Day: November 21, 2025

November Writing Challenge Day 21

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Words: 1835 words today in a single, half-hour sprint this evening with my daughter. I’m not more than a single day’s word count ahead, which is good, because I have a Thanksgiving event coming up in a few days, and though I definitely plan to make sure I get some writing that day, I don’t know how much I’ll have time for.

The Story: The stranger that brought Garend to Newland has now revealed the nation’s closest-held secrets to Garend. Even I felt weird typing these things out, since it’s such a major revelation, close-held secrets of my own. But it will all come to light someday, sooner or later.

Total word count: 36,774

Book Review: How to Speak Dragonese

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

How to Speak Dragonese
How to Train Your Dragon #3
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When another Viking training exercise goes wrong, Hiccup and Fishlegs find themselves at the mercy of Romans and a nanodragon named Ziggerastica.

This was my favorite book in the series so far. The tiny-but-arrogant Ziggerastica is a lot of fun, Hiccup meets the heir to another Viking clan who also provides some enjoyable moments, and the return of a dastardly villain. Though I’m not a huge fan of the formula these books tend to have with Toothless and Fishlegs screwing up and happening upon something they otherwise wouldn’t, I enjoyed the overall journey more this time. I was considering stopping with the series with this book, but I enjoyed it too much to not keep going. Plus, I really do enjoy David Tennant’s narration, and even his interpretation of Toothless is growing on me more and more. For that matter, Toothless himself, though so different from the movie version I knew first, is growing on me with every book.

Find out more about How to Speak Dragonese

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!