Dragonmeat by Angela Boord

I’m pleased to be on Team Behind the Musings for the first annual  Speculative Fiction Novella Championship (SFINCS) , a competition to showcase some of the great speculative fiction novellas that indie authors have written.



We have now reached round two of the competition. As with round one, I will not be sharing either star ratings or number scores in this review.



Dragonmeat is poison. But what if you’re starving? Peri will do anything to keep her chronically ill father alive in their starving city. Using her now useless scholarly talents to research thievery, she’s become a highly successful food thief—small, ordinary—invisible. In Medeas, gripped in the iron fist of its mad governor, ravaged by dragons, hiding is a way of life. Then her stealing triggers a riot, and a mysterious stranger steps in to save her. Frost has food and he’s willing to share his secret…but talking to him might be the most dangerous thing Peri’s ever done. How can she find the courage to leave her safe shadows and take a stand when her father’s life hangs in the balance? (Goodreads blurb)


Dragonmeat is a novella about desperation, morality, and family. It’s a lot to pack into a format that is short and snappy. Peri steals food to feed her ill and starving father, while she herself is also starving. The whole city is being run by a man of lousy moral fiber. She’s barely squeaking by, but she’s avoiding notice, until she meets Frost. Suddenly, she has a choice to make: is her safety worth turning a blind eye to injustice?



There was a lot to like about Dragonmeat . I thought Peri was an interesting character. She was bitter about the life she lived but never resentful of her father or angry with her sister for being able to leave that life behind. She was a complicated character with a lot of hidden depth that slowly bubbled to the surface.



I feel like the reader isn’t given the same opportunity to see Frost’s depth of character, although I did find him intriguing. Any character who aims to misbehave has massive potential, in my opinion. I was also a little confused as to why he was trying so hard to reach Peri, in particular. I might have missed something, but the explanation seemed a little tenuous.



The character of Peri and her interactions with her dad are what stood out to me the most. They were phenomenally written. I do feel that the time spent developing their relationship came at the cost of some worldbuilding. The bones of the world were fantastic, and I can’t wait to see more.



I wish that a bit more time was spent on the climax of the story, just because it was so cool. Angela Boord did a great job of drawing me in and making me want to read more of her writing. Dragonmeat is a compelling novella, and one that readers who enjoy interesting family dynamics and nuanced main characters won’t want to miss.