Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book
Rate this book
Legends never die; they just go into hiding …Sixteen-year-old Emily Haven, heroine of the girls’ hockey team at Lindsey High, has spent her young life keeping two her rapidly deteriorating home life and the seemingly supernatural power that makes her a star on the ice. When she begins seeing visions of a lost and ragged boy reflected in mirrors and shop windows, a series of events unfolds that tears her from twenty-first century Minneapolis and leaves her stranded in another world with horrors to rival those she has left behind. Lost amidst creatures of fantasy and legend, she is forced to confront the demons of both her past and future to unravel the riddle of the mysterious boy and embark upon a journey to uncover long forgotten histories and the dark, cloaked figure in the shadows behind them all. Caught between opposing forces of a war she does not understand, Emily must find new strength within herself and, above all, the will to remember her friends.

ebook

First published June 16, 2014

Loading interface...
Loading interface...

About the author

Josh de Lioncourt

6 books105 followers
Josh de Lioncourt was born and raised in California and enjoys writing projects in a wide variety of fields, including fiction, music, software, blogging, and tech articles. He has written on Apple accessibility for Macworld and Maccessibility, hosts or participates regularly on several podcasts, and writes and records music with Molly, his wife. Josh enjoys the works of Stephen King, the music of George Michael, Masters of the Universe, Los Angeles Kings hockey, and home-roasted coffee. He currently lives in Pennsylvania.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
22 (46%)
4 stars
12 (25%)
3 stars
10 (21%)
2 stars
1 (2%)
1 star
2 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
342 reviews41 followers
April 24, 2015
This book was incredible. I didn’t expect it to be half as good as it was, most fantasy books now run along a similar theme, but this has to be one of the best I’ve read in a long time.

I loved the main character, Emily. She’s not overly dramatic or insecure like most heroines are. Yes, she experiences doubts from time to time, but mostly she approaches situations with a clear head and tries to sort things out the best she can. Whether that’s her miserable home life, finding her way in a world where she doesn’t belong or entering battle she is generally as focussed as she possibly can be.

Every other character in this book had a purpose. I either found myself laughing or getting frustrated with their actions, willing them to help or just hoping they would go away to leave our protagonists to be successful. I particularly want to mention Celine, who made me laugh a great deal but is also a perfect example of the friend we all need.

Every time I thought I had figured out where the book was going something happened and I was back at square one again. At no point though was I bored. There was always something happening, some situation to be figured out and added into the puzzle that was slowly taking form.

I’m going to be honest and say I didn’t see what was revealed in the ending coming at all. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to Emily.

I’m very much looking forward to the second volume and I hope some of you will read it with me.

If you are looking for a fresh, new fantasy series set in an epic world then I think you would enjoy this.

I’d like to thank the author for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.
Profile Image for Lauren Jones.
416 reviews11 followers
June 29, 2019
Would you feel sadness if you entered into another world and didn’t know if you would ever return to this one? For those who have parents, children, and friends, you would imagine that this would seem like a very difficult concept to broach. But if you didn’t have anyone…would you think about it any differently? De Lioncourt takes one seemingly ordinary sixteen year-old girl and thrusts her into an extraordinary world, much like Alice in Wonderland, only without the rabbit and the doped up Caterpillar of course. Readers will get hooked by the adventure and trials that Emily and her new friends face for their survival.

Emily Haven is a hockey player, but she has this gift. She has a sensation of knowing what is going to happen, like an enormously powerful gut feeling…you could say. Leaving her world to come to this new one filled with unrecognizable creatures and danger around every corner, she has lost everything and now she doesn’t know what this new world will bring. With visions of a boy looking back at her through mirrors, she starts to piece the puzzles together that something is very wrong in this new world and she may have been sent to find and save him. At first, Emily knows nothing about where she is and she is immediately placed as an apprentice in Marianne’s castle, but soon transitions into a knight’s role. It becomes very apparent that she has entered into a war between Marianne’s knights and the Dragon’s Brood. Forced to pick sides, Emily goes with her gut and sticks to her original plan of finding the boy; everything has to work itself out after the rescue mission, right? Little does she know that her life may hang in the balance, and the danger that she has brought to her new friends may ultimately be death.

De Lioncourt has a spellbinding fantasy, filled with creativity, adventure, and darkness looming in every corner of the world. In the beginning, the pace feels rushed, but then evens out to a steady and enjoyable pace. The characters are mysteries, filled with curiosity, determination, and the shear will of living to see another day. The author ensures to create flawed characters that must face their own demons and the ones that are after them in this new world. Emily and her new friends have a long journey ahead and each character will learn more about themselves as they go. Since this review is complimenting the audiobook, the narrator enlivens the story with her vocal and emotional differentiation. Every character is unmistakably different in tone and sound. There are a few words here and there that appear to be mispronounced; however, this should not hinder enjoyment of the novel. If you are a reader of dark fantasy, you may be interested in picking this book up. This is the first installment in The Dragon’s Brood Cycle Series; therefore, readers are able to plunge right into the story.

NOTE: This story is tagged as a coming of age fantasy; however, due to the graphic detail of the violence that is produced in this story, it would be recommended for an audience over the age of 18.

A copy of this audiobook was provided to Turning Another Page by Audiobookworm Promotions and in no way affects the honesty of this review. We provide a four-star rating to Haven Lost by Josh de Lioncourt.
Profile Image for Susan.
1,745 reviews38 followers
July 16, 2019
It’s definitely epic! We start off in the real world where highschooler Emily is playing a serious hockey game somewhere in Minneapolis. The team loses and Emily feels she let the team down. Her coach and her best friend (Kayce) each try to cheer her up. But she heads home in a funk. And then her day gets worse! Emily’s home life isn’t ideal at all and that sends her running out into the night and then she wakes up in a completely different world in the hold of a ship surrounded by 7 other young ladies.
At this point, the story really started to grab me. Emily has to keep her wits about her as she learns everything she can about this world. At the Seven Skies, the ladies must prove their worth to the Sorceress. She takes on only a few trainees each year. Emily quickly made friends with shy Seline. In exchange for general info about this world, Emily teaches Seline how to read. I thought that was cute, but I was a little surprised at how quickly Seline learned to read.
But then brutal reality rears it’s ugly head. The Sorceress’s brand of justice doesn’t sit well with Emily and she vows to save a small boy from such an ugly fate. So Emily and Seline rescue young Michael and unexpectedly meet up with Corbmac, who also felt the same way. Together, they all flee in the night! High adventure ensues!

The story does have some slow moments, and a few others that I felt could have some drama added. Over all, it’s a fun adventure story without too much depth. Emily does have some character growth. The rest of the characters are rather static.

I really enjoyed Emily’s reactions to the variety of beings in this fantasy world. Like that kitspur named Rascal (imagine a cat crossed with a bat) freaks her out at first. Then there’s the lizard people as well, but Garret eventually becomes a friend. Toss in some salt mines, mysterious crystals, and a few undead walking around, you have plenty of odd stuff for Emily to adjust to.

Michael keeps calling Emily ‘Derek’ and that is at first just ignored. Later on the mystery is revealed, and that leads to a bigger revelation! I was surprised. I didn’t see that coming. So, in the end it was fun and I look forward to Book 2. 4/5 stars.

The Narration: Reay Kaplan has a great voice for Emily. She sounds like a 16-year-old young lady. Kaplan had distinct voices for all the characters. Her male voices were believable. I liked all her regional accents for the various characters. Her old man voice is pretty good and her gruff and sometimes grumpy voice for Cormac was very believable. The pacing was good and there were no technical issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook from the author. All opinions are 100% my own.
Profile Image for ☽ Kαƚιҽ.
30 reviews6 followers
July 1, 2019
What would you do if you kept seeing someone in the mirror? Emily sees a boy in a mirror she is determined to find out if it is all in her head or something more. When a tragic event causes her to flee her home she decided a to stay in the town warehouse where the haunted house is held. Inside she finds the mirrors used for the hall if mirrors. Though when she is looking at her reflection in each she sees the boy again. However this time she knows for sure she is alone. Before she knows it she is transported to a different place, or could it be a different time. A beautiful place filled with magic and sword fighting. This book draws you in from page one. With incredible characters and an incredible magic system where each person has their own special talents, such as Emily’s ability to
“Know” things. If you like fantasy this is a must read with a brilliant mixture of magic and everyday life this book will have you wanting more! The narrator also does an amazing job bribing each character to life. She is able to make it feel like you are watching a show and can vividly see each scene happens as well as giving each character their own personality which makes it easy to tell between each character in the story. I can’t wait to continue this journey with these amazing characters!
Profile Image for Morgan Sheppard.
Author 12 books87 followers
October 30, 2018
Haven Lost is the first book in The Dragon's Brood Cycle, and we start off with sixteen-year-old Emily playing a game of ice hockey. Things don't go quite the way she expected, which shakes her belief in herself and her knowing. That night, Emily is taken from the world she knows, and wakes up to a whole new world. One where she has to learn the rules, and figure out just who she can trust.

This was such a great story! All the characters are believable and have their own quirks and foibles, although I will admit to Emily and Corbmacc being favourites of mine. This story has great world-building, with questions raised over just how 'good' each side is, and whether you can rely on someone else's words. This is the kind of book where you reach the end and immediately want to start the next one - which is what I will be doing very soon.

With no editing or grammatical errors that disrupted my reading flow, I thoroughly enjoyed losing myself in this book, and have no hesitation in HIGHLY recommending it!
Profile Image for Liliyana Shadowlyn.
2,733 reviews85 followers
September 30, 2020
Haven Lost is absolutely brilliant. Emily is a strong (but fairly typical), teenager (minus her special ability). That doesn't stop her from taking on each new challenge head on, and you can't help but sit on the edge of your seat waiting to see where her adventures will take her next. The cast of characters is rich, and the twists will keep you guessing. Cannot recommend enough.
Profile Image for Venise.
406 reviews5 followers
Read
November 7, 2020
Demanding journey. Emily Haven had to realize strength and her position while enduring a hazardous adventure away from the rink. There were actual moments for the characters to find sense of comfort... then another tough obstacle. There was really no declaration of abandonment—graciously.
Profile Image for Marie.
77 reviews1 follower
January 6, 2022
A great adventure with a strong characters! An excellent example of what young adult fiction is really about! Explores some very deep topics but has a great sense of fantasy feel about it! Great first book in the series!
Profile Image for Gina.
486 reviews4 followers
June 17, 2019
I think everyone who likes Fantasy needs to read this book. There's nothing bad about it, and I loved absolutely every bit of it!!!

133 reviews109 followers
February 1, 2016
Originally Posted on Emily Reads Everything

Synopsis
Sixteen-year-old Emily Haven is the star of her hockey team at Lindsey High. She believes her success comes from an innate ability to see the future right before scoring a goal. Hockey is her first love and her escape from her chaotic, deteriorating life with her drug addicted mother and her mother’s live in, drunk of a boyfriend. The day she misses a shot that she knew without doubt she would make, is the day everything changes. She begins to see a dirty boy in torn clothing looking out of reflections at her. When disaster strikes, she runs towards her vision and away from her school, hockey team and life. Waking up in a new land, she finds herself torn between two factions in the middle of a rebellion she knows nothing about.

Thoughts
I really liked the setting in this book. Emily is pulled into a different world and I love discovering the rules of a world different than our own. She quickly becomes a candidate to be a Sorceress’s apprentice and meets other girls with special abilities like her own. The magic in this world seems to be organically based. There were no fireballs in sight, but lots of growing vines like in Sleeping Beauty. Josh De Lioncourt includes a unique race, a humanoid lizard man, who is starting a family with a human woman. This was a great dynamic because they dealt with prejudice and misconceptions from the world around them. It gave me great hope for the future books. I would love to see more of this race of people. The whole story moves fast and builds on itself well. I spent the whole book wondering what would happen to Emily next.

That being said, I found the ending a little disappointing. Josh De Lioncourt does a wonderful job world building. He made me interested and curious about the unique world and history. The entire book made me want more. Then at the end, I felt like the twist didn’t live up to the story he had written. A good twist makes me look back over what I’ve read and suddenly all the broken pieces fit together into a solid picture. That ‘AHA’ moment where I realize, if I were a smarter reader, I might have known. This book I felt that the twist didn’t fit with the story. Instead of ‘AHA!’, my reaction was more like ‘….what the…?’ Instead of ending up satisfied, I was more confused. I definitely felt like I missed something and I still don’t know what.

However, all that being said, I still think you should give this book a read. I’m looking forward to the next book that comes out soon. I want to know what happens to Emily next and see where this story goes next. Plus, I’m still hopeful that Emily might travel to Garret (the Lizardman’s) homeland. They need to find help to win the war somewhere!
Profile Image for Christie Stratos.
Author 12 books138 followers
November 18, 2015
*This book was supplied to me by Audiobook Reviewer. This review was originally published on ABR's website.*

I don’t have any easy time finding fantasy books I like. I’ve read many bestseller fantasy authors and I haven’t cared for any of them. I find it’s best to read indie author fantasy, but I was still looking for something epic, a long journey into another world.

I finally found it.

Haven Lost is perfection in every way, ranging from its excellent pacing to its thorough explorations of not just a world but cities that are opposites. I didn’t find anything a far stretch because de Lioncourt is always careful to explain why or how something makes sense, and yet he crafts it so that it feels like part of the story, not like an author trying to explain something to his readers. I liked the main character, Emily, who is very strong but has her weaknesses. She’s not impossibly perfect and she’s no cookie-cutter character. Her allies – and enemies – are the same.

By the time the book ended, I felt as if I had been on an adventure with the characters. It was as if I had endured everything right alongside them, and when I looked back at all we’d come through, I didn’t know how de Lioncourt did it so beautifully. I never once felt the story drag. There was constant movement of the plot and advancement of our understanding of the world. De Lioncourt’s pacing moves the story at a pace that feels realistic, not so fast that I wanted more time in any scene, and not so slow that I wanted the book to move forward. It was simply…perfect!

The voice talent, Reay Kaplan, was excellent. She spoke very clearly, performed the accents accurately, and maintained a sense of excitement where it was appropriate. She even sounded teary in a couple of places that called for it. I would say I’d rather listen to the audiobook a second time than read the book in paperback, simply because I felt Kaplan enhanced the reading experience.

Haven Lost is a fantastic read for both fantasy beginners (it eases you into the fantasy part in a way that isn’t harsh or ridiculous) and those who know the genre well. I would recommend it to anyone, and I can’t wait for the second book!
Profile Image for Michelle Randall.
715 reviews22 followers
July 28, 2014
My actual star rating on this would be a 4.5

Reviewed for Readers Favorite

Emily is a high school hockey star in Minneapolis, with an extremely dysfunctional family life. For the most she is a typical teenager, except for her strange ability to know when and where another player on the ice is going to move. One day it all changes when she starts seeing the reflection of a boy in mirrors and windows, and when she gets home finds her mother dead of a drug overdose. She runs away and when she awakes she is in another land, another time, another world? Haven Lost is the tale of Emily's discover of what is important to her and her life in this strange place. She makes friends, decides without any prior knowledge of people who is good and who is evil and sets out on a quest she doesn't understand. Along the way she picks up a best friend in Celine, a ward in Michael and someone who just might become more than a friend in the future, Corbbmacc. Together they travel the land, looking for the answers that they need to understand what is going on. Josh de Lioncourt has done a wonderful job of mixing history, fantasy, and magic together into a tale that is compelling and exciting.

Haven Lost is set to be the first book in a series titled The Dragon's Brood Cycle. This first book sets the story up very well, you have a grand adventure, and it is not a short adventure either. It takes time to tell, yet the story never seems to get bogged down or drag, it is always moving along and begging you to turn the next page and keep going. The answers always seem to be on the next page. Josh de Lioncourt is a wonderful storyteller in that he is able to keep your attention and have you guessing the entire book. I never saw the reveal from the last three pages coming until I got to them, and that is not usually the case with mos books. This book and series has the potential to sky-rocket into the forefront of youth and teen reading, becoming the next Harry Potter series.
Profile Image for Sara.
34 reviews1 follower
September 2, 2014
Emily is running away from everything after her mother’s death when she finds she has run away so much she has made it to another world. Emily isn’t perfect, and unlike most others who find themselves in this position, she isn’t consumed with finding her way home. Though there does seem to be a little romance building starting about halfway through the book, it isn’t the all-consuming passion that far too many teen books are focused on these days. Instead this book is far more about the bonds of friends and family Emily builds than trying to get the boy. (That’s kind of a relief, actually, not having to go through the cliche teen ‘romance’ thing.)

Some of the world building was really neat, with two-headed crows and people who are as much dragonfly as human. While there is a resistance against the evil being (who wields flowers and plants of all things), it is disjointed and partially at war within itself. Magic has serious repercussions, and their long-needed savior might be just as clueless as they themselves are.

Being an ARC copy, there are a number of editorial mistakes still present (misspellings, homonyms, capitalization, etc), but most were understandable, and will hopefully be fixed in the final book. At just over 500 pages, it is a nice long length, though there is obviously going to be a sequel.

Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
78 reviews
July 6, 2014
16-year-old Emily Haven, a star on her high school hockey team, is suddenly ripped from a modern world of cell phones, pop culture and gingerbread lattes to a world where technology seems mystical and alien, but where magic and myth are very much alive. She finds herself immediate embroiled in a war between two opposing forces, both of which want to use her for their own ends.

Determined to go her own way, Emily adapts quickly to her new life and gains skills, confidence, and leadership abilities she never knew she possessed.

This story isn't just about magic and battles, it's about personal growth, the value of friendship, and Emily's courage to follow her own heart.

The novel was fast-paced and rich in detail, interesting characters and plot twists that left me eagerly anticipating the next installment in the Dragons Brood Cycle. in short, it grabbed my imagination and ran away with it!
July 14, 2014
Just a great, riveting, absorbing start to a what I hope will be a long-lived series. The characters are familiar without being cookie-cutter stereotypes. Mr. Lioncourt has obviously walked the land of his story and memorized every rift and roll of the landscape. I'm truly looking forward to the next installment.
Profile Image for Zivan.
673 reviews7 followers
March 17, 2015
This is a great YA book.

The story is fast paced, almost every sentence reveals something new about the world, the characters or story line.

This is a breath of fresh air in a genre filled with huge books full of fluff.

My only complaint is that sometimes things move too fast. Too oftern the characters jump recklessly into the breach with no plan and no preparation and don't pay the price.
Profile Image for Robin.
3 reviews
June 23, 2014
This book had me hooked from the first few pages. A wonderful story with amazing characters that you grow to love with each turning of the page. Filled with excitement, emotion and humor throughout I just can't wait for Volume 2!
Author 6 books1 follower
July 2, 2014
What a great read ! Even though I am a voracious reader, I don't read a lot of Fantasy. So when I do it better be good...and different. This story accomplishes both with vivid characters and worlds. The story and plot line are flawless and the ending will have you begging for the next volume.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.