The Challenge of Being a Teenage Dragon Shifter by Deborah Cooke

Deborah Cooke, author of the Dragon Diaries has stopped by for a guest post to talk about "The Challenge of Being a Teenage Dragon Shifter". Give it up to Deborah Cooke!

www.deborahcooke.com 

www.thedragondiaries.com

 

Zoë Sorensson, the heroine of my paranormal YA series, the Dragon Diaries, is a dragon shape shifter. She's 15, going on 16, and just learning to master her powers. She's also the only female dragon shape shifter of her kind (her kind are the Pyr) and this means that she's special – Zoë is the Wyvern, who has special powers. Zoë calls it the Wyvern Bonus-Pak. The trick is that while the dragon stuff is easier to learn, because she can ask the guy-dragons for advice, the Wyvern's powers are a bit more elusive. There's no one to ask for advice, and not even a good list of what those powers should be.

How does Zoë control her powers? Well, at first, she doesn't. Not only are those powers AWOL for the longest time, but when they do turn up, they're unpredictable and sudden. That's enough to make a dragon girl want to breathe fire!

What triggers Zoë's transformation? Zoë quickly figures out that anger can feed the power of her dragon side, but also that her dragon is protective of her friends. The Pyr defend humans as one of the treasures of the earth, so the most sure-fire way for Zoë to become a dragon is for her to see her best friend being bullied. The trick is that she can't confide in her oldest and best friend, because the dragon shifters have rules about trusting humans with their secrets. The Covenant means that Zoë has to lie to Meagan, which completely bites because Meagan knows Zoë well enough to recognize that she's not being told all of the truth. (Plus Meagan is brilliant.)

In this, Zoë is caught between two worlds, that of the Pyr (the dragon shifters), and the very human world of high school. She's constantly having to choose between her responsibilities as a dragon shifter and what she sees as the right thing to do by her friends.

In FLYING BLIND, Zoë's powers manifest when she defends Meagan. Her father, who is the leader of the Pyr, sends Zoë to the boot camp held annually for the guy dragons, thinking this will whip her skills into shape. Zoë is anxious to see Nick, her dragon shifter buddy who is so hot – she thinks they'll finally have something in common because her powers have turned up. Sadly, Nick just wants to be buddies, like old times. Plus, the younger generation are attacked and Zoë needs to find her powers in a hurry to get everyone out of danger. It doesn't hurt that in the midst of all this action and adventure, Zoë gets her first ride on a motorcycle and her first kiss – both from the daring hot rebel, Jared. There's a guy to fuel her fantasies.

In WINGING IT, Zoë is sure that her upcoming sixteenth birthday is going to be the worst ever. All she wants is one normal day, a tattoo and a chance to see (or kiss) Jared again. Her parents seem to be splitting up, and worse, it's because they disagree over her. (Her mom wants Zoë to just be a kid, while her dad wants her to become the Wyvern now.) Worse, her best friend Meagan is hanging out with the new girl in school, Jessica, and is unhappy that Zoë isn't telling her what's really going on. Jared isn't answering her messages. Finally, she's been invited to a Halloween party by one of the popular kids, a guy she knows is allied with the Mages, and she's sure it's a trap.

And that's before she realizes that Derek, the other new kid at school, likes her. Should she try something different and like a guy who actually likes her, instead of yearning after guys who apparently don't like her? As a dragon girl, Zoë decides to take the initiative to shape a future she wants – of course, you can imagine that she gets far more than she expects.

Come along for the ride in WINGING IT, as Zoë tries to get control of her evolving powers, stay friends with Meagan, save the day, and find true love forever.

No pressure, as Zoë likes to say.