The Reading Spot

Forgot to add this to my June list. But how do you count this? it is a collection of 6 novellas I guess it would just count as one really long book. I posted about this book a while ago for Ms Dafoe and wonderfully enough I ended up winning a copy, yay!





The novellas in this collection are:
The Dragon's Daughter
Dragon's Heir
Dragon's Desire
Dravidian
The Dragon Prince
Double Dragon


Djarera. The dragon planet. A world of passion and politics where the Southerlins, hereditary rulers of the dragon kingdom, struggle to maintain peace among the hot-blooded clans…
For decades, the two most powerful dragon clans have been at each other’s throats over one very important question: who will get to marry the Dragon Queen’s daughter? Determined to end their feuding, Melgara sends the two young princes to Earth where her daughter has grown up in hiding, ignorant of who she is.
But when two sexy, shapeshifting dragons start vying for her affections, Lara Southerlin finds herself in a wholly unexpected predicament. On the one hand there’s Darrek Hausther, dangerous and dominant and darkly handsome. On the other, there’s the red-headed Rand Aurorea, strong and sweet-tempered and willing to defend her to the death. The one who wins Lara’s heart will be heir to the throne -- while the other will be banished forever.
Or will he? With the appearance of the charismatic rebel Zendar, life becomes even more complicated. And when Melgara herself goes unexpectedly into khef, the dragon mating frenzy, a new contender for the throne arises, threatening the survival of all four clans.

This first four novellas are about Lara, the Queen's Daughter and the last two are about Lara's brother. I will say that if you do not like mm scenes then do not get this book, the family seems to have a knack of getting men to sleep with men.
I have a hard time saying anything else about the storyline because if I talk about anything other than the first story, it givesaway what happens in the first story. The book starts out with two dragon shifter men from rival Djarera families, Derrek and Hausther, going to Earth to try to claim Lara. Whoever wins her will be the Consort to the next ruler of their people.

The last two stories are about Lara's brother, Kevan. Since these are kind of separate and happen like 18 years after the first four, I can tell you how these start. Kevan knows that he is different than his mother expects. Now that he is of age, he is expected to pick a wife and have an heir. But he has a problem, he does not like girls, he wants a man of his own. So to get away from the pressure he goes to Earth and ends up meeting Cal at a club who he is instantly attracted to (who also looks just like him, is this a case of narcisism?). But now what is he going to do, he is still expected to produce an heir. Are you seeing where this is going with the identical not-twin thing?

My biggest issue with this book was how easily the Earthlings (? for lack of a better word) accepted the shifters. They shifted to dragons in front of her and she accepted that way too easily. I thought it was ironic how it ended with that group. Then later with Lara's brother when he shifted in front of his Earthling, it was accepted awfully quickly.
My only other issue was the love at first sight thing. Which with them all being short stories originally separate, I know that it moves the story along quicker to the love scenes and the rest of the story if they fall in love on sight, but that has never been a favorite theme of mine because I like watching the relationship develop to love. Lust at first sight I can understand, but love at first sight, I do not.

I enjoyed the stories, even with my issues and the love scenes were very, very hot. This was a good collection. Six stories about 400 pages for a good price. Here is the Changeling Press site for it if you are interested.