I read the description of Eoin Colfer’s Highfire a few months back and was immediately desperate to read the novel. Because how could anyone not want to inhale a 370+ page book about a dragon who retires to the Louisiana swamp to sit in his recliner in a Flashdance T-shirt, drink vodka, and watch Netflix originals… all with a friendly zombie doing his shopping and keeping him company.

I was not disappointed.

The story itself is just absurd enough to work: boy decides to make money smuggling drugs, boy witnesses cop killing his boss, boy meets dragon, dragon hires boy while zombie is doing his recharge sleep in exchange for protection, cop sees dragon, mayhem ensures. (I mean, go big or go home, right?)

What really captured my reader brain, though, were the distinct character voices Colfer conjured for Squib, Verne, Hooke, and the rest of the book’s population. The entire story unfurled in my brain as though it were playing on a screen because the characters inhabited their personas so fully – because each had a unique cadence and accent, noticed different things about their surroundings, and emphasized different aspects of their lives.

We talk a lot about characters coming to life, and perhaps it happened with this particular book because I read it immediately after returning from Louisiana (having stayed in Slidell specifically), but not only did these folx jump off the page, they helped me with dinner, rode along when I went on errands, and chased the rabbits in my front yard. (Metaphor: there were no dragons in my yard.)

And let’s talk about the dragon for a minute. Wyvren, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie, is, for sure, my new favorite literary dragon.

One of my absolute favorite devices is an author who is clearly steeped in established mythology mucking about with tropes, creating something completely new that nods to its origins, exists as the thing itself, and pokes fun at said origins and said thing without punting the reader out of the story. (This is one of several reasons I absolutely adore the Witcher books.) The ability to strike this balance perfectly is a writer level 100,00,000 skill, and I am always thrilled to have the chance to experience it as executed with absolute perfection… as it is in Highfire.

Yes, Verne hates humans who took everything from him, but, at the same time, he needs them. He has a horde, but it’s vodka, cable TV, and WiFi instead of hold. He’s a monarch ruling not over other dragons but over crocodiles and a patch of swamp. And he is such a smart-ass.

Louisiana is a very special place, and there is nowhere in the States – or the world – like it. It lives and breathes, and Colfer acknowledges this by making the bayou; the town, Slidell; and New Orleans active characters in Vern, Squib, and Hooke’s story. Without their participation, this is a generic fantasy or, perhaps, a false start that is never fully fleshed out. But the swamp acts, Slidell watches, New Orleans lurks and promises. They are ever present, sometimes full of promise and other times menacing… but always waiting.

Highfire is an absolute joy, and if you’re looking for a fun book that will make you laugh out loud, jeer at an old-fashioned villain, and cheer for a dragon and his boy, I really can’t recommend it highly enough.

And if it piques your interest in Louisiana’s supernatural history, may I recommend the following:

• The Cemeteries of New Orleans: A Cultural History by Peter B. Dedek
• The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter by James Caskey
• Madame Lalaurie: Mistress of the Haunted House by Carolyn Morrow Long
• New Orleans Vampires: History and Legend by Marita Woywod Crandle
• A New Orleans Voodoo Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Leveau by Carolyn Morrow Long
• New Orleans: A Food Biography by Elizabeth M. Williams (because we’d be lost without the food)

Of course, I’m happy to tell you about my own experiences at The Bottom of the Cup Tearoom, the oldest continuously operating psychic institution in the United States and with a ghost I met in Slidell who, it turned out, just wanted booze and acknowledgment…