The Dragon's Touchstone

In one word this book is riveting. From the very beginning Radford pulls you in by the string of your heart and by the soles of yourimagination. I am not usually a fan of "fantasy" or "romantacism", but this book has made me a believer. For some reason Dragons and other mythical creatures just don't seem believable to me, but Radford sparked a fire inside of me wanting to know all I could find about dragons. She introduces you to characters that aren't just characters, they are people that you trully care about and fear for their safety. The ending leaves you with a desire...no, a passion to know what is going to happen. Once I finished the book I immediately went out and bought "The Last Battlemage", the second book in the series.

This is one great book. I just finished reading it today. I first started to read Ms. Radford's books a couple of years ago when she started her new series about Merlin's descendants. I love those books and can't wait for the next one. This book is right up there with those. Her books are fantastic. She's right up there with my favorite authors, Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. She gives the feeling that you are right there with Nimbulan and Myri. She makes you feel amost protective of some of the characters. I have yet to read the rest of her books, but I am sure that I will be as absorbed in those as I was in this.

The book was an insperation. The characters Myrilandel, which is also my name...hehe...and Nimbulan was a great combination. The villain of the book Monicrith made my bones shake with antisipation. Akerly was a typical bastartd, and the two children were wonderful. Powell and Kalen, here is a shout out to you! Any way I have started a new craze at school for reading, and this book is still being talked about it has been a couple months since we all read it. It is still a favorite! Hehe!

This book pulls you in from the very begining! You want to read it all the time. It's really neat when... I won't tell you. If you buy any books by Irene Radford , buy this one FIRST!!!!! If you like dragons and magic, you'll like this book!

Irene Radford does it again in the novel "The Dragon's Touchstone". The story starts out with the legendary battlemage, Nimbulan, fighting in the grips of the Great Wars of Disruption for the warlord Kammeryl D'Astrismos, trying to unite the seperate factions of Corronan. Forced to kill is own apprentice Keegan to save what remained of the raging armies from a spell gone awry during the battle. Having done this, Nimbulan meets up with the Peacemaker, Quinnalt De Tanos, a priest turned lord of a small chain of islands at the mouth of the Great Bay, who is trying to forge a peace that will bring peace to the land, although he has very little luck doing so. After the recent events, Nimbulan begins to question his the loyalty to his lord of 18 years. At about the same time, a young witch-woman named Myrilandel wanders Corronan in search of the home promised to her by the voices in her head(if you read it, it'll become clear). She ends up stumbling onto the battlefield of the recent conflict and, trying to heal the wounded soldiers that she can, runs into the bloodmage Moncriith, who has been stalking her for most of her life, condemning her as a demon. Moncriith tries to have her burned while she is trying to save a sergeant when Nimbulan saves her. I don't feel like giving away any more of the story in detail, but pretty much the plot of the story is Nimbulan starting his own school for magicians and trying to find a new magic so he can impose honor and ethics on magicians and bring peace to the war-torn Corronan, while Myrilandel tries to find her calling in life(Myri's story is better than it sounds),but if you've already read the Dragon Nimbus series, you probably already know what happens. I highly recommend this story, the entire Dragon Nimbus series, and this story's sequal, "The Last Battlemage". Irene Radford is an excellent writer and I'm highly looking forward to, hopefully, another sequal to this series as well. Enjoy!