Wings of Fire 15: The Flames of Hope

Tui T. Sutherland's The Flames of Hope is a dragon fantasy for 10 year olds about a young SilkWing who can spin fire and badly wants to fix her broken world.

What happens

It's the fifteenth Wings of Fire book. Luna is a SilkWing from Pantala, the continent of four-winged dragons. Fire now spins out of her wrists, which makes her very rare and, honestly, a bit scary.

Back home things are very bad. Queen Wasp has Luna's little brother Blue and her boyfriend Swordtail under mind control. So Luna is flying back across the ocean with nine other dragons and one small human, hunting for an abyss that might be the key to breaking it.

Before any of that there's a prologue in a hidden village of humans. They've spent centuries worshipping a big ominous hole in the ground. Now it's sent Raven a message. Find the dragon and bring it here, or everyone she knows will die. (Her very first question is WHICH dragon? Fair enough.)

Luna is great company. Her head is full of plans and tapestries and very big feelings. She daydreams about flying into a Hive and announcing to everyone that Queen Wasp is a jerk.

She's also secretly fuming a lot. She keeps up a "see, I'm smiling" face while quietly furious that someone else got to try the magic first.

Her travelling companions are very sweet and not very terrifying. One RainWing keeps falling asleep mid-flight, and a SkyWing charges into the sea hoping for dolphins. Is this really the army that's meant to save her tribe?

There's a lovely, sad scene where Luna uses a magic sapphire to visit Swordtail in his dreams. He's still joking (and still squashing every honey drop he sits on), but you can feel how stuck he is.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The abyss is properly creepy. Every ten years it takes someone to keep for itself, and the last one chosen now sits at the edge, barely himself. Mind control runs right through the story too, with dragons Luna loves trapped doing whatever the queen wants. If your reader likes their fantasy with real danger in it, that's what makes it gripping.

This one sits a long way into the series, and it shows. Luna's fire, the mind control and most of her companions all come from earlier books, and the story doesn't stop to explain much.

What to read next

So if your reader is new to these dragons, it's worth going right back to The Dragonet Prophecy first. Five dragonets are raised in a secret cave under a mountain, because a prophecy says they're the ones who'll end a war.