Book Review: Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland
A fantasy kingdom under threat, avaricious and grasping scions of an Empire seeking their ambitions and desires, and an implacable dragon come together in Dragon Heart, the first fantasy novel from Cecelia Holland. Holland is best known for a long string of historical fiction novels set across history and time such as The Secret Eleanor, looking at the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Angel and the Sword is set in 9th Century France, a telling of the female knight legend of Roderick the Beardless. Pillar of the Sky details the construction of Stonehenge, and Until the Sun Falls goes deeply into the life of Psin, a General in the Mongol horde in the time after Genghis’ death. In Dragon Heart, King Reymarro, the King of Castle Ocean, at the edge of the sea, is dead. The grasping, avaricious Empire to the East has seized the opportunity to exert dominion over this last outpost of land in the west. Queen Marioza and her children face the scions of the Empire come to take control of the land and the Castle. These scions themselves have ambitions, plans and desires of their own, and struggle and conflict amongst themselves as well as the royal family. Control of a kingdom like Castle Ocean could be a stepping stone to challenging the Emperor for supremacy, after all, or at least to keep in his good graces.
