As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn’t fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.
Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ–a vertical metropolis … metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit–Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test.
He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons…
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Julius is a failure as a dragon, so his mother sealed in human form, and dumped in a city where there’s a bounty on dragons. He hires a young mage named Marci to assist him, but she has problems of her own.
I love when SciFi and fantasy merge and it worked great here! The world building was really well done! My favorite aspect was the dragons and their culture. They’re truly cutthroat and highly magical.
Julius is a great protagonist! He’s spent his life bending to his family and feeling like a weak failure, since he’s a nice dragon. He really grew and not only got tougher, but accepted himself. Marci’s been through a lot recently, but she’s smart and tough. Both of the main characters are awkward, so that made the romance cute. (She also doesn’t know he’s a dragon.)
This is actually a review of the whole series of 5 books. I loved the whole series. My husband is now enjoying them too. He is constantly telling me what is going on and trying to get me to spill the beans on what is going to happen next. There is a lot going on. I really enjoyed them all and we have both laughed out loud many times. I thought it was going to be more juvenile from the cover art, (yes, I know, don’t judge a book by its cover) but was pleasantly surprised.
I love the Heartstrikers!
Enjoyed this one and will pick up the next one in the series. This is a great mash-up of post-apocalyptic magic that hits it right.
Loved this book and the series.
I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. 🙂
Want to find out what a nice dragon is? Author Rachel Aaron will introduce you to Julius, a nice dragon. He’s also the smallest of the Heartstriker clan of dragons, the most numerous of Earth’s clans of dragons. He’s been very careful to keep his head down and to hide in his room at every opportunity; this keeps him from crossing any of his relatives, especially his mother, the eminent Bethesda.This is a character driven book and we get to meet a whole bunch of characters, all of whom are very interesting. We meet Marci, a thaumaturgical mage who is running from the Las Vegas mob because she and her father stole a very beautiful glass ball lined with gold. We meet Ian from Bethesda’s previous clutch, Julius’ older brother. We meet scions of the another clan. And we meet Bob, one of the oldest of Bethesda’s surviving children who happens to be one of the only three seers in our world. Obviously, Julius is not very popular with his mother, and in this book she comes down on him like a ton of bricks and we get to find out what happens next. It’s a very entertaining read. I recommend it.
I loved this entire series! I listened to it all on audio and was bummed when it ended. Fantastic world-building and some really great twists and turns kept me up late at night, quite a bit! A total must read/listen! And who doesn’t love a good dragon shifter book, right?
Probably my favorite take on dragons. I love the star of this series and the wonderfully imaginative world created for the series. If you’ve not read this series yet you’re in for a true treat.
I bought so many Kindle copies of the first three books in this series for presents one Christmas Eve, Amazon froze my account for fraud!
I liked it and got hooked on the rest of the series
Loved this series! Unique.
There are so many great elements to this book. Aaron is an excellent writer with a strong understanding of the craft. This is a long read, but that’s great because it has allowed Aaron to go deep with her world building. And despite it being a complex, twisting story it was easy to read. The story takes places in Detroit, but not the sort of Detroit you’d be expecting. This is the Detroit left over from bad magical happenings, with the city awash with power players, and none so prominent than the dragon shifters. There is not enough good I can say about her characters. I loved her leading players, Julius and Marci, both complex and lovable. Julius is not the usual alpha dragon shifter I’ve gotten used to reading in paranormal romance genres, but to me that’s what made him so unique and enjoyable. The intrigue and action in the story never lets up right up to the stunning conclusion. If you’re looking for a book with meat and fantastic characters I highly recommend this book
Loved it from page 1!