Riders of the Realm – Beneath the Weeping Clouds

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez's Beneath the Weeping Clouds is a Riders of the Realm fantasy for 8 year olds about a boy stranded among the giants his people fear most.

What happens

Rahkki is a Sandwen boy, and he's grown up on warnings. Be home by dark or the giants will eat you. Now a giant prince is carrying him towards a huge bubbling cauldron of soup.

Is he about to become dinner? Nope. The giants want him to eat FIRST, as an honour. And the soup turns out to be the best thing he's ever tasted (he still wonders what's in it).

Rahkki's ankle is broken and his clan has left him behind. Now he's been summoned to a meeting of all three giant hordes, and nobody will tell him why.

Meanwhile his winged mare, Sula, is badly hurt. To her own wild herd she's Echofrost, and they carry her to the clan's healer. A third thread follows Princess I'Lenna, who tried to take the throne from her mother and failed. The early chapters swap between the three, which keeps the pages turning.

The best bits are with the giants. Rahkki talks to them in the sign language his mum taught him, and ends up with a Gorlish name that's just a shrug and flappy hands. The giant children are loud and nosy and very funny. Then there's Tak, a tiny golden fire-breathing dragon who adopts him and promptly poos down his shirt.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This picks up straight after a big battle. Pegasi are flying with arrows still in them, Rahkki's brother is paralysed, and a loyal general was killed before the book begins. I'Lenna is tied to a stone for a dragon to judge. It's not gory, but there's a LOT of peril.

For a sensitive reader who gets upset when animals are hurt, that could be a lot. If your reader already loves a big fantasy battle with flying horses, they'll be gripped.

It follows on from earlier Riders of the Realm books, so it isn't the place to start. The story drops you straight into the aftermath of what's gone before.

What to read next

If they're after another hero on a crutch who has to face giants, Odd and the Frost Giants follows a Viking boy with a crushed leg into a winter that just won't go away.