Half-human and half-wyr, Pia Giovanni spent her life keeping a low profile among the wyrkind and avoiding the continuing conflict between them and their dark Fae enemies. But after being blackmailed into stealing a coin from the hoard of a dragon, Pia finds herself targeted by one of the most powerful-and passionate-of the Elder races.
Review:
I admit it. Based on reviews and my Twitter stream I had insanely high expectations for this book. Some were met, some weren't.
Pia, a half human - half wry, is blackmailed into stealing from Dragos, a powerful dragon shifter. Although she goes through with the act, she does it in a way that grabs Dragos's attention and garners her a little sympathy from a man that doesn't dole out sympathy very often.
Dragos is used to getting his own way so when he tracks down Pia he's in for a surprise when she doesn't cater to his every whim and makes him say please after asking (aka - ordering) her to do something.
OK guys you know the drill….you know what's going to happen. They will be attracted to each other, they will fight the attraction, they will give in and have steamy sex. They will fight the big bad and hopefully get their HEA.
I didn't feel like Dragon Bound broke any new ground with this genre. In fact this book reminded me so much of Nalini Singh's Guild Hunter series, I half expected Dragos & Raphael to be business partners or have Elena walk in to talk to Pia at some point and have a chat about their alpha males. There was even a friendship with Pia and Dragos's sentinel Graydon that was a dead ringer for Elena and Illium's friendship.
I just read The Guild Hunter series not too long ago so maybe that's why the comparison seemed so fresh to me.
Despite this I really enjoyed and believed in Dragos and Pia. They make a fabulous couple full of tension and love. Dragos is full on alpha male and bossy but mostly because he doesn't know any other way. If he upsets Pia he has no problem apologizing or asking what he did wrong so he can fix it. Awww - loved him. Pia is smart, adaptive and funny. She gets a little too wishy washy at times but I still liked her. Dragon Bound also features a great friendship between two women!! Yay - that is shockingly rare these days.
I loved the new world Harrison created. It's filled with all types of shifters, faeries, and elves and a few other things I'll leave you to discover.
It didn't blow me away as much as it seemed to do for everyone else but it was a lot of fun and I'll be reading the next installment which features Tricks - Dragos former PR rep.
Rating: 3 out of 4 Exciting world building with a great romance - I just felt a case of deja vu while reading it. Any fan of PNR/UF should enjoy it.
Author's website: Thea Harrison
Buy the book! Dragon Bound (A Novel of the Elder Races)
Pre-order book 2! Storm's Heart (A Novel of the Elder Races)
I found your review amusing. Sometimes a book recently read does influence other reads.
ReplyDeleteI've been hearing about this one a lot, too, over the past few days or so, but - while I enjoyed Angels' Blood - it wasn't by any means my ALL-TIME FAVOURITE PNR ... do I even have one of those?! :P Yeah, after a while they all start to blend together, but some things do stick with you ... and I must admit that Raphael was a little too controlling for my liking, while Elena was a little too not-bothered by this, especially for someone portrayed to be such a strong, independent woman ... so I'll definitely be keeping your review in mind if I ever get off my recent Young Adult Kick.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Happy Thursday!! (",)
@Midnyte Reader I do think I would have enjoyed it more if hadn't just read the otehr series. Sometimes within a genre there is too much repetition.
ReplyDelete@Bella I liked this one a little more actually but yeah the tough guys can be overbearing. I will say that Dragos really tried not to be though. It just felt repetitive but it's really good if that's what you enjoy.
I might read this book but totally understand when books all sound the same
ReplyDelete@Julie - I think you'll like it!
ReplyDeleteI seriously need this book, I keep hearing great things :D
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I have seriously high expectations for this one too after reading a couple of reviews for it. I'm glad to read your review so it bring the story to level for me.
ReplyDeleteA dragon shifter with a PR rep. Wow!
Sigh, thank you blogger for stealing stuff.
ReplyDeleteOk..awesome..need the book
Me again!! (Bella :D) Anyway, I'd forgotten about your review, so for some reason went into this book expecting a reclusive hide-in-my-cave, sleep-on-my-treasure kind of dragon (*shrug* I have a really bad memory :P), so you can imagine my surprise when I met Dragos, Raphael's brother-from-another-mother!! HEH. I loved him, though, and his relationship with Pia totally worked for me, too. :)
ReplyDeleteI read this right after the Guild Hunter series and the similarities took some of the enjoyment out of it for me but I still really liked it. Yeah - he's no hide in a cave fire breathing dragon lol
ReplyDelete