I’ve heard the buzz on this for a while (as with many of my books), though I’m not quite sure what made it go from the TBR list, to the active “I’ve put a hold and am just waiting for it” pile. It’s been a while in coming; there’s a lot of Jessica Day George fans out there, and I’ve had to wait my turn.

I’m glad I finally got to bring it home.

It’s a lovely cross between Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Chronicles series — spunky anti-heroine, who doesn’t need any rescuing and is more than willing to make friends with dragons, not to mention the plucky younger son of the king — and an Anne McCaffrey-like world creation. Dragons and humans are at odds, though not violent odds, due to a long-ago king using the dragons (against their will) to fight (and win) a war against a neighboring country. Throw in some Robin McKinley-esqe home-spun elegance (our anti-heroine, Creel, has a beautiful talent for embroidery), and you’ve pretty much got Dragon Slippers in a nutshell.

It’s not a deep or heavy book, though there are some tense moments, as well as a few ethical quandaries. Creel’s “enemies” were twits rather than malicious until near the end, so it was difficult to actually feel anything other than annoyance for them. Even when they betray Creel’s trusts. I think the reason I liked this book was for the world creation. I loved the dragons, their personalities (they don’t hoard gold — at least not all of them. They all have their individual “collections”), and the way they came to like and respect Creel. It wouldn’t have been enough to make a book work for me, though, if that’s all I liked. Creel was — like Cimorene in Enchanted Forest and Menolly in the Harper Hall triology — spunky enough and sympathetic enough to carry the book.

Which makes it a delightful way to spend an afternoon.