Enjoyed the story and liked the characters enough to continue with the series. The practical detail on dragon care makes it a bit different from the usual dragon fantasy books and as someone who knows a bit about dog training, I found the innovations on dragon training, based on work with hawks, all very interesting and lost track of the fact that these are mythical beasts! The relationship is nicely drawn between Ari, the loner and reluctant Jouster, and his captured dragon boy, from whose viewpoint we see events. No surprises but a convincng fantasy world you can escape into.