The Dragon of Never-Was (Ann Downer)

The Dragon of Never-Was
(Sequel to Hatching Magic)
Ann Downer
Aladdin
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: How do you return to a normal life after you've met a hatchling wyvern, talked to magicians from another time, fought an evil wizard, and tapped into terrifyingly potent powers within your own mind? Twelve-year-old Theodora Oglethorpe, a modern Boston girl, did all that, and more, in the Events of Last Summer, and try as she might she can't seem to go back to being the ordinary kid she used to be. Her former best friends have drifted away, her faithful nanny Mikko - whom she had hoped would become her new mother - has left... even the wizard who introduced her to her own powers hasn't talked to her since then. At least she still has her father, even if he doesn't remember a thing about the Events... though his write-up of a wyvern's scale finally got him the professorship he had long deserved. When he gets a letter from the Scottish island of Scornsay about another mysterious scale, he heads off to investigate - and, for once, he takes Theodora with him. If she thought she'd get a break from magic and wyverns in Scotland, she's sadly mistaken, for that scale ties in to a mystery steeped in superstition, wizard conspiracies, forbidden prophecies, and that most peculiar magical dimension of Never-Was.

REVIEW: I enjoyed Theodora's first adventure enough to grab this book when I saw it at Half Price Books. I think I liked this book a little more. Not so much of the plot relies on conveniently missed meetings and people taking too long to figure things out; Theodora already knows about magic this time round, and isn't quite so slow on the uptake about things. She struggles over whether or not she can come to terms with her gifts, gifts which will alienate her from many people, including her own father. The magical "technobabble" slows things down now and again, but overall it reads quickly.  Downer does a good job recapping events from the first book, Hatching Magic, so newcomers won't be completely thrown (though there is a reference at the very end that they might not get if they didn't read Theodora's first adventure.) I enjoyed this story. There is, of course, every hint of a third book, with new enemies and allies awaiting Theodora; I expect I'll read it, should I find it cheap enough someday.