High fantasy/adventure
Ongoing - 43.5 chapters

I've been remiss in the "Suggestion" part of this book, but to be fair to myself I've been and am still... *whispers* busy...

But I decided it was time to get on with these.

Coming-of-age stories! You know: not the 19-year-old kid who's trying to come to terms with his dragon/curse/parents/whatever, but the children we meet young and watch them grow up through trial and error... that's A New Dawn.

Dante_Greywolf has taken fascinating and unique ideas out of her creative brain and melded them into a fantasy world, that, apart from magic, is endearingly like our own. The four main characters, 10 - 12 years old when the story begins, are children like you find all around you. Children like you were a couple years ago. Their personalities are strikingly unique, their voices fluid and fun to read. The adults are all themselves too, interesting, perplexing, and very real characters, who exhibit all the frustrating characteristics of adults... just as the children act like silly, whiny, and frustrating children once in awhile.

Now honestly, to read A New Dawn you wouldn't know Dante's first language isn't English. I've read books where I can tell, just by the foreign way that sentences are put together. But not Dante. Oh no! Her prose is delightfully strong and balanced, with no more typos than the average person turns out in a day's work. XD

But the best thing about A New Dawn is -- nobody is perfect. Not flawed to the point of no return, not flawed to un-likeability -- no, just flawed to the point where you bang your head against the wall and say, "I want to hate him, but I can still relate to him! Why?????" Dante is a master of grey characters, riding the delicate line of the fickle things called personalities to perfection.

At first, the plot line almost seems simple. But quickly it turns out otherwise. Intrigue and danger pop up all around, and can you tell who is in the right? Is there a right? Sometimes you feel like nothing is as it seems. Characters fight with one another, conflict within themselves, and there's careful hints throughout that there will be one great showdown in the end, and friend may be pitted against friend...

The first book of A New Dawn, A Blaze in the Dark, is almost finished. I look forward eagerly to see where the rest of the series goes.