Clara’s Verdict
Ninety-five hours and forty-eight minutes. That runtime alone tells you something about what Ava Richardson’s Dragon Riders of Ragond box set is designed to do: it is not an introduction to a world. It is a complete immersion in one. Nine novels across three trilogies, all set in a realm that sits beside our own and is connected to Earth by unstable portals that both worlds are only beginning to understand the danger of. I listened to the first two books of the Portal War trilogy on a sequence of long commutes and found, somewhere around the third morning, that I was slightly annoyed to arrive at my destination.
Richardson writes with the instincts of a series author who genuinely understands the difference between momentum and padding. Each trilogy functions as its own complete arc, which means the box set does not feel like a single unwieldy narrative that has been stretched across nine volumes. Nova’s Portal War, Kira’s dragon sickness, Yanna’s timeslip crisis: each protagonist carries her own specific problem, and the dragons, who are fiercely individual rather than interchangeable, feel like genuine characters rather than magical transport. The sense that the world of Ragond has its own consistent internal logic, independent of any single character’s story, is one of Richardson’s most significant achievements across the full set.
About the Audiobook
Published by Relay Publishing in February 2025, the box set collects all nine novels: Dragon Link, Dragon Rebellion, Dragon Alliance, Dragon’s Fate, Dragon’s Power, Dragon’s Hero, Dragon’s Mage, Dragon’s Protector, and Dragon’s Realm. The 4.6 rating from 481 Audible reviews is a meaningful signal for a young adult fantasy series: it indicates consistent quality across the full run rather than a strong first entry followed by diminishing returns, which is the more common pattern in long YA fantasy series.
The series is marketed at young adult readers, which means the content is clean but the emotional stakes are not softened. The threat of annihilation is real, the losses are genuine, and the decisions the protagonists face carry consequences that persist across the trilogies. Reviewer Terry A. describes going on a journey from witch hunter to witch lover and dragon rider to mage practitioner across the nine books, which gives a sense of how much ground Richardson covers and how much she trusts her readers to follow complex character development over a long arc.
The portal mechanic is particularly well handled. Rather than functioning as a simple plot device to move characters between worlds, the instability of the portals creates genuine structural tension across all three trilogies. The rules governing when portals open and why remain consistent, which gives the world a coherence that readers often note as a key reason the full 95-hour investment feels justified rather than indulgent.
The Narration
Rebekah Nemethy handles all nine books, which is the right decision for a series with this much accumulated world. Consistency across 95 hours matters more than individual casting excellence, and Nemethy provides a reliable through-line that lets listeners build a relationship with the world rather than having to recalibrate for new voices at the start of each new trilogy. Her narration suits the young adult register: clear, forward-moving, capable of distinguishing between a range of female protagonists without flattening them into one voice. The fantasy elements, including the dragons themselves, are voiced with the seriousness they require rather than the broad flourish that can tip this genre into something closer to pantomime.
What Readers Say
UK reviewers are enthusiastic and consistent across the 481-review sample. Worcester praises the great storytelling and characters as a welcome distraction in today’s hectic lifestyle. Kay Stuart’s review is the most vivid in the pool: she opened the first book and climbed in, was instantly there with the magic, and felt she was actually there because of how well Richardson’s descriptions worked. She notes the dragons as particularly well drawn, loving them as characters specifically. Terry A. is the most detailed, noting the creative storytelling, the emotional journey across all nine books, and an inability to stop reading between two and four hours each morning. The only mild note from reviewers across the full sample is the desire for more story once the final book ends, which is the most generous complaint a series can receive.
Who Should Listen?
The obvious audience is young adult fantasy readers who want a long, complete world to inhabit rather than a series that stops mid-story while the author writes the next instalment. It works equally well for adult readers of the genre who do not require grimdark content and want dragons treated with genuine seriousness and specificity. At 95 hours, this is a substantial commitment, but it is structured in a way that lets you complete each trilogy as a satisfying unit before moving to the next. Not a good entry point for someone who wants a standalone or a quick taste. Not appropriate for listeners looking for dark or adult-oriented fantasy. Start with Dragon Link and proceed in the sequence the box set provides.
