From the New York Times bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series comes a hilarious and high-octane adult novel about a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon who lives an isolated life in the bayous of Louisiana—and the raucous adventures that ensue when he crosses paths with a fifteen-year-old troublemaker on the run from a crooked sheriff. In the days of yore, he flew the skies and scorched angry mobs—now he hides from swamp tour boats and rises only with the greatest reluctance from his Laz-Z-Boy recliner. Laying low in the bayou, this once-magnificent fire breather has been reduced to lighting Marlboros with nose sparks, swilling Absolut in a Flashdance T-shirt, and binging Netflix in a fishing shack. For centuries, he struck fear in hearts far and wide as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie—now he goes by Vern. However...he has survived, unlike the rest. He is the last of his kind, the last dragon. Still, no amount of vodka can drown the loneliness in his molten core. Vern’s glory days are long gone. Or are they? A canny Cajun swamp rat, young Everett “Squib” Moreau does what he can to survive, trying not to break the heart of his saintly single mother. He’s finally decided to work for a shady smuggler—but on his first night, he witnesses his boss murdered by a crooked constable. Regence Hooke is not just a dirty cop, he’s a despicable human being—who happens to want Squib’s momma in the worst way. When Hooke goes after his hidden witness with a grenade launcher, Squib finds himself airlifted from certain death by…a dragon? The swamp can make strange bedfellows, and rather than be fried alive so the dragon can keep his secret, Squib strikes a deal with the scaly apex predator. He can act as his go-between (aka familiar)—fetch his vodka, keep him company, etc.—in exchange for protection from Hooke. Soon the three of them are careening headlong toward a combustible confrontation. There’s about to be a fiery reckoning, in which either dragons finally go extinct—or Vern’s glory days are back. A triumphant return to the genre-bending fantasy that Eoin Colfer is so well known for, Highfire is an effortlessly clever and relentlessly funny tour-de-force of comedy and action.
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**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**
Eoin Colfer's newest fantasy novel, Highfire, is fast-paced, guns-a-blazing, not-for-kids fun. Wyvern, Lord Highfire, is one of the last remaining dragons in the world. Possibly the last. He's all set with his cable TV and Flashdance on his abandoned island in the bayou of New Orleans. Enter one 15-year-old human, Everett "Squib" Moreau. Squib is often on the wrong side of the law, and crooked Constable Regence Hooke intends on solving his Squib problem permanently. Vern and Squib team up in a sequence of events that is part comedy, part action, and full of tastefully scattered obscenities.
Colfer writes Highfire in a way that comes across as generally conversational and down-home. People talk the way people talk, and that's the way Colfer writes them. Plus gratuitous physical humor, often by way of dragon junk.
The whole work is rather reminiscent of classic cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd or Road Runner and Wile E Coyote. It's fast paced, with a sometimes dark, sometimes slapstick, sometimes on-the-nose humor about it that makes it just generally fun antics.Colfer managed to strike funny without being overly cheesy, which made this read very enjoyable.
This book does have blood, guts, and gore as well as foul language, mentions of suicidal ideation and mental health struggles, sexual innuendo, issues of moral turpitude, and corruption of authority. This book is firmly in the adult category, and readers should be aware of that going in.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have read this in advance, and to help participate in the Twitter tour as well. I look forward to any future works by Colfer.
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