One Realm Beyond by Donita K. Paul

Back Cover: Cantor D'Ahma waited his whole life for this day. Born with a gift to walk between worlds, the young realm walker is finally ready to leave his elderly mentor and accept his role as protector and defender of the realms.

But mere hours after he steps through his first portal, Cantor discovers that his job will be more dangerous and difficult than he ever imagined. The realms are plagued with crime and cruelty, and even members of the once-noble Realm Walkers Guild can no longer be trusted. To make matters worse, his first assignment-finding a dragon to assist him on his quest- has led him to Bridger, who is clearly inept and won't leave him alone.

With the help of his new friends Bixby and Dukmee, Cantor must uncover the secrets of the corrupt guild before they become too powerful to be stopped. But his skills aren't progressing as fast as he would like, and as he finds himself deeper and deeper in the guild's layers of deceit, Cantor struggles to determine where his true allegiance lies.


Review: This is the first time I have read a book by Donita K. Paul, but this is not the author's first series. Donita also is the author of a five-book series called the DragonKeeper Chronicles - a very popular series a number of my friends collected a few years ago. Reading "One Realm Beyond" has made me want to go back and collect the DragonKeeper Chronicles….this new book was a wonderful find.

The collection of unique and funky characters was engaging and entertaining. This book is… fantastical. The magic, dragons, worlds, governments, and unique-magic-helping tools are all so creative.

I found the character of Bixby so fun. She is almost laughably perfect…but in a sense, it really suits her. She's cute, quirky, has a wild sense of fashion, and is amazingly talented at just about everything. Cantor doesn't want to admit it - even to himself - but he finds the spunky princess fascinating.

Cantor is an idealistic - but rather naive - young realm-walker. He has the base skills required to get by, but he's rough and gets results more by his passion and determination than he does by preparedness. He has dreams of greatness, part of which include a brilliant, talented dragon. The attachment of "Bridger" a clumsy but undeniably uniquely skilled dragon does not fit into his idealistic plans. Bridger is hilarious….probably the best character in the book. I just loved him.

The combination of these characters really do make a good read. I'd definitely recommend this book. It is completely suitable for pre-teens and up.

Zondervan provided me a free copy of this book in exchange for this review which I freely give