Bumpy Oak Books

4 stars

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

Eoin Colfer’s newest fantasy novel, Highfire, is fast-paced, guns-a-blazing, not-for-kids fun. Wyvern, Lord Highfire, is one of the last remaining dragons in the world. Possibly the last. He’s all set with his cable TV and Flashdance on his abandoned island in the bayou of New Orleans. Enter one 15-year-old human, Everett “Squib” Moreau. Squib is often on the wrong side of the law, and crooked Constable Regence Hooke intends on solving his Squib problem permanently. Vern and Squib team up in a sequence of events that is part comedy, part action, and full of tastefully scattered obscenities.

Colfer writes Highfire in a way that comes across as generally conversational and down-home. People talk the way people talk, and that’s the way Colfer writes them. Plus gratuitous physical humor, often by way of dragon junk.

The whole work is rather reminiscent of classic cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd or Road Runner and Wile E Coyote. It’s fast paced, with a sometimes dark, sometimes slapstick, sometimes on-the-nose humor about it that makes it just generally fun antics.Colfer managed to strike funny without being overly cheesy, which made this read very enjoyable.

This book does have blood, guts, and gore as well as foul language, mentions of suicidal ideation and mental health struggles, sexual innuendo, issues of moral turpitude, and corruption of authority. This book is firmly in the adult category, and readers should be aware of that going in.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have read this in advance, and to help participate in the Twitter tour as well. I look forward to any future works by Colfer.