To Be Published September 3, 2013
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Format: ARC, obtained at BEA
Genre: YA paranormal, YA urban fantasy
To Pre-Order: Amazon * Barnes & Noble
Rating: 5 STARS
(From Goodreads) Trinity
Don't leave me here... It starts with a whisper. At first Trinity thinks she's going crazy. It wouldn't be a big surprise--her grandpa firmly believes there's a genuine dragon egg in their dusty little West Texas town. But this voice is real, and it's begging for her protection. Even if no one else can hear it...Connor
He's come from a future scorched by dragonfire. His mission: Find the girl. Destroy the egg. Save the world.
Caleb
He's everything his twin brother Connor hates: cocky, undisciplined, and obsessed with saving dragons.
Trinity has no idea which brother to believe. All she has to go by is the voice in her head--a dragon that won't be tamed.
A recipe for the dragontastic awesomeness that is Scorched:
A cup of Eragon
+
A dash of T2
+
A pound of Reign of Fire
Trinity and her grandfather are down to their last dime and right before Christmas, too. When he spends their tax money on a purported dragon egg, Trinity is furious. Until she discovers it really IS a dragon egg. HER dragon egg, apparently, And it's imminent hatching will start a chain of events that will destroy the world. So, twin brothers Caleb and Connor have separately come back in time nearly 200 years on two very different missions to try and stop that from happening.
Scorched is a breath of fresh air (pun intended). In a world of YA paranormal where the creatures are usually angels, faeries, vampires or werewolves, dragons that can communicate telepathically with their human matches is an absolutely refreshing change. Scorched is uniqueness among sameness.
Trinity is a great heroine. She's put in a tough spot right off the bat. Imagine someone telling you that you will end up causing the destruction of the known world. I think I'd go into a corner and rock in the fetal position for awhile. But, Trinity really tries to wrap her brain around what's being told to her, and she wants to make the best outcome possible. It's a really mature attitude, despite the complete craziness of the situation.
Caleb and Connor - the hot, time-traveling twins. One thinks killing Trinity and the dragon would be the best way to prevent the tragedy. The other thinks that saving them and protecting them would be the way to go. Both boys experience a sort of epiphany along the course of the story, realizing that not everything can be as black and white as they have painted it.
I really wanted to hate both of them at different points in the story, but I found that I just couldn't. They both care for Trinity, and they both want what they think is best for the world. How can you hate them for that?
And, although Trinity macks on both the boys during the course of the story, I couldn't be mad her either. I couldn't really blame her for wanting both of them. I see the beginnings of a wicked love triangle (aren't they always worse when they involve siblings?) to come, but by the end of Scorched, it hasn't quite fully developed.
The pacing and writing are absolute perfection. At no time during the story was I bored, lost or skipping ahead a few pages to "get to the good part." (C'mon - we've all done that, right?) Whenever time travel is introduced, there is great potential for the story to get lost in convoluted space/time continuum theory stuff. And, that never happens in Scorched. The characters are multi-faceted and interesting. The world-building is done very well. And, the story is paced just right so that I didn't see the twists and surprises coming.
Scorched is to be the first in a trilogy. There is no cliff hanger, but events set in motion are by no means resolved when you get to the last page. I'm really excited to see where things go in the next book. But, for now I'm content to have read this sweeping, epic dragon tale.
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