Vanessa Ricci-Thode is joining us today to talk about her novel, The Dragon Next Door. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Tollar’s got a stolen dragon egg, and that’s the least of her problems.
Tollar is a hero for hire who just wants to deliver a stolen dragon egg to its kin and get on with her next adventure. But when the dragon hatches, imprints on her, and refuses to leave, Tollar enlists her pyromancer best friend and neighbour, Beenala, to help keep the dragon alive. Tollar’s chaotic life exacerbates Beenala’s overwhelming anxiety, and being stuck at home leaves Tollar feeling stifled and unwanted. To make matters worse, in order to hide an entire dragon from local and foreign hostile factions, Tollar must risk exposing the truth behind her unprecedented power as an aquamancer and face being chased out of the only home she’s ever known.
When Draminedes, perhaps the worst spy in the world, lets slip that the people Tollar stole the dragon egg from are much worse than she thought, Tollar and Beenala realize their home is in danger. Now Tollar needs to stop making herself the outsider and Beenala needs to find some courage so they can team up with this unlikely ally to save everything they love, including each other.
This sapphic ace romantasy is complete with mutual pining and odd-couple energy and is full of marginalized characters out living their best lives and having adventures while being nurturing and supportive in their relationships, including bonds between humans and dragons.
What’s Vanessa’s favorite bit?
This ace romantasy is a queer light in the dark, a book about community and resilience and fighting for justice and who and what you love. It’s got big flashy magic, a charismatic MC with a big personality, and lots of zippy banter, but the scene-stealer and my favourite bit is, without a doubt, the baby dragon.
The book itself is a queerifying and genderflipping of odd-couple action movies I’d been watching, but the dragon, Bale, was always going to be central. To poorly quote the Dude, she “ties the room characters together, man.” I’ve got an anxious homebody (Beenala) and an audacious wanderer (Tollar) and I needed to keep the latter in one place for a bit and pull the former out of her comfort zone. So naturally I gave them a baby dragon to take care of.
The dragons in my world are intelligent, sentient creatures with some anthropomorphic traits and a capacity for human languages, and they aren’t cuddly and small. This one hatched already nearly the size of a house. Good thing one of the characters is fearless and the other is a pyromancer. There are fires to put out and rules to lay down about who and what is and isn’t food. “The dog is not for eating!” (Don’t worry, no dogs are ever harmed in my books.)
One ARC reader described the dragon as “a fire-breathing puppy with zero survival instincts” and this is the truest thing I’ve ever read.
Tollar stole Bale’s egg from the baddies and rushed home to Beenala where she knew they’d be safe (and oh my how she was wrong). So in addition to having to teach a house-sized, fiery toddler with forearm-length teeth some manners, they’ve also got to hide her from their neighbours and extended family.
Bale is the emotional core of the story, the thing that brings Beenala and Tollar together in more than friendship, but she’s also very much the comic relief chaos muppet. From terrorizing
the local monkey population, to “helping” with the farming, to threatening that maybe some people are for eating, Bale is good for a laugh. But she’s not a baby forever, and there’s a point where she becomes A Force™. She represents everything that’s at risk, but she also offers a solution. She becomes a powerful part of a community fighting back for justice.
So that’s why Bale the dragon is my favourite bit, and I hope she brings joy to others who read the book!
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BIO:
Vanessa is a Nebula-nominated indie author wading through stigma, disabilities, and imposter syndrome to support other authors at every stage of their career and increase visibility to the indie community. She’s been deeply involved in her local literary scene for well over a decade, currently as co-founder and events director of KW Writers Alliance where she runs an annual local author book fair as well as regular writer drop-ins. She has seven fantasy novels published, including four books of the Fireborn series and her ace romantasy, The Dragon Next Door.
She’s a Halloween enthusiast and tree nerd who loves dogs, astronomy, and travel. If she’s not hibernating, she can be found in her butterfly garden, achieving her final form as a garden witch. She lives in Waterloo (no, the other one) with her spouse, daughter and very good dogs.
