Seraphina by Rachel Hartman ( Abe Book)

Seraphina is on the new Abe Lincoln list for 2015. I do my best to read all 22 titles every year. Seraphina is a fantasy novel about dragons living among the people in a made up land. I am not a huge Fantasy fan but was willing to give it a try. I got as far as half the book before I put it down. I do not enjoy made up lands and languages and struggled with this book. I kept reading hoping it would get better but at 200 pages I had to give up. This was one of the student nominated titles so I think the students who like fantasy would be interested in this read. Maybe I'll try to finish it another time.

Amazon Summary

In her New York Times bestselling and Morris Award-winning debut, Rachel Hartman introduces mathematical dragons in an alternative-medieval world to fantasy and science-fiction readers of all ages. Eragon-author Christopher Paolini calls them, "Some of the most interesting dragons I've read in fantasy."

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.