#Review Highfire by Eoin Colfer

About the Author
Eoin Colfer is the author of the internationally bestselling Artemis Fowl series, which has been translated into more than forty languages,as well as the WARP, Benny and Omar, and the Half Moon Investigation books, which have won numerous awards, including British Children's Book of the Year, The Irish Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and The German Children's Book of the Year. He has also written two adult crime novels, Plugged and Screwed. A Disney film adaptation of Artemis Fowl will be released in 2020, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Dame Judi Dench.

Born in Ireland, Eoin was educated at Dublin University and qualified as a primary school teacher, before turning his hand to writing in 2001. Highfire is his first adult fantasy novel.

About the book
Squib Moreau may be swamp-wild, but his intentions are (generally) good: he really wants to be a supportive son to his hard-working momma Elodie. But sometimes life gets in the way - like when Fake Daddy walked out on them leaving a ton of debt, or when crooked Constable Regence Hooke got to thinking pretty Elodie Moreau was just the gal for him...

An apprenticeship with the local moonshine runner, servicing the bayou, looks like the only way to pay off the family debts and maybe get Squib and his momma a place in town, far from Constable Hooke's unwanted courtship and Fake Daddy's reputation.

Unfortunately for Squib, Hooke has his own eye on that very same stretch of bayou - and neither of them have taken into account the fire-breathing dragon hiding out in the Louisiana swamp...

For Squib Moreau, Regence Hooke and Vern, aka Lord Highfire of Highfire Eyrie, life is never going to be the same again.

Review
I think it's fair to say when it comes to dragons Vern is in his own league. Vodka swigging, shorts wearing, cigarette smoking dragon who likes to get comfy in his La-Z-Boy. He is hiding in a bayou, because humans are his mortal enemy, so it's death to anyone who discovers his existence.

Squib Moreau runs moonshine in the very same bayou, planning a way to keep the local cop Hooke away from his mother and his future success at the same time. He inadvertently sees something he shouldn't, which is the beginning of a bayou full of trouble.

It's more than fantasy it is a new sub-genre of dragon lore. Rural swamp inhabitant takes on the criminal underworld. Not because Vern is interested in saving the humans who are plagued by the insidious nature of the criminal world, but rather because they did something that irritated him. Whatever you do don't irritate him or he will rain hellfire on you or is that highfire?

There is no mistaking Colfer's trademark snarky humour and excellent talent for telling a story. It has a gritty urban crime feel mixed with the doubtful charm of a rural area. An area where dragon and alligators vye for equal space.

I do hope this isn't the last time we hear from Vern. He has made his very distinctive mark on the world of fantasy and dragons. 

Buy Highfire at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books  pub date 28 Jan. 2020. Buy at Amazon com. Hive. Bookshop org. Waterstones.

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