Sunday 27 September 2015

Dragon King: A Dark Kings Novella by Donna Grant - Review


While I was off on holiday a few weeks back I purchased this novella only to find it wouldn’t update to my Kindle until I actually got home.  Not the Novella’s fault of course, nor the Kindle’s just my own for having a really old one that wouldn’t log on to any other internet provider than my own.

Anyway, needless to say I was viewing this read with great anticipation, this being the first read focused solely on Dragons.  The thought of them quite intrigued me after having my fill of vamps and werewolves, shifters and demons.

Unfortunately for me, I was in for a bit of a disappointment.  Oh, the premise held promise and the Dragons were fine.  They seemed sufficiently regal and dangerous, brooding and, of course, gorgeously handsome.  There was just something a little lacking in the telling.

The heroine, Grace, after suffering writers block for months, suddenly finding her nirvana on the Dragon’s mountain spits out page after page of perfect prose which just seemed to me to be a little unbelievable.  I know it’s a story about magical creatures so you might just say, “So, it’s magic!”  Well no, because she’s human.  Dragons are magic, humans are not.  I know the story goes that Robert James Waller apparently wrote ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ in two weeks which is a pretty amazing feat, but a book in two days?  Yeah, just not buying it.

And then for Arian, the Dragon King in question, to go from suspicion to desire to love all without real transition smacked – dear I say it - of author manipulation rather than being character driven.

This was, of course, a novella, so the author had to cram a whole lot of feeling into a small amount of words.  She just didn’t hit the mark for me.  I have, however, read some authors who are amazing when given the freedom of a full length novel who find the restrictions of a book only 30,000 words long a little difficult and aren’t performing at their best.  So what I’m saying is that the writing wasn’t so awful that I won’t give this author the chance to wow me with a further full length story about the Dragon Kings in her series (and there is a shit ton to choose from - Donna Grant seems to be as prolific with the prose as Grace it would seem), because I actually quite liked the idea of them  - and that they were Scottish and had a sexy accent (I know, call me shallow).

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Sydney Whyte

Rating Chart
«……………….A no goer
««……………Alright, but not a re-read
«««………..Liked it
««««…….Loved it

«««««Amaze-balls – ticks all the boxes!!!

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