It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and I definitely didn’t want to forget about Elizabeth Kerner, so here we go!

Song In The Silence is the book that had a great impact on me. I’m not sure I can pinpoint what exactly it is that impacted me, or even why I love this book so much, but I’ll give it a shot.

I love her dragons. Yeah, that seems like a good place to start. I’m picky about my dragons. To me, dragons are the incarnation of all that is fantasy; they should be magical, powerful, and intelligent. I do like dragons of all stripes, but to me, they’re not truly dragons unless they’re those three things. Unfortunately, not many writers seem to agree with me. There’s a veritable plethora of dragons that are just big beasts, or are entirely evil, or who are completely unmagical. I’m not saying that those writers are wrong… they’re just not my kind of dragons.

In the Song In The Silence universe, dragons fulfill my criteria, so this makes for a happy Stephanie. :D

But Kerner does more than that. She builds a thorough, detailed world. It’s Order versus Chaos, good versus evil, in a very structured fashion. There are clear boundaries set for what can and can’t be done, and who can do it. There’s history, but she manages to keep these details from overwhelming the story. The characters and the story are the most important parts of her novel. I fell in love with her characters and her world.

I don’t know if I’ve done her book justice here, but I definitely recommend Song In The Silence. The two sequels are also very good: The Lesser Kindred and Redeeming The Lost. Love fantasy? Love dragons? These books are for you.