Heart of the Dragon by Gena Showalter

I was finding the lack of interesting plot lines in adult novels growing increasingly frustrating. Yes, okay, magnetic attraction, instant chemistry, blah blah blah... isn't that what adults harp on Young Adult book for? Hypocrites... but the nature of hypocritical adults aside, this was great. The story line was fun and for once created a whole world that I wanted to jump into. I understand there is a whole series in this world, and I am now in possession of the second book, and can't wait to jump in!

I would say my only quandary with this book is the main character. Honestly, I'm not a fan of red-heads, and by red-heads I mean gingers. The author clearly describes her as one, and that just flat out bothers me. I know, I'm a terrible person, but physical attraction is a real thing people. The male protagonist sees her as this angelic being who is so beautiful, and yet no one else does. Is it true love? Perhaps. Maybe. But here's the thing, they have that magnetic attraction I mentioned earlier, and being a woman of the real world, I know that instant attractions almost always have to do with physical appearance. Okay, so she has these magnificent eyes, but eyes aren't the entire face and body. Maybe I'm being mean, and perhaps a but gingist (racist against gingers), but that bothered me. Also, her obsession with unhealthy foods. She complains about being fat, but then has all this junk food lying around! Come on girl, have some restraint!

But other than having me reservations about the female lead, I think it was a really dun story line, and was up far too late into the night reading it, and finished it this morning. Practically a one-day book, and with the attention span I've been having lately it really has to be good to hold me for that long. 

So you may ask, "If it's so great, why isn't it on your favorites shelf?" Well dear reader, I'll tell you why: The story took too long to get going. It was fun, but the main plot took too long to fall into place. That, and while I thought it was really fun, quite a few scenes bored me. If not for the super hot main character Darius, I probably never would have finished the book. The whole searching for her brother thing (no that's not a spoiler it tells you that in the first chapter) bored the hell out of me. And I skipped all the chapters from her brother's point of view. I'll never understand these romance writers' need to have a sub-romance going on, but I'll tell you, they're never as interesting as the main one, and often don't lend anything to the plot. I probably skipped a total of thirty or forty chapters of the story and it didn't take away anything. Does that tell you anything?

So all in all a good book, and I hope the rest of the series is just as good, if not a little better!

Four Stars

Rosalie

Heart of the Dragon on Goodreads