Never Dare a Dragon

July 15, 2017
A paranormal romance in which two beings born of fire--a dragon shifter and a phoenix shifter--battle a band of criminals and a long-distance relationship.Kristine Scott is a firefighter based out of Hell's Kitchen. She's also a dragon. When she meets fellow firefighter Jayce Fierro at his brother's funeral, they hit it off, though Kristine finds it odd that Jayce seems to be in such good spirits. But Jayce is hiding a secret of his own: he and his family are phoenix shifters. His brother will rise from the ashes, reincarnated in a new form. Despite being two different kinds of supernatural beings, Kristine and Jayce have a bigger obstacle with Kristine being from New York and Jayce from Boston, cities with a deep rivalry. Months pass, and Kristine is still on Jayce's mind. Determined to shake his interest, he figures a trip to New York is in order. He'll either woo Kristine or crash and burn. The most obvious conflict of the romance is that Jayce and Kristine are hiding their true natures, but that fact is easily overcome and revealed, anticlimactically, within a matter of pages. Instead, the primary obstacle turns out to be the fact that Kristine's mother has been kidnapped by someone who wants Kristine to do him "a favor only you can do." Jayce gets involved, and the two wind up in one dangerous situation after another. The book would have worked better with Jayce and Kristine warring with their hidden abilities and deciding whether or not to confess them to each other. However, the plot quickly becomes clunky and convoluted with an ever growing clan of phoenix shifters, dragon paternity secrets, over-the-top villains, and even Mother Nature. It reads as 10 pounds of details in a five-pound bag despite the smart, capable, and unique main characters. Inventive but lacks a clear direction.

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