Author Gush: Anne Leonard and Moth and Spark

Let’s not mince words, dear reader: this is a good book.

In fact I’m going to recommend this book purely for the simple novelty that it manages to make Disney-style rapid-romance feel not only believable, but genuine.

In a matter of days the dizzying (and quite juicy) court intrigue, magic, and, yes, the romance, create a breakneck pacing that’s a joy to read. The threats feel tangible, the romance dynamic, crisp, and authentic, and there are fucking dragons.

If the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones and Disney had a love child it’d be this book and I mean that in the best way possible.

I’m personally biased against dragons in fantasy, truth be told. I think they tend to be overused cliches whos implimentation tend to border on the cringe-worthy more often than not. When done correctly, however, my inner nerd squeals like a yearling sow in delight as it gorges on some damn good writing. I’m happy to say Leonard delivers in this instance and (without wishing to spoil) the dragons are used less as a fantasy gimic and more of a raw elemental and dare I say tragic-adjacent set of figures that one can choose to either read into or take at face value. without ruining the pace or structure of the tale (Get it? Read into? Because it’s a book? ….sorry, I’ll stop now).

Best of all this story delivers a lot in a short amount of time.

Like I’ve mentioned the pacing is excellent and the relatively short length means there’s no room for any fat to hang off the story. This fantasy yarn is a lean, mean, fighting machine and you should really pick it up if you haven’t already.

In case it isn’t obvious I’m a little biased here as I’m unabashedly impressed by Anne Leonard’s accomplishment with this piece but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to me sing its praises!

So go do yourself a favor and pick it up.

C’mon, it won’t even take up that much shelf space and the cover’s kinda neat.