Dragon Mage by M.L. Spencer! Book Tour with Giveaway!!

Thank you so much to Storytellers On Tour and M.L. Spencer for having me on the tour for Dragon Mage!

This is a truly exceptional work of fantasy and I 100% believe that anyone with even a casual interest in fantasy *needs* to grab this book!

Bookish Quick Facts:

Title: Dragon Mage
Series: Rivenworld, #1
Author: M.L. Spencer
Publisher & Release: Stoneguard Publications – 01/08/21
Length: 982 pgs
Rate & Recommend: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 oh yes, to any fantasy fans

Here is the synopsis provided:

Aram Raythe has the power to challenge the gods. He just doesn’t know it yet. Aram thinks he’s nothing but a misfit from a small fishing village in a dark corner of the world. As far as Aram knows, he has nothing, with hardly a possession to his name other than a desire to make friends and be accepted by those around him, which is something he’s never known.

But Aram is more. Much, much more

Unknown to him, Aram bears within him a gift so old and rare that many people would kill him for it, and there are others who would twist him to use for their own sinister purposes. These magics are so potent that Aram earns a place at an academy for warrior mages training to earn for themselves the greatest place of honor among the armies of men: dragon riders.

Aram will have to fight for respect by becoming not just a dragon rider, but a Champion, the caliber of mage that hasn’t existed in the world for hundreds of years. And the land needs a Champion. Because when a dark god out of ancient myth arises to threaten the world of magic, it is Aram the world will turn to in its hour of need

Awesome character art: check! Meet Aram!

It’s hard to encompass such a massive book, with so much going on, into a review like this

The plot & story: I find a few things unique about the plot, which for the book’s size, NEVER slowed down. 982 pages went by like nothing and I still wanted more of everything. It is told from rotating points of view over the span of about 10 years, where Aram and Marcus start as village boys and eventually become great warriors, fighting a war against old evils

Add in a morally gray and complicated villain, some truly evil archons, dragons, void creatures, sentient horses, bound mounts, trials and training, so much lore, a split world that makes sense, and I am just barely scratching the surface of things you’ll find within the story.

It starts with a prologue where a dragon falls in battle, an unnamed man standing solo against a much greater mage: it hooked me. This is an accurate description of my face once the prologue was explained in the book: 😭😭😭😭😭

The Characters: are actually some of the most interesting I have seen in fantasy.

Aram is somewhere on the autism spectrum, seeing the world in colors and knots. It was a joy, and sometimes a horror, watching him grow into his potential. Warning: ML Spencer is not nice to these characters, she breaks your heart about 20 times. I just loved Aram. He is a magic Savant, which hasn’t happened in 400 years and he has amazing innate magic

Marcus is the opposite of Aram… Someone impervious to magic. Every mage needs a shield, right? It was interesting to see this dynamic work together and how Marcus and Aram handled their individual and joint tragedies. It’s quite hard not to love Marcus when he takes a beaten, bullied Aram under his wing as a boy

Sergan: just see this motherf*cker in action. Will he redeem himself or just be an evil c*nt the whole time? You’ll have to read about how the sorcerers withOUT innate magic, obtain magical essence.

The dragons: to avoid spoilers just let me say that the dragons are amazing, with their own personalities, and their own battle scenes. There are a lot of side characters but they all add something special to the story, even if you have to wait for it

The Magic: there are so many layers of magic in the book. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen knot-based magical essence, and I was on board because it was a world-plausible explanation for Aram’s fixation with knots. The magic validated him, and he validated the magic, and it was amazing. There are also, then, obviously many dark ways to use magic…

…and the world below’s innate magic. The variations in the sorcerers abilities was interesting too. The good vs evil balances and Savant vs Impervious were both pretty cool ideas.

Ah cripe, what else … Plotting that you’d never guess. Family ties. Found family. The cutest tiny hint of romance (100% clean) ever. Did I say sentient quasi magic horses? More evil plots? 1200 year old snarky old men? Oh, warrior and mage training! Battles that never get boring? Heart breaking tortures and no feelings spared on the paths to redemption, alternated with *just* enough warm fuzzies to make everything beautiful? Balance is everything in this novel.