Royalslinger   Graci Kim

Royalslinger 
Graci Kim 
Penguin (2026) 
Novel 275 pages 
Paperback 
ISBN 978 1 77695 345 5 ‘

Aria knew she sounded desperate, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to be stuck inside a library reading scrolls when her mother was out there plotting world domination.’ 

Graci Kim really knows how to get a story rolling.

  Royalslinger is the sequel to Dreamslinger (2025) where Aria Loveridge gained entrance to the Royal League of Dreamslingers and become a citizen of the enchanted Kingdom of Hanguk, which is nestled on an island within the city of Seoul. 

As Aria starts her second year of training to become a fully-fledged Fellow, the Kingdom and its dreamslingers face a major crisis. A rival faction of dreamers – the freedomslingers – have stolen a powerful relic, the Bleeding Bloom, which can kill anything it touches. The rebels, who plan to destroy the Kingdom and take control of the world, are led by Ko Iseul, who is Aria’s estranged mother! 

 Graci Kim does a brilliant job of reintroducing all the characters from Dreamslinger in Chapter 1 as they gather to view the first sunrise of the New Year, then unleashes the lively action in the pages which follow. Aria and the other novices are ordered to research the threat posed by the Bloom, while the qualified Fellows ‘enact an in-person retrieval strategy.’ [Who would guess that Graci Kim spent a decade as a New Zealand diplomat?] 

 Naturally Aria wants a chance to prove her loyalty to the kingdom, so she and two of her friends, Lion Lee-Hendrick (the crown prince) and Tui Walker (a New Zealander, who often says, ‘Yeah, nah’) make an undercover foray to a freedomslinger recruitment meeting in Seoul. There the trio make the gruesome discovery that the freedomslingers are using the Bloom to make people believe a fatal virus is spreading. 

Nor is the Kingdom of Hanguk safe from the terrible influence of Aria’s mother. Soon, the Librarian has been poisoned and the King is in a coma. The League’s guiding ideals of Peace and Harmony are endangered as pressure builds for a violent counter-attack on Ko Iseul and her freedomslingers. Caught in the middle, Aria is anguished and uncertain. Her situation becomes even more difficult when her mother finds a way to send her messages. 

 All this sounds a touch depressing but Graci Kim has a light touch in her storytelling. Much of this story is about the growing friendship and interdependence among the novices, as they develop their new powers. Even better is the young people’s interaction with their dreampanions, the magical creatures they have bonded with in their dream state. Lion is now accompanied by a golden dragon, while Mason has a frost-turtle, Daxia has a phoenix and Tui has a dragon with rainbow scales. Aria’s coral- coloured dragon, Rio, is still developing, so has no tail and no interest in flying, but she is irresistibly cute and constantly looking for snacks. 

  Rio’s whiskers twitched with a smile. ‘It’s because I am smartish and braveful, of course!’ Then she let out a huff. ‘But I’ll have you know, I’m not so little anymore, Ari-Ari. I’m actually quite big now.’ 

 A pony-sized, talking dragon must be everyone’s idea of the perfect companion. Less desirably, Rio is also fast-moving and impulsive, which makes some key events more dramatic, even as they break Aria’s heart. 

Royalslinger examines some fascinating topics, including death and the afterlife, as Aria tries to cope positively with a series of daunting setbacks. Does she have the physical strength and moral courage to confront her mother, Ko Iseul? Are the Freeslingers really traitors? Is her mother really ‘a power-hungry monster wanting world domination at any cost’? The challenges keep coming. 

 Aria fortunately also finds a heart-warming, peaceful refuge celebrating Makariti in Aotearoa New Zealand with Tui. But she has to return to Hanguk for a final, fateful confrontation. This story is richly detailed and fast-moving, with crafty plot-twists which keep the reader always slightly off-balance, just like Aria, who is trying to make sense of the two worlds she inhabits. 

 Graci Kim has created a complete fantasy universe for her characters. 

 Royalslinger is the best young adult novel of 2026. 

 Trevor Agnew 4 Aug 2026 

 [Review 3858.]

 

Dreamslinger  Graci Kim

 

Dreamslinger  Graci Kim
Penguin Random House (2025)
Novel, 295 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 776 95 343 1

 

New Zealand author Graci Kim follows her highly successful 

Gifted Clans trilogy with another lively and humorous fantasy series which also draws on Korean mythology.

Dreamslinger introduces Aria Loveridge (14), an ordinary girl with an extraordinary genetic mutation which makes her a dreamslinger.   Aria has a bright personality – her father, Professor Jack Loveridge, calls her ‘sparkler’ after the firework. Aria has accepted that being a dreamslinger makes her different in many ways. She feels her emotions more deeply than ordinary people and this has consequences.

Dreamslingers all have powerful dreams about the same mystical world, The Asleep. The emotions generated there can have fatal results. (Aria’s Korean-born mother died in a major dreamslinger Outburst, when Aria was only four.) Undaunted, Jack has campaigned for acceptance of the dreamslingers and his ‘restrain, contain, maintain’ programme is carried out in the Resthaven Home for Dreamslingers in Almiro, Texas.

 Aria is one of the young residents there whose dreams are researched. When they wake, the dreamslingers can safely unleash their Outbursts of pent-up emotions in chambers built to withstand the fires, hurricanes, ice storms and poisonous acids they generate. Understandably, there is public unease about the potential menace of dreamslingers. Worse follows when Jack’s Resthaven launch ceremony is hi-jacked by Tae, a Royal Slinger from the tiny hermit kingdom of Royal Hanguk (There, the Royal League trains teenagers to harness their outbursts and even bring dream beasts, such as Tae’s bloom dragon, Jaya, back from The Asleep).  Aria is blamed for the fiasco which results.

 With the future of her father’s work and the survival of Resthaven in jeopardy, Aria has to accept the challenge of King Lee Ogu and journey to Royal Hanguk, to compete in the Trials to be accepted as a Fellow. Her secret intention is to learn everything she can to help her father’s research, especially how dream beasts are controlled.

‘She was going to find the evidence she needed to prove that this reckless elite League was dangerous and plotting something sinister.’

 Hanguk turns out to be ‘nestled on an island inside Seoul’.  (Aria’s driver, Nam Changdo, compares it to Vatican City’s position within Rome.) Graci Kim has a powerful imagination so that her Hanguk is even more amazing than the Vatican. Menus there change according to the diner’s mood, while beds will adjust their comfort levels provided that they are instructed in rhyme.

 Aria passes a preliminary test of her powers, one of only a hundred trainees to do so. (Another successful candidate is Tui Walker, a New Zealander.) King Lee Ogu warns them that only twenty will become Fellows, so the competition will be fierce.

Aria and Tui are chosen to live in the Spring Palace of the bloom dragon during the Trials. The following two-thirds of the book follow Aria through the various challenges and her growing understanding of how the magical qualities of The Asleep can be used. Aria makes friends and some enemies. She also discovers that rather than being ordinary, she is truly exceptional.

 Dreamslinger is an exciting, sometimes alarming and often amusing adventure, with the bonus of a richly detailed dreamscape.

And dragons. There are lots of dragons.

 An unusual aspect of Dreamslinger is that the first edition (2025) 

used not one but two cover    

An Unusual aspect of Dreamslinger is that the first edition (2025) used not one but two cover illustrations, for different regions. Vivien To’s picture, used on the editions for the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, shows Aria in a hanbok (a traditional Korean dress, described on p.89) while a flying dragon circles her.  This illustration reflects Aria’s joint American and Korean heritage. The Disney Hyperion cover for the United States market, created by Jessica Fong, shows Aria riding on the back of a dragon; looking more like a young American superhero. The two covers may be seen to reflect different attitudes to DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion).

The book also provides maps (by Virginia Allan) of The Asleep and the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk, as well as Rachel Hamilton’s music for Aria’s lullaby.

The second volume in the series, about Aria’s novice training, is called Royalslinger.

Graci Kim’s website at www.gracikim.com includes Teacher Notes and printable resources.

 

Trevor Agnew 
18 May 2025  [Review 3768]

Note: In July 2026, Dreamslinger was longlisted for the annual DANZ Awards. The Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Awards honours books for young people which recognise that not all young people are the same. Read more at The Sapling website: The DANZ Children’s Book Awards - The Sapling