Review: Alia Terra: Stories from the Dragon Realm by Ava Kelly

Alia Terra is a heartwarming queer story collection with gorgeous illustrations and dragons.

A collection of three fairy tales for all ages presented in English and Romanian, Alia Terra is a magical read. It centres on kindness, acceptance, friendship, and self-love in beautifully illustrated stories. A dragon discovers why a princess wants to stay in her tower. A dragon has to rediscover her worth after an injury. A mage finds friendship in their quest for a scroll that will help them with their social anxiety.

Alia Terra is joyous and poignant. It’s one of those books where you can feel your heart physically warming as you read. The illustrations are wonderful and add to the overall feeling of loveliness. The casual queer representation is fantastic; it’s a book full of acceptance. With important lessons about caring for yourself, rejecting societal expectations, and finding people who accept you, this is a book for everyone. It would be difficult to give Alia Terra an age category as any age will enjoy the stories within its pages. If you need more lovely, queer stories you should pick this book up.

Thanks to Atthis Arts for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ava Kelly is an engineer with a deep passion for stories. Whether reading, watching, or writing them, Ava has always been surrounded by tales of all genres. Their goal is to bring more stories to life, especially those of friendship and compassion, those dedicated to trope subversion, those that give the void a voice, and those that spawn worlds of their own.

Matthew Spencer is a queer illustrator from southeast Michigan.

He works primarily in ink, watercolor and gouache (often embellished with metal leaf), creating pieces inspired by folklore, history, and nature.

Outside of his freelance work, he has been slowly but surely been illustrating his own tarot deck. The Courtly Beasts Tarot- along with a good deal of Matthew’s other personal work- depicts a fantastical world populated by anthropomorphic animals in elaborate costume, set within lush environments both botanical and architectural.

If you want to remember to check out this book you should Add to Goodreads!

You can pre/order the book from retail sites but you can also get it straight from the publisher!

I’d recommend checking out your local indie bookshop!