LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
May 2025 Book of the Month
Struan Murray shot to attention with Orphans of the Tide, a beautifully written, page-turning fantasy adventure which was awarded the prestigious Branford Boase Award for outstanding debut novel. Dragonborn features the same immersive world-building and another set of lively young protagonists with the added bonus of dragons, lots of dragons!
Alex lives a restricted life with her mum who strives to keep her at home or under adult supervision at all times especially since the death of her father. Driven to despair, she rushes into the woods she loved to explore with her dad, and roars her frustration, only to breathe fire. She is, says the mysterious but apparently kindly man who appears, a dragon, and soon she is enrolled at a kind of school for human dragons, waiting for her true form to emerge.
In a plot that twists and turns, and in which readers realise they can’t be sure of anyone, Alex discovers that humans and dragons are on a terrible collision course unless she and her new friends can find and stop the ruthless Drak Midna.
Struan Murray is a gifted storyteller, the dragon transformation scenes and battles particularly thrilling, and this adventure, the start of a series, is red hot reading.
Andrea Reece
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About
Dragonborn Synopsis
There’s fire in this girl – and she will change the world.
From critically acclaimed author Struan Murray comes an electric new fantasy series, perfect for fans of Skandar and the Unicorn Thief and Impossible Creatures.
Life is no fun for Alex Evans.
Ever since her dad's death, her overprotective mother has smothered her with unbreakable rules and unspoken fears. When the frustration inside Alex finally gets too big to bear, it rushes to the surface.
And flames spill from her mouth.
Because Alex is a dragon. One of the many who live among us, unknown and unknowing, unless something awakens their true nature. Led by the mighty Oliphos to the legendary island of Skralla, Alex must now train alongside fierce, frightening dragon children, if she is to unlock the power of her birthright.
But other dragons are rising too. Drak Midna, the greatest dragon of all, seeks to free himself from the curse that has trapped him in human form for a thousand years. The curse that has kept the world safe. And Alex has to be good enough for this fight, or the world will burn.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780241741061 |
| Publication date: |
1st May 2025 |
| Author: |
Struan Murray |
| Publisher: |
Puffin |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
400 pages |
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Press Reviews
Struan Murray Press Reviews
‘Astonishing fantasy with a unique story that burns with brilliance’- A.F Steadman, author of Skandar
‘A fire-breathing, heights-soaring, majestic beast of a book’ - Thomas Taylor, author of the Eerie-on-Sea Mysteries
‘Murray is a master of world-building and this book is no different. It’s enough to make you believe in dragons’ - Katya Balen, Carnegie-winning author of The Light in Everything
Author
About Struan Murray
Struan Murray is Scottish and grew up in Edinburgh, the youngest of a large, rowdy family of redheads. His first publication was a drawing in Pingu Magazine, aged seven, but his debut novel, Orphans of the Tide has attracted rather more critical acclaim. When he's not writing, Struan is a lecturer at the University of Oxford.
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