#BookoftheMonth - Haven Lost (The Dragon's Brood Cycle #1) by Josh de Lioncourt

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Legends never die … 

Sixteen-year-old Emily Haven, heroine of the girls’ hockey team at Lindsey High, has spent her young life keeping two secrets: her rapidly deteriorating home life and the seemingly supernatural power that makes her a star on the ice. When she begins seeing visions of a ragged boy reflected in mirrors and shop windows, a series of events unfolds that tears her from twenty-first century Minneapolis and leaves her stranded in another world with horrors to rival those she has left behind. Lost amidst creatures of fantasy and legend, she is forced to confront the demons of both her past and future to unravel the riddle of the mysterious boy and embark upon a journey to uncover long forgotten histories and the dark, cloaked figure in the shadows behind them all. Caught between opposing forces of a war she does not understand, Emily must find new strength within herself and, above all, the will to remember her friends.

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Haven Lost is the first book in The Dragon's Brood Cycle, and we start off with sixteen-year-old Emily playing a game of ice hockey. Things don't go quite the way she expected, which shakes her belief in herself and her knowing. That night, Emily is taken from the world she knows, and wakes up to a whole new world. One where she has to learn the rules, and figure out just who she can trust.

This was such a great story! All the characters are believable and have their own quirks and foibles, although I will admit to Emily and Corbmacc being favourites of mine. This story has great world-building, with questions raised over just how 'good' each side is, and whether you can rely on someone else's words. This is the kind of book where you reach the end and immediately want to start the next one - which is what I will be doing very soon.

With no editing or grammatical errors that disrupted my reading flow, I thoroughly enjoyed losing myself in this book, and have no hesitation in HIGHLY recommending it!

Josh de Lioncourt was born and raised in California and enjoys writing projects in a wide variety of fields, including fiction, music, software, blogging, and tech articles. He has written on Apple accessibility for Macworld and Maccessibility, hosts or participates regularly on several podcasts, and writes and records music with Molly, his wife. Josh enjoys the works of Stephen King, the music of George Michael, Masters of the Universe, Los Angeles Kings hockey, and home-roasted coffee. He currently lives in Pennsylvania.

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