Blazewrath Games

How to Train Your Dragon meets Quidditch through the Ages in this debut fantasy, set in an alternate contemporary world, in which dragons and their riders compete in an international sports tournament

Lana Torres has always preferred dragons to people. In a few weeks, sixteen countries will compete in the Blazewrath World Cup, a tournament where dragons and their riders fight for glory in a dangerous relay. Lana longs to represent her native Puerto Rico in their first ever World Cup appearance, and when Puerto Rico’s Runner—the only player without a dragon steed—is kicked off the team, she’s given the chance.

But when she discovers that a former Blazewrath superstar has teamed up with the Sire—a legendary dragon who’s cursed into human form—the safety of the Cup is jeopardized. The pair are burning down dragon sanctuaries around the world and refuse to stop unless the Cup gets cancelled. All Lana wanted was to represent her country. Now, to do that, she’ll have to navigate an international conspiracy that’s deadlier than her beloved sport.

Rating:

Content Tags:

Perfect for readers who want:

• Quidditch-esque sport and team build
• Lots of LBTQ+ and diversity rep
• Books filled with Boricuan characters and pride
• DRAGONS! Different kinds of dragons, too.
• Danger and mystery
• Serious friendship and teammate bonds
• Biracial protagonist coming to terms with the fact that she’s enough
• Secrets and mystery and betrayal!

Many thanks to Page Street Kids and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. Quotes are taken from an unfinished version and may differ from the final product.

I’m not sure which part of this doesn’t immediately scream READ ME. Was it the dragons? Or the Quidditch-like sport? Because seriously, I was all over this book as soon as I read the synopsis, and I can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t be!

Blazewrath Games is an action-packed book that’s part sport, part mystery, and 100% heart. Filled with dragons, Boricuan pride, diverse characters, and fun banter, it’s basically a must-read for 2020.

This book was fabulous, as expected. The only real (minor) complaint I have is that some things aren’t explained as well as I’d hoped they might have been, like a bit of an inexplicable deus ex machina towards the end of the book or the actual motives of the antagonist.

The world-building in this book is just *chef’s kiss*. It perfectly blends magic with the real world.

It’s basically our world, except we discovered witches a couple hundred years ago and went, “Huh. Wait! Maybe we shouldn’t burn all these people. It seems like magic could be kinda useful.” So there’s a whole market and society built around magic. Which also means … DRAGONS! Different kinds of dragons, too. And when you discover that dragons are real, what’s your natural reaction to the news, hmm? DRAGON SPORTS! … wait.

Listen, I know you’re probably here to learn more about what the heck the Blazewrath Games are, so let’s not keep you in suspense and get it out of the way right off the bat.

It’s been pitched as “Quidditch with dragons,” and that seems like an apt description. The author herself has talked about how the idea came from watching soccer and wanting to insert dragons, so that’s interesting. Wherever it came from, though, the whole idea is that you’ve got a team that includes dragon riders and a runner. The runner tries to get to the top first without losing their item. There are dragon riders that are scoring and dragon riders that are trying to stop the runner with dragon attacks and physical attacks, attempting to get their trinket and throw it to the bottom of the mountain, thus forcing them to return to the beginning and start their run again.

It seems like a lot when it’s all typed out like that, but honestly? The culture of this sport is so freaking neat, and getting to read about the games and “watch” it played was super fun. Do I wish the Blazewrath Games were a thing? Of course. I’m low-key disappointed that it’s not. I did enjoy reading about them, though, for sure.

There’s a whole squad of characters to love (it’s a team, after all, right), and I loved how different they all are in both personality and general diversity.

First of all, the Boricuan pride and feel is very strong in this book, which should come as no surprise since the focus is on Team Puerto Rico. This book is so rich in different aspects of Puerto Rican culture, from the food to the language. And the squad vibes on Team Puerto Rico? Super strong. Mostly.

This book is filled with diverse characters, beyond just the focus on Puerto Rican characters, too.

For example, there’s a character who only speaks Spanish (though it’s translated in context, for those who can’t read Spanish, so you won’t miss anything). Because this is a thing that happens. There are several super sweet scenes surrounding this, too. There are several characters who are LGBTQ, openly and proudly so, and there’s even one super freaking cute LGBTQ romance that you’re probably a heartless monster if you don’t support. Said from one heartless monster to another even heartlesser monster.

Lana makes for a great protagonist, as she struggles with her own identity but also genuinely wants to do the right thing.

I’m gonna just come out and say it: Lana faces quite a bit of racism in this book, especially in the beginning, and even from her family. There were far too many scenes that absolutely boiled my blood. The way her very white family treats her as a biracial person is disgusting, and yet not unbelievable. I sadly found her struggle as a biracial character all too relatable: not fitting into either world, needing to choose to belong to one or the other, and never quite “enough” for either.

Lana’s love for Puerto Rico is strong and evident, yet there’s always the underlying discussion of whether she actually gets to “claim” that, having left the island.

I am not Puerto Rican, so I can’t actually comment on this personally. I will say that I grew up with a lot of Puerto Ricans, and I have cousins that are half Puerto Rican, and this is a struggle I’ve heard often expressed by people who left Puerto Rico to live in the US. As someone who has never had to struggle with this, though, it was really an eye-opening narrative.

At her very core, though, Lana stands out because she’s painfully normal in a world full of extraordinary characters, which makes her extremely relatable. The only way she truly stands out is in the way she fights for what she believes in.

I mean, think about it. There are witches in this world. People with magic. There are secret government officials and bureaucracy. There’s dragon riders who bond with their dragons. Then there’s Lana … who is a runner with no special powers, no special ability, nothing that really sets her apart. Except that she’s willing to speak up when she sees something she thinks is wrong. I loved that about her!

This book has so many twists and turns and action that it never got boring and always kept me guessing.

Did I guess a couple of the big twists? Sure. I like to think I’m pretty good at that. But some of them caught me off-guard, in such a delightful way! The mystery in this is definitely engaging, and I found myself frantically turning pages because I wanted to solve the puzzle and find out what really was going on.

The action on the Blazewrath field is really just one aspect of it. There’s fighting dragons and magic spells and a major conspiracy.

Opposite the action, though, is a lot of really emotional, touching scenes and soul-searching that I absolutely loved! These characters have such relatable struggles that even though I was mad they had to suffer such things, I enjoyed seeing them grow and come to terms with everything.

Even though this is a duology and I expected there to be things left unanswered, there felt like a few too many whys left open-ended.

I assume (hopefully) there’ll be more answers in the second book, of course. There are some things that I’m totally cool with waiting for, but one thing that really irked me is I wanted more about the villain! I’m sure more answers will come in the second book, but since the villain was the villain in this book, I was hoping for something a little less cryptic. Even just some sort of motive! This is probably just a me thing, but I love to both love and hate villains, but in order to do that, I need to know what drives them or what they want to accomplish, and I just didn’t feel that. The villain was more of this vague, threatening shadow.

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