussions throughout the rest of this book. The author does this by starting the book with a couple of scenes of her living in that world and how she is treated. Another brilliant thing the author did was provide backstory about Ragond in a creative way: a teacher in the new realm the heroine is thrust into gives her a quick synopsis of the new world she is now a part of. This makes complete sense within the context of the story, and it certainly catches up people who perhaps may not have read the other series about this world. Ultimately, this is a magical academy book. While I'm a massive Harry Potter fan, I don't like how so many speculative fiction authors have jumped on that bandwagon. However, yet again, this author exceeds my expectations by creating such a fantastically complex, believable, and totally awesome magical academy. I love how it is student-driven, and even dragon-driven at times, where the teachers and administrators come across as though they are training future peers, not as those who look upon students as lesser than or that they are so much above them. They are fallible, too, within the story. The author also did a great job showing us how the heroine not only struggles to find her way in a new realm but also must learn how to trust. When she was in the Earthen realm, her family was part of a group that came across a bit like a cult in the way they perpetrate mind games. The heroine can't believe that anyone would be kind without having an ulterior motive or forgive her past transgressions against people like them. She has a fantastic growth arc, and it is not always a straight Road. As always with this author, highly recommended.

Great Series Starter

Ava Richardson has done a great job with this series starter. The character work and story line were well written. Rebekah Nemethy did a great job of bringing the story to life and made this fun listen.

I received a copy of this audiobook and I am leaving my honest review.

Never a disappointment!!

Well Ava Richardson has done it again! What an exciting story line and fabulous story telling by one of my favorite narrators. Rebekah Nemethy really brings books to life.

Teenager Yanna leads a life of witch hunting at the direction of her parents. But suddenly she finds herself in Ragund another dimension where witches are good. She has quite a time fitting in and learning another side of witches and she learns many lessons about herself. A must read/listen!

Yanna

Yanna a witch hunter from earth finds herself in a world full of magic and "witches" and without a way back she learns to adjust and maybe just maybe truly come to like the world she finds herself in.

Dragons, witch hunters and a new world

Wow, listening to this story and the emotions in the narrator’s voice, really draws you in! The characters are amazing and I admire the growth of Yanna’s. It’s awesome to listen to her spread her wings and fly! Bronwen, from her past, enters Ragond and begins to terrorize Yanna and Stonehaven. Thinking out-of-the-box may be the ticket to outsmart Bronwen. I love Phaedron, this dragon is funny, intelligent and awesome! This action-packed book is full of adventure, dragons, Stonehaven Academy, magic, danger, witch hunters, mythical beings, mystery, weapons, golems, bonds, an amulet, the Cult of Vortigern, humor and battles.

Fun magical story

The story kept my interest. It’s a fun, light story to listen to while I do other stuff. By “light” I mean not too complex or complicated that it takes all my concentration, but interesting enough that I want to hear what’s next. It’s pretty long, about 11.5 hours I think. If you like dragons, magic, witches and fantasy you might give this a try.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.