Review: Great idea that fell short
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 1, 2011
I loved the concept for this and it started off well enough.  Orin, a 300yr old dragon saves Valencia, a 30yr old African American Bronx native as she escapes from a slave auction run by serpents.  He goes up against the serpent that bought her and takes her under his wing (no pun intended) for protection. The initial interaction was fun and cute, and Orin sounded just yumm.  I liked that even though he was attracted to Valencia, he chose not to act on it as he had brought her to his home for protection, not to be his concubine. When they do act on their mutual attraction weeks later, it is quite hot.  From there though, it goes downhill. The declarations of love come out of left field because we haven't really seen them interact during the weeks that passed.  You end up just not understanding how they got from A (attraction) to B(love) and it is totally eye-roll worthy.  Throughout the book, the dialogue is adolescent and at times, just painful.**SPOILERISH***SPOILERISH***Not really, but kind of.>>>>The main event(Orin's fight with the rival serpent) made no sense whatsoever.  What did Valencia know that the serpent didn't?  The fact that Orin was 'proud' of Valencia for facing down two thousand-pound serpents with nothing more than a branch, and NO PLAN, was beyond ridiculous. Yeah, she was really going to show them. *rolls eyes*>>>>By this point, I was skimming to get to the end. One reviewer said the story was too short.  After the first few chapters, it couldn't end fast enough for me.There were parts of this book that I did like (the beginning mostly).  It could have been so much better with proper editing (typos and missing words galore), better dialogue and a storyline that worked, but by the end of it I was just pissed I had spent $3.99.