Books by Irene Wendy Wode

The Half-Dragon Series, by Irene Wendy Wode and William Alexander Righetti

The Red Glade Peacemakers

Isis Va can taste the approach of violence in the river of time, and it is bitter. All she can do is her best to make sure the Darkhnit clans aren't caught totally unprepared for the first attack. But the elders of the clans are out of practice and set in their ways, and when it comes to the youngsters - well, it'll be a job of work to stop at least one of them from running afoul of Isis's hot-tempered daughter, Ezri.

They all have a lot to learn if they want to be able to rise to the occasion and help, rather than hurt, the state of the world.

Irene's Favorite Things

My favorite part of this book is Isis's journey. I love her personality and her strength. The book really started to come together when I decided to feature her as a main character.

I'm also happy about the depth of worldbuilding we put into this series, and how it really does feel like there might be a whole other world layered under this one, just out of sight.

Click for Content Notes and Warnings

The Movrekt Warmongers

Three young people find themselves trapped in the tensions and traditions of the feud between the factions of dragonkind, and rebel against the expectations of their parents.

Jacan Jantus chafes at the discipline required of a Darkhan warrior, specifically one whose father is a priest.

Mahkai Harkesh begins to see the beauty in humanity and question the things his father has drilled into him about their inferiority.

Beth Aubertin doesn't know it, but her father is one of the Silene Knights, the order of humans who pass down the knowledge of dragons and are sworn to slay them. Beth tumbles into the world of dragons from a different perspective and finds herself entangled in the politics of a world she never imagined.

Will turning away from the traditions of their families in such a volatile time doom them all?

Irene's Favorite Things

If I had to sum this book up in one word, it would be catharsis. There's so much darkness, so much of people feeling trapped, and in one way or another, there are a kaleidoscope of different resolutions, most of them tragic but ultimately, I think, really satisfying.

I got to explore a lot of dark places with this one and there's a depth of emotion in it I'm not sure if I've achieved with any other work.

Click for Content Notes and Warnings

How to Train Your Mafia

After the war, Chivaka is faced with an untenable choice. She could abandon her people, the half-dragons of House Reseda, to their self-destructive ways. She could kill her uncle Padric to prove herself to them, and challenge the current House head, Hale, for the position. Then, at least, she might be able to change their ways from the inside.

Or, she could continue to waffle, and watch what's left of her people slip away, regardless.

She's learning magic from the Red Glade healers, but that alone won't allow her to shape the world to be the way she wishes it was. Not this time.

It will take some unconventional ideas from a new friend, but there may be a way to save her uncle and her House, after all.

Irene's Favorite Things

Overall? It has to be Eben. I came out of writing The Red Glade Peacemakers really wanting to spend more time with Eben, and I loved being able to explore him further, and especially her queerness.

But there's also a few other scenes here that I just loved writing. They're so dramatic, so theatrical. There's a theatrical quality that runs through the Half-Dragon series that I find intoxicating. Some of my favorite examples are from this novella.

Click for Content Notes and Warnings

Other Books by Irene Wendy Wode

Tabitha

There are ways to make it easier to live with a secret. One of them is to keep yourself separate, and never get close to anyone. Except her animals, but they don't count, they won't breathe a word.

Not the best plan, maybe, but Tabitha has never found a better one. Until Ben comes along and disrupts all her plans with his curious eye for beauty and his terrible, exquisite, breakable human body.

Irene's Favorite Things

While writing this, I really fell in love with the fabric of Tabitha's life, the way it breathes. It's an intentional romanticization of small town life and farming that gives a vivid window into who Tabitha is.

The other thing I like best about this book is the aesthetics. The story was based on an image I became preoccupied with and tried to draw many times. I think the book captures the feel of that image better than any drawing I ever did.

Click for Content Notes and Warnings

Kinesis

Myrdu has a life on Avla, family, a daughter, a job he enjoys.

But is any of it real? When Myrdu completes his latest xenolinguistics project, it's as if a switch flips in his brain. Memories pour out, lifetimes' worth of memories. Those of a shapeshifter, a spy, named Okka. Xe is a Mimica, one of the foes of the Avlan state.

Worse yet, the Mimica homeworld has fallen, and for Okka, neither world will be safe now.

Okka flees to Earth, hoping to buy xemself time, hoping against hope to find some way to save the Mimica homeworld. Okka does not expect to find humans that xe can call family, not in the way that Mimica can be to each other.

Okka does not expect Waverly Kemp.

Irene's Favorite Things

The first thing that occurs to me with this book: Well, the smut! This was written with one particular sex scene as a centerpiece, and although I do like the plot, it's there to support the sexy bits, really. Or, it's a whole intertwined mess of a story about the nature of connection and identity and a lot of that is expressed through sex.

I also like the delight the characters take in technology and the intelligence and wit they have. There's a certain type of character I really relish writing dialogue for, and Waverly Kemp is a prime example.

Click for Content Notes and Warnings

The Grafting Mark

The Grafting Mark is currently in its third draft!

Bonny struggles to connect with her fellow humans but when she crashes her runner in a remote valley on Teegarden B, leaving her with a broken leg and a nonfunctional comm, her survival depends on making a connection with a much less likely and deadlier being – one of the carnivorous raptors who dominate the planet's skies. Divided by language, culture, and species, they work to survive both the wilderness and their own scars. Strangely, Bonny's hardest ordeal may be walking among humans again after all the ways this friendship has changed her.

Irene's Favorite Things

I put so many of my favorite tropes into this book. It's a first contact story, it's a survival story, and it's a love story without being a romance.

Tirraa is one of the characters who is most alive in my head, because she's made of all the things that make me feel not quite human, all the queerness and neurodivergence and the unusual maintenance procedures my body requires. Giving her a human who learns about her and understands her was really satisfying.

Click for Content Notes and Warnings

Back to Top