Dead Sexy Dragon (Dragon Heat #1) by Lolita Lopez

Synopsis:
The last thing dragon shifter Stig Wyvern needs is his dead friend’s kid sister showing up on his doorstep. He’s just minutes away from entering a mating phase. Sharing his isolated house with the young woman he’s desperately lusted after for quite some time is a recipe for disaster.

But Cora Cardenas has nowhere else to go. She’s in deep trouble with some really nasty people and Stig is the only one who can protect her. That he’s deliciously sexy and makes her tingle with the simplest of smiles is just a bonus.

Cora quickly realizes Stig is hiding something from her. To make matters worse, she’s plagued with breathtakingly naughty dreams starring a shadowed lover who bears a startling resemblance to her host. And just what the hell is going on down in the basement at night?

Stig needs to get Cora out of his house but his inner beast has other ideas. He’s found his mate and she’s not going anywhere...



Cora is on the run from a bad situation and the only place she can think to hide in is with her dead brother’s marine friend. How is she to know that said friend, Stig (sans the helmet), is about to go into a heat and be turned into a dragon against his will? Of course the two of them sharing a bathroom leads to sexy times, and because this is a novella it happens very quickly.


I’m sorry to say this didn’t work for me. Truly sorry, because my usual gripes are absent. There’s quite a bit world building with a long and complex history that promises to be expanded in the sequels. The main characters are pretty well sketched with dreams and fears of their own even if I had trouble believing an immortal being that keen on joining a war after another. Due to the length of it, the story is rushed but it remains logical and believable within its world’s rules.

No, this time it was the erotica part of the book that failed me. More accurately, the erotica vocabulary:

< highlight for spoiler>
core,
cum,
cunt,
folds,
mound,
pussy,
(honeyed) sex,
tummy
</spoiler>

…yeah, no. Because I couldn’t lean on the insta-lust crutch, I didn’t buy the insta-love angle either. I simply couldn’t enjoy roadrunner fast the romance. Too much of a stretch even for my active imagination.

It’s too bad, because had the smut adjectives and nouns been less repulsive to me, I’d have wanted to read more about the world Lopez has created.



I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

Review: Cardinal’s Blades by Pierre Pevel (Les Lames du Cardinal 01)

Book info:
Form: odf, e-book
Genre: Historical fantasy
Target audience: YA and adults who like such stories

Synopsis: 

Imagine France of Louis XIII as described by Alexandre Dumas – a land of flashing blades, swishing caps, duels, beauties and intrigues- but with real dragons, wyverns, drac thugs and dragonnets.

After a five year hiatus Cardinal Richelieu summons ex-captain La Fargue. Previously one of his most trusted tools, now  La Fargue is an ageing, embittered and disillusioned man, not especially keen to return to Richelieu’s service. Our Cardinal blackmails and threatens him because he needs La Fargue and his small unit of the best mercenaries in France, formerly known as Cardinal’s Blades, to return to service.

They have to stop the Spanish order of Black Claw. The Black Claw, consisting of half-dragon royalty and their descendants, wants to establish a kind of outpost in Paris and slowly gain the upper hand over the Kingdom. They are very secretive and cautious and officially France cannot afford a new enemy so the mission of the Blades might prove far more complex than it seems at first glance. Still La Fargue cannot fail – the life of his only daughter depends on his efforts. He gets mixed into the double and the triple game between Richelieu and vicomtesse de Malicorne, the head of the Black Claw residing in Paris. Will he be able to save his daughter and France from the evil dragons?

What I liked:

The mere idea of seventeen century Paris with Richelieu and musketeers appealed to me very much – it was fresh and original. Let me also add that the author built the fictional world with utmost care, describing the Parisian streets in a very vivid way and making me wish for a dragonnet pet instantly. The action’s pretty frenetic and if you like such books you will be more than satisfied – you’ve got swordfights a-plenty, rooftop battles and lots of visits to inns which end in a brawl, point-blank shootings and galloping horses.

I also liked the fact that, unlike maudlin heroines of Mr. Dumas, here women played an active role, fighting, plotting and thinking independently; although I didn’t see them as often as I wished I would, I was more or less satisfied with their performance.

Let me also add that the last scene was very promising - something which might incline me to read the second part of the series as well. Pével certainly knows how to throw in a dramatic revelation right at the end.

What I didn’t like:

I know it is a swashbuckling novel with the action being its raison d'etre but I sorely missed character building here, especially that there were some really promising heroes: like Saint-Lucq, or Agnes, the intrepid baroness or vicomtesse de Malicorne, a charmingly dangerous dragon in a skin of a beautiful woman.

Instead you get something like an extensive collection of character clichés -  a battle hardened captain with a secret; a dashing womanizer; a good humoured, hard drinking old soldier; a brooding half-breed assassin; a prodigal Spanish swordsman; a strong-willed token female thrown in for good measure so you don't drown in all this testosterone. The action jumps too abruptly from character to character so the readers lack time to bond with any of them. After a while they all seem two-dimensional, with an emphasis on cruelty and selfishness.

What’s more, in my humble opinion the author overused the ‘survival from death’ plot device, employing it so many times that it lost all its potential shocking value, making most of the fighting scenes downright silly after a while (when you are practically sure nobody will die, what's the point?).

Finally let me tell you that the English translator of this novel didn’t make a good job of it. There are too many mistakes - dangling participles litter every page, and pronouns referring to the wrong nouns can be found in almost every paragraph. I wasn’t impressed.

Overall if you like a plot that makes sense and relatable (or even distinguishable) characters, this is not a book for you. As far as I remember even in The Three Musketeers there was more characterization and depth.

Final verdict: 

I love sentient dragons in fiction - if I loved them a little bit less I would assess this novel much harsher. When it comes to the world building it really wasn’t bad but the lack of proper characterization spoiled it for me. I might pick the next part of the series to check whether it gets any better but I am not sure with what result.