Mythology-based, literary fiction novel "Rise of The Dragon's Heir" by Darlene Franklin-Campbell. A desert kingdom epic fantasy featuring a dragon in the background, a pyramid, and a starry sky with clouds and sparks.
Epic, emotional, and brimming with heart, Rise of the Dragon’s Heir is a thrilling coming-of-age adventure where a reluctant outcast must choose between the darkness of his legacy and the light of his chosen family—perfect for young readers who crave dragons, destiny, and the courage to forge their own path.
— NewInBooks.com

Rise of the Dragon’s Heir Book 1

Available now!

In the desert lands of Zhandari, power has never stood apart from something older than the people who carry it. It moves through rulers, shapes empires, and leaves its mark on everything it touches. What it asks in return is not always visible, but it is always felt.

Far from the center of that power, a young man named Kamna lives on the margins of a world that does not want him. Marked as different and blamed for a past he never chose, he survives in isolation, shaped by hardship and quiet endurance. He has learned to read the land, to trust instinct over people, and to expect little beyond what he can carry himself. When a wounded stranger named Josef collapses into his care, Kamna makes a decision that runs against everything he has been taught. He chooses not to turn away.

Their journey draws him beyond the narrow limits of the life he has always known. As he travels with Josef, the world begins to unfold in fragments, revealing distant lands, unfamiliar cultures, and an empire shaped by power that reaches beyond the human. The deeper they go, the clearer it becomes that Kamna’s past is not as simple as he believed. What he begins to uncover ties him, in ways he cannot yet understand, to forces that have shaped the fate of entire civilizations.

This is a story about identity as something formed slowly, often under pressure. It considers what it means to belong when every place has already rejected you, and what remains when fear and judgment define your place in the world. Kamna’s path does not offer certainty. It asks instead what it means to choose who you are, even when the answer comes at a cost.

Enter a world where survival is only the beginning, and where the deeper journey lies in becoming someone you can live with.