"Dragon Queen" is set in the mythical world of Ædracmoræ, a place resembling the legendary times of Arthurian Britain. As the first book in the "Ancient Mirrors" series, "Dragon Queen" is rich in details of scenery and background information to firmly establish Ædracmoræ in the reader's imagination. The heroine of "Dragon Queen" is Yávië, who is awakened from the peaceful slumber of death into a shattered world, only to find that her closest family and friends have ruthlessly betrayed her. Together with the Guardians, Yávië must begin a treacherous search for the truth of her birthright.

Dragon Queen: An Ancient Mirrors Tale

“Dragon Queen” begins in the land of Aestretfordae when the Ancients summon the three Guardians of Aestretfordae.  The three guardians, Yavie, Ryden and Nall, are given gifts and great power.  During their training, Nall and Yavie are hunting when Nall is injured by the slitherwort poison, and Yavie must give him a blood oath to save his life.  Then, the guardians begin their first quest which was to contact the dragon flytes, or groups of dragons.  Nall contacts the Ice and Accordant flytes and must do a quest for each of them.  Yavie’s flytes are the Wind and War dragons.  Ryden’s only flyte is the Sea dragons, but Ryden has the hardest quest because she hates dragons, and they hate her.  During her quest to kill a magical beast and retrieve a pearl, Ryden makes a deal with the siren to help her kill the beast and make her beautiful if only Ryden will do the siren one favor.  Once the quests are completed, war breaks out when one of the three kingdoms created by Yavie begins attacking dragons.  When an Ice dragon is killed, the war escalates but ends quickly when the other two kingdoms band with the dragon flytes and the guardians to destroy the third kingdom.  After the war, Yavie journeys to the Fortress of the Dragon Queen and becomes the Dragon Queen.  Ryden betrays the others and tries to kill Yavie, but is killed by Sorel, a guardian from Aeshardae.  Yavie must immediately renounce her queendom and remove her blood oath with Nall, so that she, Nall, a re-born Ryden, Sorel and his sister, Naere, and Galen, the King of the Galenites who owed a blood oath to Yavie from a past life, can quest to rejoin the Seven Kingdoms of Aedracmorae.

Jayel Gibson writes well but sometimes I didn’t get drawn in.  Despite this, the storyline is creative and the characters are engaging.   “Dragon Queen” is like chocolate pudding: hard to walk through, but pretty good.  Fantasy readers will enjoy this book. This is Book One of The Ancient Mirror series.