Here Be Dragons

For 16-year-old Ellie, living with her mother at the base of Snowdon means that life is different from many of her contemporaries. She has her friends from schools, but her nearest friend is George who lives in a nearby cottage. Both Ellie and her mother are connected to the mountain rescue team and it is on a call to find a teenage girl lost on Christmas day that Ellie first sees a mysterious boy on the mountain. She later meets him and there is an instant attraction. However, not only is Henry a member of the nobility but he is hiding an even bigger secret that is linked to ancient Welsh mythology.

Sarah Mussi has blended together elements of Welsh myth and legend and put them in a thoroughly modern setting. The issues that Ellie face are the same as most young people today: will she get to sixth form college?; will she ever get a boyfriend?; when will she be treated as an adult? There are major issues around friendship – like what you do when your best friend fancies the boy next door – and peer pressure. Perhaps it is appropriate that Ellie’s neighbour is called George, as he sees himself as her protector. Balanced against this is the much greater conflict between good and evil which has been raging for hundreds of years and which is shown as a fight between the Red Dragon of Wales and the White Dragon of Wessex. The battles occur every 72 years as the dragons become human, so they can try and find someone to give their heart to. The author has left a bit of a cliff-hanger and as the book is in the ‘Snowdonia Chronicles’ I am hopeful that we will have more stories to carry on the tale. There is a strong plot, plenty of action and a real sense of Welsh legend that makes you want to find out more. I really enjoyed this book and the characters that inhabit it, so I hope that it will find a large readership.