Highfire by Eoin Colfer

February 10, 2020

Highfire by Eoin Colfer

Vern (officially Wyvern, Lord Highfire of Highfire Eyrie) is the last of his kind.  He is the only dragon left after thousands of years of dragon supremacy.  Now he spends his days just wanting to be left alone, hiding out in a backwater in the Louisiana bayou, drinking vodka, chatting about the old days to his only friend Waxman, and watching QVC on cable TV.  That is, until a local Cajun boy named Squib who runs errands for Waxman stumbles into his territory and sees Vern in fiery action.  Vern knows humans are bad news:  you befriend one of them, and the next thing you know, there’s a mob outside with torches and pitchforks.  The last thing Vern wants is to get close to a human, but when Waxman is suddenly incapacitated, Vern finds he has no choice but to trust Squib.

Many fantasy novels tend to have either a quest story or are a retelling of a fairy or folk tale.  Highfire has a different plot structure since it is set in the 21^st century in our world (not an alternate universe) with a contemporary plot line.  A similar style of fantasy novel is Anonymous Rex by Andy Garcia, about a dinosaur who lives in Los Angeles and works as a noir-type private investigator.

Eoin Colfer wrote the Artemis Fowl series, a YA fantasy series about a teen named Artemis Fowl who decides he is going to trap a fairy and force her to do his bidding (boy, is he ever wrong).

Not a photo of Vern

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in exchange for a review.