RELEASE DAY BLITZ: She Dreamed of Dragons by Elizabeth J.M. Walker's

Happy Release Day to Elizabeth J.M. Walker's 

Young Adult Fantasy Novel ~

She Dreamed of Dragons!!

Follow the tour today and everyday next week to read exclusive excerpts, guest posts, reviews, and spotlights.

Could a dragon mage be the next ruler of the magical kingdom of Dorlith?

She Dreamed of Dragons

Elizabeth J.M. Walker

Genre(s): Young Adult, Fantasy

Length: Approx. 234 pages

Ebook ISBN:  978-0-9947490-6-2

Print ISBN:  978-0-9947490-5-5

Release Date: July 17, 2015

Publisher:  Mirror World Publishing

This is a re-release tour.  Book previously published through a different publishing company.

Trina is a fifteen-year-old dragon mage in a kingdom ruled by witches and wizards – the same people who have brought dragons and other magical creatures near extinction. Trina can barely control her fire powers and is desperate for an apprenticeship, but finding a fellow dragon mage to be her teacher is proving more difficult than coming across an actual dragon.

Then there’s the Royal Tourney – a competition presented by the Queen to find a successor to the throne. Trina heads to the competition in the hopes of sparking some interest in the mage society and earning herself an apprenticeship.

She never intended to be a frontrunner in the competition.

She never meant to catch the attention of the evil witch trying to take over the throne.

She never expected to fall for a wizard.

Now Trina must face tough decisions about who she is and who she could become. Trina must ask herself: Can she really win the Royal Tourney?

         

Trina Dallow, a dragon mage, stood outside a quaint cottage in the Whispering Woods, not too far from the Mage Academy. Under the guidance of Headmistress Ludella, she was on a search to find an apprenticeship with a senior dragon mage. There were no dragon mage teachers at the Mage Academy. Dragon mages were rare to begin with and most preferred questing over teaching at a school that was quickly turning into a dump. So far every dragon mage Ludella sent her to had turned her down. None of them wanted a lanky fifteen-year-old girl tagging along on their heroic adventures. An endless month of rejections had gone by, but Ludella kept pushing her on to the next possible mentor.

Trina nervously fiddled with the shoulder straps of her brown leather backpack before knocking. She heard footsteps in the cottage and she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. The door creaked open and there stood a tiny woman with short grey hair and gold-rimmed glasses.

“May I help you?” she asked pleasantly.

“Um…yes. I’m Trina. I mean, I’m Petrina Dallow. I’m here to see Archibald Pennywise, the um…great dragon mage,” Trina said.

“You’re here to see Archie?” the woman asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Yes…”

“Oh, do come in,” the woman said. “I’m Mrs. Pennywise, Archie’s mother. He’s in the basement. He must have forgotten to tell me he was having a lady friend over.”

“Oh…okay,” Trina said hesitantly and stepped into the cottage. It smelled like blueberry muffins and the walls were covered in floral wallpaper. It felt very cozy and safe. Trina’s nerves waned.

“Come, come,” said Mrs. Pennywise and led Trina to a door in the hallway. She opened it and called down the long flight of steps, “Archie! There’s a girl here to see you!”

“What?” came a gruff voice.

“I said, there’s a girl here to see you!” Mrs. Pennywise called again.

“A what is here to see me?” Archie yelled back.

“There’s a girl! Here! To see you!” Mrs. Pennywise hollered and then sweetly smiled at Trina.

“Send her down!” Archie called.

“There you go, dear,” Mrs. Pennywise said and motioned for Trina to go down the stairs.

Trina nodded and placed a foot on the first squeaky step as Mrs. Pennywise gently shut the door behind her. It smelled more like old socks and paint than blueberry muffins in the basement. When she reached the last step, she saw the room brightly lit with many candles. A man with greasy black hair slicked back into a ponytail sat at a desk. He was deep in concentration as he painted a tiny dragon figurine. Blue plaid sheets trailed off the bed in the corner. An old rust-coloured sofa sat under a framed painting of a fire-breathing dragon and a gramophone with a pile of records sat next to it on the floor. Many bookshelves lined the walls of the room, overflowing with books, lit candles, and dragon figurines in various stages of being painted.

“Hello?” Trina said tentatively, fearing she’d break the man’s concentration and mess up his painting. “Are you Archibald Pennywise? The great dragon mage?”

He looked up, his eyes dark and beady. He studied her for a moment and then put his brush in a cup of water and put his paints away. Trina waited, nervously fiddling with her backpack straps again. If he really was a dragon mage, he seemed a bit different than the rest Ludella had sent her to see. The last one told her she was a sissy because she was afraid to go on a heroic horseback riding adventure with him. The one before that was a big brawny guy who was embarrassed to admit she was more powerful than he was. He had sent her packing, with a message to Ludella stating the exact opposite: she was too weak and unskilled to be his apprentice. Ludella had frowned and ripped up the letter in disgust.

“I’m here about the apprenticeship,” Trina told Archibald. “Ludella sent a letter?”

“I know,” Archibald said. “So, you think you’ve inherited magic gifted by a dragon then?”

“Pretty sure I’m a dragon mage, yeah,” Trina told him.

“What can you do?” Archibald asked as he busied himself organizing paper and paints on his desk.

“Generally, I set things on fire,” Trina told him. “Well, not always on purpose, though. The greenhouse and what’s-his-name were both accidents. And I wish I didn’t let my hair catch on fire so much—”

“You don’t sound very disciplined,” Archibald said.

“That’s why I need a teacher. There aren’t any at the Mage Academy, so Ludella has been sending me out and about, looking for a dragon mage who will take me as an apprentice. So I can learn stuff. And to prevent me from accidentally setting another building or person on fire.”

“Was the person you set on fire a wizard?” Archibald asked.

“No.”

“That’s a shame.”

Archibald was silent for a moment before blowing out a black candle that was sitting on his desk. He motioned for her to come closer. She took a few steps forward. She knew what was coming next; they all did the same thing.

“Light this candle,” he told her, the exact words she was expecting to hear.

Trina quickly felt for her fire within and her body instantly grew warmer. Before Archibald could blink, every unlit candle in the room burst into flame.

Elizabeth J. M. Walker lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She has always loved books and writing. As a teen she discovered zines, which inspired her to publish her own litzine of odd fairy tales for over a decade.

She Dreamed of Dragons is her first novel.

Connect with her on her website: www.elizabethjmwalker.com

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http://saphsbookblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/tour-schedule-re-release-of-she-dreamed.html