Review: Fast, Fun Read!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 23, 2013
I still feel like a newbie when it comes to PNR, and I'm still trying to find tropes and authors that work for me.  One trope that I haven't liked in the past is the destined mate trope, mainly because it takes some of the suspense out the romance.  The reader knows the couple will be together in the end, and there's really no mystery to the pairing.  In Luck of the Dragon, however, I started wondering what would happen is Alec and Lucy couldn't get their acts together and find a happy medium for their relationship.  Would they actually be stuck together forever not trusting each other?  While we do get a HEA, I was worried for a few chapters!Lucy comes from a family of con-artists.  Her father was sent to jail when she was a child, and her brother seems to be following in his footsteps.  Joey just can't say no to a bet, and worse, he longs to work the hustle.  He falls in with Gino, a dangerous gangster, and lassoes Lucy into helping him steal jewels from Alec Gerald to pay off his gambling debts.  If she doesn't help, Gino makes it painfully obvious that he's going to take the debt out of Joey's hide.  Terrified of losing her brother, Lucy jumps to it and agrees to help with the heist.What Lucy and Joey doesn't know is that Alec is a dragon.  He's a very old dragon, and a very powerful dragon.  He's just opened a new casino in Vegas, and his gem collection is going to be the center piece of his new endeavor.  He's retained Lucy to appraise and catalog his collection, unaware that Lucy's up to her neck in trouble.  When they meet, Alec is convinced that Lucy is destined to be his mate, much to the dismay of his followers.  The dragons don't think highly of humans, and many of them have a problem accepting one as their leader's mate.  Once Alec discovers that Lucy was only interested in stealing from him, even he begins to doubt his own judgment, and he despairs at losing his dragon form without his mate.I really liked this story, and I think I went into thinking that I wouldn't.  I'm not sure why, because I was hooked on the story and the characters right away.  I liked Lucy - well, I liked her when she wasn't trying to steal from Alec.  I just wanted to shake her and tell her to wake up and stop trying to keep her brother out of jail.  Joey is a selfish, jerk of a brother, who knows how best to manipulate Lucy.  He cares only about himself, and expects her to extract him from every sticky situation he finds himself in.  I could not stand this guy, and was kind of hoping one of the dragons would eat him.  Sorry, Joey, but you are a pin-head!Alec made the story for me.  How could he not?  He's a freaking dragon!  He also knows how to woo a lady.  After realizing that Lucy is his mate, he goes into Romeo mode, and wow, he would have won me over about midway through breakfast.  This guy is a charmer, and he's a gabillionaire to boot!  Lucy is instantly suspicious of his motives, mainly because hers are less than pure, and because she's be raised to not trust anybody.  She has spent most of her adult life trying to keep her brother out of prison, and keeping the taint of criminal activity away from her.  While her intent to steal from Alec irritated me, especially after she started developing feelings for him, I did understand why she would feel compelled to go along with Joey and Gino's schemes, at least at the beginning of the book.  About halfway through, I found her behavior inexcusable.  This did knock down the enjoyment factor a bit.If Luck of the Dragon is an indication of how dragons live, I need to find one for myself.  Or just wait until the next book in this series to hit store shelves, so I can live vicariously through Susannah Scott's characters.Grade:  B+