I’ve briefly covered The Dragonriders of Pern in previous posts. Mostly these stories being one of the series I aimed to read when I was struggling with dyslexia as a child. That in mind I recently took the time to re-read the first novel in the series (by publication date), and still find myself as pleasantly pleased as I did when I was a teenager and picked up the novels for the first time.

As I said above, Dragonflight is the first release in the Dragonriders of Pern series. It covers the discovery of Lessa and her journey to becoming Wyrewoman and then her journey to protect the world of Pern from the menace of the ever consuming Thread.

Now I will state that while the falling thread is the overarching issue of the novel, it is far from the only one. Anne McCaffrey did an outstanding job of making the world of Pern feel alive, and she had a knack for producing political drama in her stories. The story balances the need for the Dragonriders to defeat an ancient mindless foe, while also trying to keep the Lords of the word from trying to tear them apart because of feelings that these riders are no longer needed.

Now you may wonder what are dragons doing in a sci-fi book? Well, that requires the reading of the series to answer, and I strongly suggest to any fan to do so! The audiobook version is also well done if you prefer to go that rout in your reading.

As readers of my previous posts may know, I have an obsession with Anne McCaffrey’s various works. So this year I took on the personal quest to read all of her works as I had only read The Dragonriders of Pern series before now. So I decided I would read everything in the order of publication. Starting with Restoree.

This is a Sci Fi book, as most of Anne McCaffrey’s stories are, as well as a romance. Now, as with most of my book reviews I will not go to deeply in to the story as I do not want to ruin plot points. (Even though this book came out decades ago.) But it is an original story with interesting Sci Fi aspects that continue to interest even now in our technology heavy modern 2020s. In some ways even more so. The imaginative technology in the book touched on briefly but it is interesting none the less.

At its core Restoree begins as an alien abductee story. A woman is pulled from her home on Earth, goes through torturous transformations, and comes out on a planet with other human like people. From there she has to learn not only the language but how to explore not only a new home but the political and social intricacies of a new world. Plus an odd repulsion most have to her when they hear her story.

In short, as I have said with previous Anne McCaffrey books, if you are a fan of sci fi read this! Particularly if you are fond of a romance story on the side!

Here we have another romance by Ava MacAdams. Yes, I seem to inhale these stories rather quickly. I love this romance novel, like her others. This one is steamy, but I did not find it overly so. The main characters get hot and heavy but if you are reading for that you will have to wait till the end. This book is heavy on the story. Which, in my opinion, is a good thing.

From the beginning of this novel, you know that Rebecca and her younger sister are in a bit of a pickle. They live with an uncle who will go to some pretty heavy extremes to get money he wants. I will not spoil how far the man will go, but he certainly comes off as the classic money hungry villain.

This story involves a bit of a love triangle. Rebecca is engaged to one fellow, though after being caught in the passionate embrace of a childhood friend ends up marrying him instead. After all, the period the book takes place in required a much more strict since of propriety than we do today.

Their marriage appears fairly content, the two getting along well and genuinely are in love. Naturally, this would make for a terribly boring novel. A couple of issues arise, including a woman popping up who claims to be the expectant mother of the new husband’s child! All very shocking, yes. The story culminates in a rather surprising end, leading to the expected happily ever after.