Review: The Sword and the Dragon by M.R.Mathias

  This is not the first series I have read into by M.R Mathias, but by far the is the best yet!  It starts off simply with two teen brothers who are part of a clan which harvest eggs from a cliff face each year, selling those eggs to support their community.  Yet Hyden, the elder brother, has been entered into an archery contest and so his younger brother Gerard climbs the cliff in his stead, whilst climbing he comes across a magical ring at the highest point of the cliff where climbers never normally reach.  But these small events spark off a chain reaction as one of those eggs taken from the cliff hatches, fulfilling a prophecy of a coming magician who will be the owner and friend of a hatched bird.

  This book had a lot of depth to it, mainly due to the fact that the story takes place within seven kingdoms and the story follows many characters which come together at points creating a weaving effect that works really well.  For example, another main character is a King’s page called Mikahl who is told to flee whilst the King is dying from being poisoned.  Mikahl is to carry a magical sword to the King of the Giants, not realising he is the true heir to the throne and as such the sword is his.  Later he meets Hyden and the two become friends on this journey, yet both characters are equally important in the major plot.

  This was the first book in The Wardstone Trilogy and this is a great start to the trilogy-story and a massive book, it’s over 500 pages!  The book ended giving some clues as to where the story will lead to in the next book, but the story wasn’t itself left on a cliff edge.  I think it would have been nice to see some of the individual smaller character stories not to end so cleanly at this point, but even saying that, I will definitely be putting the rest of the series onto my ‘to read’ list and will get stuck in once they are out!  I would recommend this book to anyone who likes YA Fiction or Fantasy, the characters are loveable and the story is well planned and flows smoothly.