An emotional roller coaster of a ride through mystic oceans deep. We follow our heroine as she navigates life, tragedy, deceit, hope, and adventure. I loved the unique setting and descriptions of the story. The main character is sympathetic and endearing, and her story draws you in from the first word on the page.

Thank You, NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Dancing with Dragons by Jenni Ogden was a good read with tugged at my heartstrings at times.

There was something about it that kept me hooked.

I definitely would recommend it.

Thanks.

Beautifully written book! This book will enchant you from the first page to the last. The story is set on the coast of Australia. The writer captures the beauty of the coast and ocean with such vitality. The story begins with a tragedy but evolves to emboldening growth, bravery and forgiveness. The characters are written with such complexity. As well as the education of the coral reef and the beautiful weedy sea dragons. This a must read that comes out July 16th. Thank you to Net Galley for this advance read!

This was a really sweet story .I loved reading the descriptions of Australia, the reef and the wildlife and Jarrah is the best character I've read in a long time.

3.5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy.

Gorgeous cover and a beautiful story. This relatively short book packs a lot of weight. It covers bigotry, violence, family drama, and disability…all wrapped up in a setting you can practically see, hear, smell and taste. Without becoming wordy or slowing the plot, the author has made the reef setting so vivid and lush that it becomes another main character. Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, this is a lovely story of hope and joy.

⭐4.5

'𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙡, 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝, 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨''

For the first, approximately, 40% of this book I thought this was just a book with a sad start but just a nice story. Nothing special just a nice story, but, I am very pleased to say, how wrong I was.
Gaia was in a house fire when she was fourteen, which killed her parents, herself and brother, Bron, we're able to escape but Gaia suffered horrific burns. She moves back to the family land and builds a life for herself.
She befriends the Aboriginal neighbours eleven year old nephew and teaches him how to dance and snorkel to see the beautiful reef and all the sea life, including the seadragons who dance before mating.
The story covers some hard topics such as disability, racism and abandonment but is done in a beautiful way.
I will definitely be thinking about this story for a while and definitely recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and Sea Dragon Press for the ARC of this book

“She could never quite decide which she loved best; swimming over the reef flats in the late afternoon light or in that perfect hour after dawn.”

Dancing with Dragons is a well written, beautiful story! The story starts off with Gaia and her family living in Australia on a farm by the sea. Gaia’s mother, a professional ballet dancer, teaches Gaia ballet. A tragic event uproots Gaia’s life.
The imagery in this book describing the ocean life was amazing. I felt like I was right there snorkeling with Gaia. A story about tragedy, friendship, and forgiveness. I highly recommend putting this book on your TBR list!
Thank you to NetGalley and Sea Dragon Press for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a beautiful story! I love both dance and marine life being part of this story as these are two things I really enjoy in my own life. I really enjoyed the characters and the friendship in this story. So beautifully written!

I loved Dancing with Dragons. This was the first book I've read by Jenni Ogden, and I will be reading more of her books. From the title I thought the book would be about fantasy and dragons, but when I saw the sea dragon on the cover I was all in. I have always had an affinity for seahorses and sea dragons. I scuba dive and snorkel and have observed many Caribbean seahorses, but never an Australian sea dragon. The descriptive prose made the shore and the sea dragons come to life for me. I loved the intersecting themes of conservation, family, personal loss, and romance. I thought the character development, especially of Gaia and Jarrah, was well done. I feel that any romance was incidental and was not a main theme. I loved the book and give it 5 stars.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it had a great concept and I was hooked with the compelling story. The characters were everything that I was hoping for and glad I got to read this. Jenni Ogden has a great writing style and left me wanting more from them.

I thought the imagery was gorgeous. There were some parts where I thought the story dragged a little. I also would have like more development with the female lead and love interest. Overall a good read but a little slow to progress.

Dancing with Dragons by Jenni Ogden captures the magic of the coral reefs of Australia and the emotional journey of a young woman overcoming a trauma. Gaia undergoes years of recovery and uses her training as a ballet dancer as therapy. She is able to persevere with the help of neighbors, an unlikely friendship with a young boy, and Rita Roo, a baby kangaroo.

I recommend this novel for readers who loved Where the Crawdads Sing. Gaia is alone in the world, secluded along the Australian coast, and overcomes loneliness, trauma, and many obstacles along her journey to finding who she is. It’s a beautiful novel about friendship, love, and courage.

Thank you Sea Dragon Press and Netgalley for an advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

1.5 ⭐

There are many sections of this book with colorful, beautiful imagery. The overall plot and where I could tell the author was wanting to go was charming. The scenery and the myriad critters had me reminded of The Isle Of Blue Dolphins in a lovely way.

However, the pacing was very odd. The first few chapters shoved so much plot into a small portion that it lost most, if not all, emotional impact and the rest of the book fell flat for me because I didn't find myself invested without that initial work. Also, there were many editing and grammar errors throughout, which I can typically overlook if not so glaring. I felt they took away even more when matched with the pacing and plot issues. To me, this felt like a book that was built around the scenery, with the plot floating along in a very shallow way, much like Gaia snorkeling in the shallow coral. I personally would have suggested this book go through at least another pass with an editor. Truly, the heart of the story is in the right place, the writing just held it back for me.

I thought I was alone in the way I felt slightly let down by the pacing , and the writing. The cover and the blurb sounded so promising and I just felt like it felt a bit flat for me.

Which is a shame as I really wanted to give it more stars than I did. I’ve read a few other Jenni Ogden’s books before . . But this wasn’t it for me.

It was neither a story nor a non fiction and kind of paced far too slowly for my liking

DNF @ 3%

I wanted to love this one so bad because it’s set in Australia in the 70s, about family, friends, and marine life. But, the writing style was not for me. Unfortunately, even 3% in this one missed the mark for me.

The cover is absolutely stunning so I’m giving it a 10/10.

I was looking forward to the nature writing. This book didn’t appeal to me I felt like it was written for a junior audience however some of the themes were not appropriate for juniors. It didn’t have the depth of character building that I enjoy in a book and there was very limited nature writing. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

This is the story of Gaia and her brother Bron who have been brought up in a small farm by the sea in Western Australia. Their mother is a former ballet dancer and she teaches her children to dance from a young age.
Gaia loves nature and sea creatures and is enthralled one day when she sees a pair of sea dragons performing their matting dance.
I really enjoyed this book it has many interesting characters and charming descriptions of the wildlife in this area.
Thank you to NetGalley and Sea Dragon Press for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/4*

I was drawn to this initially by the cover, it's so eye-catching! And then was sold by the comparison to Crawdad's. I'm sometimes dubious of comparisons to popular books but it felt warranted here as the scenes of nature did not disappoint. I really felt like I was there, the author did a fantastic job at transporting the reader to Australia and exploring ocean life. That was definitely the best part of the book for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC copy of this book!

The imagery in this book while describing the ocean life was breathtaking. It made me feel like I was there experiencing the wonders of the ocean with these characters. I would have liked to see more growth with the characters throughout the book. I thought some aspects of the character relationships were a bit rushed. Sometimes the sentence structure was choppy feeling, but the descriptions of the wildlife/ocean life were beautifully drawn out. Those were my favorite parts. The book had a slower beginning pace, but definitely picked up more just before the halfway mark. Overall, I really liked the setting of the book, the beautiful imagery, and the plot, but wish there was more time spent on character relationships/development.

*3.5 rating

This was a very interesting book to read and I'm grateful for the opportunity to read it through NetGalley. I have read one of Jenni's books before and really enjoyed it.
I enjoyed the story of. Gaia and her family, although the circumstances were quite harrowing at times. Gaia was such a strong resilient girl with lots going for her, not to mention her dancing prowess, and the loss of her family at such a tender age was very sad. She does well to return to her home, despite most it being burnt to the ground. Her subsequent relationship with neighbours Eddie and Mary and their nephew Jarrah was lovely to follow as was her love affair with Seamus. I could imagine the setting very well and the coral and fish sightings were a delight.
A gentle story in lots of ways but also a hard one at times, as Gaia had to overcome so much, so early on. I did find the ending a surprise!