Book Review: The Dragon King

The Dragon King by Candace Blevins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A dragon, wolves, and a princess walk into a cave… Joking aside, buy this book now.  The Dragon King kicks off a new series from the kinky author Ms. Blevins.  This is a paranormal romance with vanilla erotica, so warns Ms. Blevins.  *Looks at Candace* 



I don't think that word *whispers* vanilla means what you think it means.  To be clear, the sex between the two main characters is erotic and as close to vanilla as you can get when a spanking is included and a flogging with a clit vibrator is involved.  But hey, who am I to complain?  Gimme gimme gimme!



Aaron Drake is the powerful dragon shifter from the Kirsten O'Shea series.  This book is all about him and boy is it fantastic.  Once again, I'm hiding under the bed sheet covers to finish reading this book all in one sitting.  (Or laying as it may be.)  Aaron helped teach the Swan Princess, Sophia, when she was a child and into her teens.  He's always loved her and disagreed with how she's being raised.  Whilst he understands the reason behind Sophia's father's madness, he wishes it was different.  When she comes of age, around her early teens, he is no longer allowed to be around her.  When Sophia is about to be married off, decides enough is enough, all hell breaks loose and a war in this world and Summerland may commence because she wants to live her life by her choices.  It is Aaron, the Dragon king to the rescue!

The character development in this book is great.  I've loved Aaron from the get go and this book only makes me love him more.  Sophia is an engaging character too.  What I do find is the females in Ms. Blevins books have the same voice.  Even though they have different jobs and levels of maturity, they tend to all come across the same.  They are kick ass women who think alike.  This is not a good or bad thing.  It's just something I've noticed and since I like this kind of woman, it works well for me, even when written in first person. 

The plot in this book is pretty straightforward.  There are no real surprises for the end result.  The conflict is as one would expect.  What makes this book awesome is the dialog and the journey to the end.  The interactions between Aaron and Sophia are hysterical at times.  Sometimes, they are frustrating and heartbreaking.  There is one incident between the two where trust is broken.  For me, I felt Sophia took it too personally, but that is because I'm older and have a different childhood experience.  For Sophia, it made perfect sense even if I wanted to smack her upside the head. 

The world building in this book is great.  I love it because we learn more and more about this world Ms. Blevins seems to live in.  All her characters in the different series are tied in one way or another.  The six degrees of separation are more like two or three degrees.  I love seeing the names of other characters referenced and used in a plausible manners to enhance the story.  Learning more about Aaron's history and of the other supernaturals makes me want to urge Ms. Blevins to write faster so I can read about their lives.  This is a rich world filled with alpha males, asshats and kick ass heroines. 

I did label this book with a BDSM tag not because of the spanking and flogging.  I did it because there are a couple of BDSM scenes which are non-con as punishment from a Unseelie Queen.  For those who are familiar with Unseelie mythology, be forewarned, the scene is brutal, hot and totally BDSM fantasy.  This little taste of Ms. Blevin's non-con BDSM makes me wet and lusting after a BDSM non-con story she'd write someday.  Her Safeword series is intense in the SM and impact play.  When she plunges into the non-con sexual slave realm, it will be supernova hawt, especially if she mixes it up with m/m, f/m, f/f or ménages.  Perhaps Ms. Blevins can be persuaded to write a collection revolving around the Unseelie Queen's dungeon.   *hint hint*

This new paranormal erotica is highly recommended to shifter-loving readers who love a happily ever.

*I received an advanced copy.  No review was requested.  I wrote one anyway.




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