Dreamwalker

Here be ( rather little) dragons

Release Date: OUT NOW! 410 pages | £ 7.99 ( paperback)/£ 4.99 ( ebook) Author: JD Oswald Publisher: Penguin

Just when you thought it was safe to go down to the woods, it turns out there are dragons hiding out down there. But not great fire- breathing beasts. Instead, these are modest creatures, apparently hiding out from mankind.

But change is in the air. For one thing, there’s the arrival of young Benfro in the world, the first male dragon born in long years. Then there’s Benfro’s connection with Errol, a prince hidden from view after his mother was poisoned while pregnant with her only son.

As to the exact nature of the connection, that’s a story for another volume in what is, inevitably, a trilogy. This first instalment charts the childhoods of Benfro and Errol as they grow up in different villages, then what happens when they begin to go out into the world. Both have considerable potential, but are untutored in magical arts.

JD Oswald’s first foray into fantasy ( after four crime novels), isn’t going to win any prizes for re- engineering the genre, but it’s likeable, polished and, in an undemanding Saturday afternoon movie kind of way, entertaining.

Nevertheless, you may find yourself wishing the author had been a bit more ambitious. In particular, while the coming- of- age stories are handled with some aplomb, their grand backdrop, the world of the Twin Kingdoms, seems underdeveloped. A job for the next two volumes, perhaps. Jonathan Wright

When he’s not writing, James Oswald is busy tending to New Zealand sheep and Highland cattle in his work as a farmer.