This book is a 2007 Science Fiction & Fantasy Cybils Award Nominee.
When Creel’s dotty aunt decides to sacrifice her to the local dragon, even Creel knows it’s one of her dumbest ideas ever. Creel knows she’s not some “fair maiden” who is going to benefit the family by being rescued by a brave knight. She has no dowry. She’s just another mouth to feed, now that her mother is gone, and their hardscrabble farm has been sold to pay the mortgage. Creel’s aunt needs her to marry well for her keep, but Creel has other plans.
The first of those is talking her way out of the dragon’s clutches. In return for keeping yet another annoying knight away from him, the articulate and interesting dragon trades her a pair of shoes. Creel walks her way to freedom, in the King’s City, where through a series of lucky breaks, she lands a job that could help her make her fortune.
But sometimes, a pair of shoes is not just a pair of shoes… they can be what’s beneath an enormous lie, the means for starting a war, and the last possession of someone you loved. These blue slippers are more than anyone would expect them to be.
Though readers at times may grow heartily annoyed with Creel, as she seems almost willfully ignorant and unobservant (yet the “bad guys” are infinitely intelligent?), overall Dragon Slippers is a fun, lighthearted tale of friendship and love, and the power of an awesome pair of shoes.
