Can the curse be broken?
Trigger Warnings for depictions of death, fantasy violence, a short and minor torture scene and references to others, death of a grandparent, and a brief reference to a previous car crash. Coleman experienced abuse in his past. There is some minor ableism, but it does not go unchecked. A nonbinary character is briefly accidentally misgendered, but once corrected, it never happens again.
The chosen one is dead, the prophecy left unfulfilled, and the shape-shifting dragons of modern-day Earth are still cursed to be puppets to their dragon kings. It’s now up to a chronically ill ex-assassin, a sarcastic rebel, the chosen one’s granddaughter, and her anxious best friend to take up the mantle and save the dragons once and for all.
Coleman, a teenage, chronically ill, shape-shifting dragon, thought betraying the king that cursed the shifters would be a “one time” thing. But when he watches the resistance’s leader—the only uncursed shifter and the chosen one—die, his only choice is to return to his king, fool him again, and buy time for his best friend to find and train the late leader’s granddaughter. Otherwise, the curse will never be broken.
When studious high school senior Kat’s grandma dies, and she accidentally turns into a dragon, she realizes that all her grandma’s old stories were true. And now that her grandma is gone, Kat is the last dragon immune to the king’s curse. Now, training in secret, her best friend, Aaron, is suspicious that something is wrong, and he desperately wants to help her. He just didn’t think helping her would involve fighting by her side (and from her dragon back) to save a secret society of shifters—a threat that is about to become a lot more personal than he ever imagined.
With cursed dragons lurking around every corner, it’s up to Coleman, Kat, Aaron, and the rest of the resistance to take fate into their own hands, but if Kat can’t master her new powers and break the king’s curse, her friends will remain puppets to him forever, and she too might succumb to his curse.
About Ashley Sheesley
Ashley Sheesley is a disabled author, scientist, animal lover, and a big fan of all things fantasy. In fact, she is only a scientist because she can’t figure out how to be a wizard in real life. She has a BS in Animal Science and an MPH in Veterinary Public Health and currently works as a virologist for Utah State University. When she’s not studying infectious diseases or writing about dragons or werewolves, she loves to draw, paint, crochet, knit, spin wool, or venture out in the dead of night to Dark Sky zones and take photos of the stars. She lives with her husband and her small army of animals—a bearded dragon, two rabbits, and three cats.
She can be found on Instagram and Blue Sky @ashintheashes, Tumblr @chronicallydragons, and Twitter @ashshees.