I found this book on NetGalley and was immediately making grabby hands because it combines dragons, which I like, and a gay romance PLUS inter-kingdom politics and that moved the reading GPS firmly into 100% O RLY GIVE IT TO ME NOW territory.

I was reading gay dragon shifter fantasy and I really wanted to like it.

I mean, look at the summary:

War is brewing between the Greenlands and the Summer Kingdom, despite the efforts of Lord Aidan and Prince Varion, who have been meeting in secret in an attempt to maintain peace. When war proves inevitable, Aidan offers Varion asylum, loathe to see the man he’s come to care about become his enemy.

But Varion refuses, sacrificing safety and his own desires to stay in the Summer Kingdom in order to protect his little brother from their ruthless father. The two men instead declare a blood oath to always protect each other, an oath that will see them through war, transformation, and a deadly curse…

There’s even a Summer Kingdom! I mean, game ON, right?

Alas, no.

The book suffered from two main problems. Many problems stem from these two, and I do mean many, but there are only two sources. One: Varion is a complete and total turdbucket. I think it can be scientifically proven that his entire character is made from a bucket full of turds. He’s unkind and inconsiderate of Aidan (to say the least) (Oh, my God, it’s so bad), and he waffles back and forth between courses of action in incredibly wide degrees like he’s playing hokey pokey with himself for most of the book. He makes a decision then undoes it in the next chapter for limp noodley reasons, then makes the same decision again, only to reverse again in the next chapter. ARGH.

Two: not enough dragons. A LOT of the ways in which Varion stunk up this book for me could have been mitigated by more dragons, more dragoning, more actual appearances of dragons. But no. I had wishy washy Varion hokey pokeying himself and driving me into teeth-clenching rage.

There was so much potential here, too. Two warring princes are in love with each other, and meet in secret to attempt to find peace between their two kingdoms before they have to go to outright battle with one another? Wow! AND DRAGONS.

But between Varion the Variable Turdbucket and the odd turns in the writing and plot, this was a big disappointment. There’s a good portion of crazysauce, though, so of course I finished it. Also I was there to see some dragons and I wasn’t leaving until the dragonation happened.

Once I decided that rational narrative was not as important as dragons, I kept reading, but because this story went so quickly from OK to WTF territory I got a little dizzy and immediately started sharing my reading process with RedHeadedGirl, Elyse, Amanda and Carrie. You’ll see our conversation in italics interspersed within this review, like this:

Sarah:  I am reading gay dragon romance.

Plus I’ll be inserting pictures of dragons because everyone needs more dragons, and this book especially needed more.

So, as we covered above, the prices of two warring kingdoms are in love and trying to minimize bloodshed when they eventually battle each other. One prince, Aidan, goes home to his dad and is all, I’m totes in love with that other prince.

And his dad is like, “Yeah I get it. I was in love with a prince back in the day and he wasn’t supposed to inherit but then he did so we couldn’t be together. So he gave me his sister’s hand in marriage so I could see my beloved’s eyes when I looked at her.”

WHAT.

Oh, and that prince’s people are half dragon or something. Or some of them are? It’s really unclear. Basically Varion’s father wants to exterminate them because they are descended from some woman mating with a dragon. So because she was a slut they must all die. The whole war between kingdoms is based on Varion’s father’s desire to commit dragon descendant genocide. And slut shaming prejudiced genocide aside, he is generally known to be a warmongering war monger king because of course he is. And this is all explained in the first chapter or two. (But no dragoning.)

Sarah: SO MUCH INFO DUMP JESUS ON A DRAGON.

RedHeadedGirl: Man, I have the perfect gif for how I feel and I can’t find it

Sarah: Warmongering king has many wives. One has hair the color of flame and ebony skin. HER TEMPER MATCHES HER HAIR. BECAUSE IT IS THE LAW.

RedHeadedGirl: FOUND IT!

So Warmongering King’s son, Varion, and Aidan, son of the king who is married to his former lover’s sister, can’t work out a peace deal but they can kiss each other, and then they go home.

And of course Prince Varion of Warmongering King has to go back out and rob a dragon cemetery. As you do.

But first his dad stabs him in the neck with the tip of a sword because he’s mildly peeved at his son. Dude. Just leave. Go find Aidan and GTFO.

And now we go to see Aidan, whose life is really much better than Varion’s. No wonder he offered Varion asylum. His kingdom is very cushy. I mean, there is this sentence:

“Cobbled streets awaited Aidan’s boots as he jumped down from his horse…”

Even the streets want this prince’s feet. This guy is terrific.

 

So Aidan’s dad, the king who loved another king, is sickly and old. His former love has dementia and wants to see his former love one last time, but neither man can travel. Aidan says he’ll go find the ancient dragon shifting knowledge so he can turn into a dragon and fly his dad to the neighboring kingdom (which somehow isn’t affected by the war all that much).

So both parties meet in the dragon cemetery, where there’s a battle. Varion has been forced to bring his younger brother with him, and the brother wants to kill everyone and everything to please their father, and of course any person who is that inconsistent and narcissistic will never truly be pleased so both dudes are fighting a losing battle. Plus, Varion swore to his dying mother that he’d protect his brother from their father’s cruelty, so he can’t abandon him, even when he attempts murder over and over. Seriously, deathbed promises to dying parents always screw everything up. If she was really all that worried about her kids, she’d have told Varion to take his brother and run and hide. Telling one young person to protect a much younger person in a dangerous dysfunctional house is just deathbed enabling and deathbed passing the buck. But hey, promises are promises.

Varion and Aidan are there, trying not to fight each other, which mean Varion fights  off his younger brother, who wants his father’s attention and plans to get it by killing everyone. Aidan gets knocked out, and Varion won’t let his brother near him.

Then there’s this dialogue which made no sense to me:

“I’ll die before I let you harm a hair on his head.”

“Fine. Be that as it may.”

 

Which is an odd use of the phrase. But okay. I’m still with the story. Because dragons.

Aidan wakes up and he and Varion find a mysterious glowing woman in the depths of a crypt and she tells them the magical steps to turning into a dragon. Think of it as Original Recipe Dragon, and she’s the Colonel, keeper of the secret formula. Then she poofs out of there, and Varion’s brother comes in, carrying someone’s head.

Aidan had been traveling with a magician/manservant/nanny type dude who had helped raise him, and who somehow appeared to be ageless though Aidan was pretty sure he was the same age as Aidan’s father. Anyway, the brother takes the mage dude hostage, and said mage dude surrenders peacefully. But the brother isn’t satisfied by that surrender nonsense and decapitates the dude while said dude is kneeling at his feet.

You’d think this would be the point where Varion would say, “Ok, I’m out. Nothing can be done to fix this situation and you’re a war crime-committing murderer and I have Original Recipe Dragon Knowledge, so, yeah, we’re done.”

But no. Varion is horrified but goes along with his brother back to their father because he’s more than a little scared of his brother AND he promised his mom he’d protect the murderer.

Meanwhile, Aidan digs a grave with his fingers, then heads home.

Sarah:  Someone better turn into a dragon

RedHeadedGirl: That helps pretty much any book

Varion and his brother get home, and their father is not pleased because the spy who traveled with their party has already informed him that Varion is gay, he’s in love with Aidan, he’s been trying to protect the other kingdom as much as possible, and has basically betrayed all of their dear father’s sociopathic goals. Varion gets thrown in jail – which is kind of a big thing to do to a crown prince but okay- and finds himself in a cell across the hall from a Dragonkin man.

These are the people who live in Aidan’s kingdom, the people who are descended from a woman who mated with a dragon, and are the focus of Varion’s dad’s ire.

The man has scales covering part of his body and ears like dragonwings, and is in great danger.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR ASSAULT AND RAPE, K?

 

 

 

 

Varion is sitting there in jail, taking stupid taunts from his brother and mocking from the guards, and throwing a pity party with his belly button lint.

“Theoretically, he could turn into a dragon and leave.”

SO DO IT. DUDE. Just dragonate and transform and we can both get out of here!

But then….

Sarah: YOU GUYS. THIS BOOK JUST GOT INCREDIBLE.

How, you ask?

PLOT TWIST.

The dragon folk men die after they ejaculate.

RHG: Wha

Carrie: WHAT

Sarah: That seems to be a problem.

Varion learns from his fellow prisoner that if dragon men are captured by his father’s people, the dragon men are raped to see if ejaculating will kill them — which it does.

Which set up a whole line of Waitaminute dominoes in my brain that toppled one after another. First, the worldbuilding presumes a man being raped automatically ejaculates. Second, both of these men can, I presume, transform into dragons and get the heck out of there, but neither does, for no apparent reason. Third, presented with evidence of his father’s ample list of war crimes, Varion is still not sure what to do with himself.

I was so confused and bothered by the casual mention of rape and bad science.

So Varion is sentenced to death because he didn’t kill Aidan when he had the chance.

His brother, who executed Aidan’s mage-buddy after said mage-buddy surrendered, he’s the best prince in the whole wide world and his father loves him best, so of course he comes to taunt Varion.

Sarah: Yet STILL NO ONE IS A DRAGON DAMMIT.

 

So at this point I’ve pieced together a few pieces of dragon information from this book.

• If you transform into a dragon because you’ve been given the secret knowledge of transforming by some glowing lady in a crypt, you become Dragonfolk.
• Who beteedubs are not described as different in any significant way until 65% in, and then there’s a whole lot of info about scales and ears.
• An entire kingdom wants to kill them all, but there’s no explanation of why except their great-great-great-great-great-great-etc-grandmother got busy with a dragon.
• And honestly the humans in this universe are so ridiculous I can’t blame her.
• Because dragon.

And one more thing:

• Once you become one of the Dragonfolk, if you’re a dude, you die when you jizz.

Sarah:  So no gay Dragonfolk because every sperm is sacred.

RHG: ….no one has night emissions?

Meanwhile, back at the Not-Warmongering Kingdom, Aidan wants to turn into a dragon to save Varion. And Varion could turn into a dragon and bust his own ass out of jail.

But then they’d die a big death after the little death if they shifted to dragon then shifted back. So now I know why they didn’t just Dragon the hell out of there.

This created a very important conundrum.

Elyse: I’d rather be able to turn into a dragon than orgasm tbh. I mean orgasms are great but DRAGON. Also this is the best “Would you rather…” question.

Sarah: So the nobles are planning a mock trial so they can focus all the hate on Varion. And in real life, Hubby has picked orgasms over dragon. I am baffled.

RHG: Your husband is WEIRD

Elyse: So does mine.

RHG: DUDES.

WHY.

Elyse: Dudes. SMH

Varion’s brother, while taunting him, reveals that the people are planning a revolt against the nobles of the Summer people because they are starving (the people – not the nobles. They’re fine and have time to pin all the kingdom’s wrongs on Varion so his execution will fix everything. Where these nobles were at any other point in this story, I have no idea).

Back at the other kingdom, Aidan’s father now has a chair with wheels that the servants have devised for him, and is slowly fading, his only wish to see his long lost love. His wife’s eyes are no longer getting the job done.

So Aidan is like, enough I’m turning into a dragon. I know how, because mystical woman in a cave told me right before my lover’s brother committed a war crime and executed my mage.

(I think, much like watery tarts with swords as the foundation of a system of government, taking shape shifting advice from a phantasm in an underground cavern may not be the best possible employment of pseudo-medical advice.)

Aidan’s parents are all, ok! Dragon shifting time!

And I am all, OK DRAGON SHIFTING TIME.

And his parents say, what do you need?

And Aidan says: “I’LL NEED SOMEBODY TO SING AND PLAY THE HARP.”

Elyse: I don’t get it. Why not turn into a dragon? You could fly…set shit on fire…eat mean people…. WAIT WHUT.

Sarah: And also someone needs to light the candles. I am cry laughing. Who knew there was such pomp and circumstance?

Sarah: And now Aidan a dragon. He is blue.

Elyse: Like his balls

Sarah: Finally someone is a goddam dragon already

RHG: How far are you in?

Sarah: That’s what he said! 

           77%. That’s a LONG TIME to wait for DRAGONS.

RHG: WHO DIE WHEN THEY JIZZ

Sarah: Varion is being hung and here comes Dragonaidan

RHG: DRAIDAN

Aidan busts Varion out of there just in time, and suddenly a red dragon appears and attacks them. Oh, crap, it’s Varion’s brother! How he had the knowledge to change I do not know. He wasn’t in the room with the crypt goddess who gave them the secret.

But Draidan kills Varion’s brother despite Varion being him not to — this after three separate scenes in three separate chapters of Varion saying he was giving up on saving his brother, he’s begging the Draidan who just saved his sorry ass not to kill his brother, while said brother is trying to kill them both.

Draidan is like, oh, fuck this. He kills Varion’s brother, and the brother crash lands in dragon form and slits his father’s throat with his last breath. Varion begs Aidan to take him back to his now dead brother and father — both of whom betrayed him and were actively trying to kill him. Draidan is like fuck no and flies away.

Problem solved.

Except for the jizzdeath.

And really, Varion is no great prize, here. Why Draidan wants to waste his last jizz of his life on this guy is beyond me.

Once back at home, Aidan transforms back to human but he has scales on various parts of his body, and his ears are tiny dragon wings. Varion observes all this and realizes that “to thrust his cock inside the man he loved would mean Aidan’s death.”

Redheadedgirl: wait

Sarah:  Why does being on the bottom equal automatic jizzdeath?

RHG: right

Sarah: Is there some instajiz reflex?

Elyse: Maybe he’s like really good at hitting the prostate?

Sarah: Maybe? Dragon jizzskillz?

Carrie: I would still rather turn into a dragon…but that assumes my sex drive would be lower. I mean, it would be for that species right? RIGHT? I mean otherwise you’d live in a state of constant miserable sexual frustration and even as a dragon that would suck. Maybe that’s why they are so craaanky

So Varion, that useless wad of wallpaper paste, decides he should leave because Aidan has cursed himself and if they knock boots Aidan will die the jizzdeath. He doesn’t even wait until Aidan wakes up to thank him for saving his life.

Varion is a total waste of jizz.

Aidan wakes up and his mom tells him that Varion’s gone and also he’s a spoiled idiot, and Aidan is all, no, I killed his brother so he hates me now.

But wait! Varion is going to try to find a way to lift the jizz curse!

Elyse: What if he got a vasectomy? Would that circumvent jizzdeath?

Sarah: Not modern enough medical care in this world I think. This is the kind of world where there’s dragons but everyone rides horses around the place. 

So Draidan flies his sick dad to see his sick former love and leaves him at the king’s chambers, where they are probably have wheezy sexxytimes. Aidan goes to the library to read up on dragon curse, and there’s Varion. Aidan has spine enough (he is a dragon after all) to ask what Varion’s doing there, and Varion says, “I’m searching for a cure.”

Aidan says, well, let’s find it together because no one in this story has actual sense.

Sarah: One of them will probably come up with a ribbon campaign for jizzdeath awareness. I hope the ribbon is cream colored.

As expected, the two wheezy kings have died having sex – a different sort of jizzdeath, since neither of them were dragons, and they were both dying already.

Aidan absently picks at his scales while telling Varion that his dad is dead.

Sarah: Which ew and what?

Carrie: ew

Elyse: DONT PICK AT IT

Sarah: So Varian finds a way to lift the curse

Carrie: Well, yeah. I thought he might

Sarah: One who has the jizzdeath and the descendant of the one who cursed them all and of course it was Varian’s ancestor because what the hell else is he around for — have to mate in front of a sacred altar. This is all a big lie to get into Draidan’s scaly pants I bet.

Baby if we don’t do it you’ll be cursed forever and you’ll die if I poke my little dragon into your tight cave!

I made that up BTW. That’s not in the book. 

Aidan wonders aloud if Varion would even be willing: “I’m covered in scales.”

They, of course, have to take a long journey to the jizzdeath altar and it’s hard being hard all the time.  Aidan had to, and I quote, “roll in the bitterly cold snow.”

Meanwhile, “The frigid atmosphere kept his morning needs in check. ”

Sarah: No morning wood I guess?

Carrie: I just spit all over my computer

And then Varion does something that I found so un-heroic, so uncommonly cruel and selfish, I wanted Aidan to transform into a dragon and set him on fire until he was a crusty Varion nub. They’re in the tent on the way to the sacred altar, (which of course is in the cold northern part of the world, and not on a beach. Sacred altars are never in the tropics). Aidan is rolling in the snow to keep himself from dying the jizzdeath, and they’re both sexually frustrated. So what does Varian do?

Varian rubs one out in the tent and tries to hide it from Aidan. Aidan hears all of it.

Sarah: Aidan, this dude is not worth it.

“[Aidan] wondered if dragonfolk suffered from wet dreams. He hoped not. “

Redheadedgirl: I’m glad that was addressed

Aidan says if you can’t accept my dragon self, we shouldn’t boink in front of this altar we just found. Then he takes his clothes off. His peen is blue and scaly!

Varion is afraid because he has to be rogered by blue scaly dragon cock.

But he gets over it in a jiffy, and then Varian is being pounded by blue scaly dragon cock, which I suppose is marginally better than being pounded by the gay color changing dress, but only marginally.

And then Aidan dies! Oh noes.

But then, the goddess from the crypt who told them how to get all dragony appears and Aidan is back to life. They leave because the curse is lifted and Aidan becomes a dragon again except with no threat of jizzdeath so they fly home.

Sarah: “As they pierced the clouds, Varian realized he was getting used to Aidan’s dragon half.” 

It was in his ass, so, yeah.

Varion continues to ponder as they fly: “It had its benefits, being able to fly. And the sex was mind blowing.”

Priorities!

“All in all he realized he wouldn’t have wanted things to turn out any other way.”

The end.

I mean, I suppose that having the jizzdeath plot twist create tension between Aidan and Varion after the matter of their warring kingdoms and Varion’s sociopathic father were all settled sustained the plot for a few more chapters. And certainly jizzdeath is a more novel (har) and underused plot device, though there are a few holes (hur) in the execution of said device.

But the part where Varion masturbates in the tent next to Aidan because the agony is so unbearable, knowing that if Aidan did the same, he’d die? SO NOT COOL. Setting aside the late-story dragonation and the jizzdeath and the bizarre fathers thing and everything else, and it is a LOT TO SET ASIDE HERE, Varion is not worth Aidan’s time. He’s a terrible hero and not at all equal to Aidan.

But the book did leave me with a question I will enjoy posing to strangers at various locations. Being able to turn into a dragon, or being able to have orgasms: which do you choose?