oh i just loved this! i found it so beautiful but heartbreaking at the same time - i usually struggle with books that are a little slower paced but this held my attention throughout! the setting was so beautiful as well, i felt like i was transported right over to Australia and could picture everything so vividly.

i’ve loved this author’s previous work and cannot wait to see what they do next!

thank you so much to netgalley, the publisher and the author for the arc 🫶🏻

Dancing with Dragons sounded very different because of its plot.

Gaia and her brother Bron lost their home and parents in a fire when she was 14. They’re so close and then have to go their separate ways. I was drawn to the book immediately.

I have physical and visual disabilities and a lot of scarring. I had to learn how to love my body again after surgeries and so identified with Gaia and Jarrah’s plights.

The areas where they live and the area where the sea dragons were is so atmospheric. The sea dragon mating ritual was interesting and magical.

I felt sad for Gaia and Bron when their parents died, and wondered if they’d ever see each other again as the story developed.

The writing style is gripping all the way through. It makes me feel as if I'm living everything along with the characters. There's no awkward lagging in pace or confusing parts.

Gaia has severe scarring after the fire. Will she ever dance again? Will she feel comfortable with her body? I liked how she met Jarrah, a boy with difficulty walking and a club foot. Their friendship is so special and a joy to witness.

I liked his aunty and I also liked Seamus. I'm half Irish, so the references to Irish culture through him were wonderful.

Will Jarrah and Gaia ever see each other again? I was really hoping they would. I was concerned about Gaia living in the barn of her childhood home.

Dancing with Dragons is magical, heartfelt and has wonderful visuals and well created characters. It’s unforgettable. It’s about learning to love yourself and your body no matter what it’s like. It’s about embracing your passions in life and fighting for the people and things you want and love.

I loved it when Gaia was referred to as a fairy.

New Zealand Aboriginal culture and Irish culture combine in this novel. Ballet and Irish dancing. It’s a lesson in life about finding happiness within sadness and difficulties.

I definitely hope there’ll be more books by Jenni Ogden.

Thanks to Jenni Ogden and Sea Dragon Press for my eARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

5 stars

I adored this book. I thought the story was captivating and heartfelt. It inspired hope as well as action to do more. Thank you for the ARC. I look forward to reading more by this author.

A truly lovely story of love and loss and love regained. It finished somewhat abruptly, I'd have liked a more traditional 'all wrapped up' ending personally!

Living in Australia with the coral reef in her backyard, Gaia and her brother Bron find some rare sea dragons performing their mating dance. Their beauty and grace draw Gaia in, and she's entranced by these creatures. That night, her family home burns down and she's left to fend for herself as a teenager. Isolated with only a few neighbors nearby, she spends her days dancing along the beach and looking for those rare sea dragons again. She has to venture out and relearn how to trust others to ensure nobody threatens their survival, especially when threatened by land developers.

This book is really an overall message of hope and healing. We have hope for Gaia finding peace in her life, and hope that these sea dragons can be protected for future generations. I love all the conservation themes and her animal friends that follow her around her gardens. Rita Roo sounds lovely and makes me miss my wallaby friends I've made in the past. This story is beautifully written, so descriptive, and I hope it inspires others to protect the wilderness. Gaia is a strong and resilient character who is easy to relate to despite all the trauma she endures. Her found family is so warm and cozy, and I love Jarrah. There is so much heart in this story.

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to all who enjoy dancing, healing, and nature. I look forward to reading more of Jenni Ogden's work. This cover is gorgeous, and as the author recommends it is really interesting to look up videos of sea dragons doing their mating dance! I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley for my opinions. It is available now!

4.5 Rounded up

I liked this so much. This is a perfect summer read for someone who doesn't want a beachy romance, but wants to feel seasonal in their reading choices. Beautiful story. I love the natural elements of this story, and love the sweet characters. Very good!

Beautiful story but heartbreaking at times. Nature, Romance and so much more ...Truly has all the feels, Gaia the main character goes thru so many challenges but never gives up.

This book had a wonderful sense of place- I felt transported. I would recommend this book to anyone from, traveling to, or interested in learning more about Western Australia’s Coral Coast. This book handled some difficult topics, with a particular emphasis on ecological issues and conservation. I loved the interconnected theme of emotional healing, particularly through connecting to nature. As someone with a passion for marine life, this is a great addition to my library.

I appreciate receiving a digital ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. The story was slow (I need to stay away from "lyrical prose") but informative from an ecological and aboriginal standpoint. If it weren't for those two things, I don't think I would even give it three stars. This opinion is my own.

The message in this book about environmental and indigenous rights is important to understand.

The story is a little slow paced, but I think that is something that helps the reader understand how connection to our environment is a communal journey and not a fleeting responsibility.

Gaia offered a unique perspective from her trauma and how nature helped her process and connect to herself. Jarrah was just a breath of fun youthful air that represents the innocence and beauty of the world.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC!

Absolutely loved his. Gorgeous setting, really likeable characters and a kangaroo called Rosie Roo!

It's got dance, a little romance, lots of rural Australian landscape, including secluded beaches and coral pools and an interesting story that keeps you entertained. It has big lessons on the environment, without being preachy, too. There are also discussions about racism, specifically the treatment of indigenous Australians, which is handled quite well, but I'd have been interested in there being more detail to that side of the story.

A beautiful book, from start to finish.

I enjoyed this coming of age novel and the unique setting in which it took place. The desire for preservation of natural habits was a great message found throughout the book. It as an original story that broke your heart from the start and then put it back together again with love and support. I love that Gaia had the support of Seamus, sweet little Jarrah, and Mary and her husband. Gaia seemed wise beyond her years and had been through so much as such a young age and yet she was able to preserve and seemingly take on the world. You couldn't be anything but proud of her. At times, I did struggle with the dialogue, mainly between Seamus and Gaia and Seamus and Jarrah. It felt detached and almost like the dialogue were typical things that "needed to be said" and then just shoved into the story for that purpose only rather than a natural way of interacting with each other. I felt that same was similarly with how Gaia ultimately treated Seamus towards the end of the book. I understand the intent behind her actions but it felt forced and "necessary" for her growth but for me and how much i loved Gaia's character, it made her seem cruel and selfish. All in all, it was a unique read and I was grateful for a the opportunity to read a novel with a fresh setting and story plot. Thank you!

This opened with a strong start for me. I was enrapt right away. But that quickly fell off, unfortunately. When I read and write, I think we don't need to be told things multiple times. For example, if something happens and, we the reader read the scene, and then it needs to be relayed to another character, the author does not need to write out the whole explanation. They can say "I told her what happened..." There was a lot of this extra redundancy in this book. It became bogged down and slow. There was some beautiful language and sentiments, but the characterization felt simplistic and predictable. I would try another from this author, but didn't love this much.

A mesmerizing and beautiful story with themes of loss, resilience, and the healing power of nature. The writing is lyrical and atmospheric, capturing the raw beauty of the Australian coast and landscape.
Many thanks to Sea Dragon Press and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Dancing with Dragons is a beautifully written story set in the 1970s Coral Coast of Australia. The story follows Gaia in the aftermath of a fire that destroys her world as she knew it. I enjoyed this story. Thanks to the author Jenni Ogden, Sea Dragon Press, and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this ebook. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I loved the marine conversations it explored as I myself love swimming whilst tackling some pretty serious issues. Please be aware of content warnings when reading this book as it does deal with physical and sexual abuse.

This was such a ride.. Cried more than I thought and Gaia? Tragedies happen and sadly she was a victim of one of them also it was the perfect example that we can't control everything and that even if others help we need to be the ones to change for ourselves

I really enjoyed this book! I think fans of Where the Crawdads Sing would like this as well. It’s part drama part conservation awareness, but blended together perfectly. This book also incorporates relatable topics like trauma & healing, grief, found family. It’s ultimately very uplifting!

I really enjoyed this book! It was different than a lot of what I typically read, but I found the characters and the storyline compelling and vibrant.

The book Dancing with Dragons blends marine science and dance in a beautiful way. Set in Australia (somewhere I have never been) I was immersed in the descriptions of the family life of our main character, and her love of ballet but also of the reef that she has grown up with. Her loss and heartbreak caused by a traumatic event (spoilers) are told in such a way that the reader is both given context to move forward with the plot while still leaving room for more clues to be discovered throughout the rest of the story.

Dancing With Dragons by Jenni Ogden was kind of a lovely book and it is tough to identify the theme. One is protecting the earth, or at least one small part of it. Another is resilience, the resilience of a young woman partially disfigured by fire who refused further medical care, preferring to live in her small world in Western Australia where people didn’t stare. Another is a small aboriginal boy who falls in love when he sees a fairy dancing on the beach and she changes his life. Gaia had to jump out of the second story window when the fire reached her brother’s room. She had seen it start and she ran to warn him. He jumped, too, but was burned less and had made a wider jump so had not broken bones. He left Australia without ever seeing her. He felt guilty, wrongly. She was sent to a children’s home where she lived for several years as her parents had died in the fire. Then, she went home. The house was gone, but the barn was still there, with the mirrors and ballet barre her mother had installed. She had wanted them both to be dancers like she had been. Gaia covered the mirror and cleaned the barn, weeded what was left of the garden and started a life. She had friends: Mary and Eddie, a Abo couple who took care of Dave’s place. He was the neighbor who spent a lot of time drunk. It hadn’t been that way before the fire. His wife left. She’s tired of the drink.

Mary and Eddie had a great-nephew called Jarrah, who was an orphan but came to visit them on school holidays. What great characters all four of these folks turned out to be. Ogden did them justice. Jarrah watched her dance and they became friends. She showed him the weedy sea dragons after she’d taught him how to snorkel. They both vowed to keep them safe and kept that vow for their lives. Life changed for both of them. Jarrah grew older, which is a big deal for an eleven year old; Gaia did also. She lived in town for a while, taught at Jarrah’s school. Things happened for her, but eventually she came home. Eventually he did, too. What a good book. Intricate plot. Excellent characters. Wonderful descriptions of the water and life in general, in a place I’ll never see. Thanks Jenni Ogden!

I was invited to read Dancing With Dragons by Sea Dragon Press. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #SeaDragonPress #JenniOgden #DancingWithDragons