Burn
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
On a cold Sunday evening in early 1957, Sarah Dewhurst waited with her father in the parking lot of the Chevron gas station for the dragon he’d hired to help on the farm…
Sarah Dewhurst and her father, outcasts in their little town of Frome, Washington, are forced to hire a dragon to work their farm, something only the poorest of the poor ever have to resort to.
The dragon, Kazimir, has more to him than meets the eye, though. Sarah can’t help but be curious about him, an animal who supposedly doesn’t have a soul but who is seemingly intent on keeping her safe.
Because the dragon knows something she doesn’t. He has arrived at the farm with a prophecy on his mind. A prophecy that involves a deadly assassin, a cult of dragon worshippers, two FBI agents in hot pursuit—and somehow, Sarah Dewhurst herself.
Historical Fantasy: Welcome to 1957 rural Washington, where the Cold War rages, but the beasts of myth are real, and hiring a dragon is a sign of desperation.An Ancient Prophecy: When a mysterious dragon named Kazimir arrives on her farm, Sarah learns she is at the center of a dangerous prophecy that connects a deadly assassin, a fanatical cult, and two determined FBI agents.Unlikely Alliances: Sarah must decide if she can trust Kazimir, a creature without a soul who seems determined to protect her—but who is hiding secrets of his own.Facing Prejudice: As a biracial teen in a small, prejudiced town, Sarah is already an outcast. Now, she’s caught in a conspiracy that will make her a target for forces far more dangerous than her neighbors.
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Too deeply in debt to engage human farmhands, 15-year-old Sarah Dewhurst's father is forced to hire a dragon to clear their farm's fields for planting. With Cold War tensions running high in an alternate 1957 America, employing a dragon, especially a rare Russian blue, is sure to be an unpopular move, but Sarah, who is biracial (black and white), already experiences daily racism in small-town Frome, Wash. Kazimir, the dragon, soon shows a mysterious interest in Sarah, offering protection from an unknown killer and indicating she may be the prophesied key to averting an apocalypse. In Canada, meanwhile, a teen called Malcolm, trained by a dragon-worshipping cult from childhood as an assassin, makes his way toward Frome on what he considers a "blessed" mission to save dragonkind. The relationship between Ness's (And the Ocean Was Our Sky) inclusive human cast, which encompasses characters of various ethnicities, belief systems, and sexual orientations, and his dragons feared as immeasurably powerful and philosophical, yet derided as rustic and used as sharecroppers makes for an interesting Cold War analog. The densely layered, expertly paced plot builds and twists while revealing an alternate universe that cunningly echoes our world and its history. Ages 14 up.
