Customer Reviews

Master of Many Treasures

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I liked "Pigs Don't Fly" and was excited when I saw the sequel at the store, but after reading it, I'm a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think it was bad, but I was a little let down. The plot is pretty much the same as the other two books of Mary Brown's that I've read. I've enjoyed them all but I would like to see something besides "heroine on a quest with several animals that she can talk to." This particular novel is about Summer's continued quest to find her only love, Jasper, who is a dragon. But he's not a dragon all the time. Because she kissed him three times, he must spend three months a year in human form. Summer is accompanied by her loyal dog, Growch, who is frank, uncouth, and lovable, and also by a dancing bear that she rescued, a thief that is convinced she's after treasure, a ten-year-old slave (also rescued), and a magical creature created by Buddha. While this book is almost but not entirely like it's predecessor, it's still an interesting story in and of itself.

There are some necessary spoilers in this review.

First, I should say I really enjoyed the first book in this series. It was original and well-written, if the ending was a little cliched. I really disliked the second book because it was a carbon copy of the first, except with a heroine who was incredibly dumb and who didn't grow and learn anything the entire journey. Her character development was she was fat, she walked for a year and lost weight, then she was beautiful. Please.

Well, in book three, the heroine from book two, skinny Summer, is back. She is 19. She's still dumb. She remains dumb up until she becomes dragon chow. Every time someone issues a warning, you can be sure Summer will ignore it and cause trouble. I lost track of how many times she said something and followed it with "oh I really shouldn't have said that." Every time Dickon, the villain shows up again, even if it's the most unlikely plot development ever, she'll not get rid of him. How many times did we have to see this plot device? It's believable once, maybe twice, but six times? I felt like the author had run out of ideas long before the ending.

Regarding the ending, you know, I don't mind tragic endings. If that's where the story has reason to go, then that's what it should do. But this one had no reason to go there. You could spot the point when that ending was picked, only 20 pages or so from the epilogue. The tone and the side characters suddenly changed into what they hadn't been the rest of the book, as if trying to convince us that what would follow was appropriate. It didn't work. It just was plain bad writing.

Lest you think I liked nothing of the book, I really did love the Silk Road the author built, and the places they passed through. I thought the atmosphere of it was magical, and so it gets two stars from me. I just think this was the only good thing about the book, and it wasn't enough to rescue it. Well, that and we know the heroine won't be in book four.

There's a reason this book is so cheap, sometimes you get exactly what you pay for. I loved Pigs Don't Fly, so I hoped this book would be just as good. It was NOT. Not even close.
The story just rambled on and on, going nowhere. And the ending was...confusing, to say the least. I re-read the ending three times and I'm still not sure I know what happened. You turn the page to the last chapter, and think, 'am I missing some pages?' or 'is this some kind of misprint or something?' It just makes no sense. Terrible way to end a book, it just ruins the whole thing, not that there was much to ruin to begin with anyway.

My Mother got me this book for christmas, the only reason being i love dragons, but hated to read. but i finally did read it and found it very enjoyable. so much i have read it three times, over a couple years. "my mother was the village whore" is what caught my attention from the beginning, and yes it can be quite a depressing book, you just want everything to work out for summer in the end, but tragically & with a twist you find that no to be the case, i was a little dissapointed with Dragonne's Eg. it was a bit confusing at first and i kinda lost interest. but it has its moments as well, i still love this book and will continue to read it, and recomend it to anyone who is interested in a Fantasy/romance/adventurous type of book

Mary Brown does in this book, exactly what an author is supposed to do, she took me out of my mundane world, allowed me to forget my aches and pains, and captured my imagination.

All through the book she led me to beleive that the story's climax would not be the standard "happily ever after", yet she was not so heavy handed that I was allowed to anticipate the true ending. The ending was a surprize! I enjoyed this book.

This is a decent sequel. Still not as good as the first. It did bring the story more full circle. The first book is still my favorite.

While the writing is still as good as it was in the original book, stop there if you don't want your images and ideas of Summer and her friends to be destroyed. Personally, I thought it killed the great characters of the first book, changing them in ways I didn't think she should've. Maybe just me, but that's my 2 cents worth.

This was a good sequel to the 1st book, but i think Ms. Brownshould have stopped there. The ending was a bit disappointing. Forone it was difficult to understand, and for two there was another thing but i don't want to tell all you eager readers and spoil the ending. Overall a good book to read, very entertaining! END

I loved Pigs Don't Fly and I was extremely disappointed with this story. The characters were uninteresting and the quest was boring. There were some interesting ideas in this story but unfortunately the author didn't elaborate on them. The ending was terrible. I didn't mind the sad ending but it seemed so little worthwhile to go through the whole quest for such a weak ending. Obviously, the ending was left open so the author can write another book which I hope is better than this one but I will miss the characters from Pigs Don't Fly, especially the pig and Summer since the author seems to do away with these characters in this book.

I find that this book was included in one of the other books that I had already purchases, though that is not their error but mine. The book arrived in very good condition and it arrived in a very timely manner. I would most assuredly use them again.