Title: Eight Simple Rules for Dating a Dragon
Author: Kerrelyn Sparks
Series: The Embraced #3
An issue with the narrative but overall I LOVE this series!
I would like to thank Kerrelyn Sparks, Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
When her beloved niece is kidnapped by a dragon, Gwennore grabs onto the beast’s foreleg and hangs on for dear life, determined to protect the girl. They’re taken to the forested land of Norveshka, where the mad queen demands stolen children to replace the ones she lost to illness. Gwennore finds herself in the middle of an intriguing puzzle—the queen is being poisoned, and the population is dwindling due to plague and infertility.
After the charming and compassionate General Dravenko helps her get her niece safely home, Gwennore repays his kindness by agreeing to stay and help him find the cause of the “curse” that is slowly destroying their country. She’s a trained healer—but she’s also an elf, and Norveshka is at war with her people. She never lived with the elves in Woodwyn—knows nothing about them, in fact—yet she’s treated with prejudice and disdain. How can she cure a country that doesn’t trust her?
Only General Dravenko believes in her; however, his secrets keep her from believing in him.
I fricken love this series. I want to read all three again right now—if only I had time! All the characters are so likable and charismatic, and it’s a wonderful mix of romance and fantasy—but not high fantasy where I feel like I need to take a class or two just to understand all the intricacies of the world. Sparks manages to build the world of Aerthlan mostly through its simple but fascinating mythology as well as its people—their beliefs, their fears, and their practices. To convey the lay of the land, there are some short and concise paragraphs of description that put the image in your mind but don’t bore you. I meant to just read a chapter or two, then work on something else, but by the second sentence I knew in my gut I wasn’t going to stop.
I adored the tension and attraction between Gwennore and Silas, aka General Dravenko. I loved that he pretty much jumped into love with both feet and threw himself at her—without being pushy or forceful; he respected her decisions. And while she fell just as hard and fast, she was reluctant to act on it. Very sensible; I thought highly of her for having the self-respect to say no in the face of all that pressure. In many romance novels the hero and heroine are so hot for each other that they just hop into bed and damn the consequences, but Gwen had a good head on her shoulders, and I’m so glad she held out until Silas had trusted her with all of his secrets. Good for her.
Silas is the first main character to not be Embraced. He has an ability—an AWESOME one—but it wasn’t given by the moon goddesses, and if he was born during an eclipse, it wasn’t mentioned. This book was more about the prejudice against elves than against the Embraced.
Gwen was pretty obtuse when it came to figuring out that Silas and Puff were one and the same—and that’s not a spoiler; I mean, the title alone gives that away. Eventually she did figure it out for herself, but seriously, the clues were numerous and blatant: his voice sounded like Puff’s; their speech patterns and vocabulary were the same; his eyes seemed to turn gold like the dragon’s at times; he had a dragon tattoo—and hey, I don’t remember him explaining where, when, or how he got that. I thought there would be a story there, but I guess not. Also, Silas’s heart was physically larger than most humans’, and dragons were said to have extra-large hearts. That right there would be enough to convince me, but what really surprised me was when she found the cabin with extra clothes but no one seemed to be living there. All she had to do was think something like, “This seems like a place Brody could use to dress or undress for shifting” and bam, she’d have made the connection. It’s not like shape-shifting wasn’t a thing, so I don’t know why it seemed so outlandish to her. There was a weak excuse about the size difference, but seriously, it’s fantasy. I can’t think of any other shape-shifting characters who have worried about size proportion.
But here’s my biggest issue with the narrative—what did Gwen ultimately do that the others couldn’t have eventually done themselves? Silas knew the curse was bogus and already suspected poison, it was a matter of proving it, and Annika’s as much a healer as Gwen and could have come up with a cure for the plague. If anything, Gwen was useful because solving the mystery was her purpose in Norveshka, so she was able to focus all of her time and energy on it, whereas Annika had to travel some distance to come help and Silas had a million other duties to see to.
So in my estimation, Gwen only really mattered to the romantic plot; plus her being in Norveshka allowed the other secondary and tertiary characters to connect and move the other subplots forward. She was kind of a tool in her own story; she didn’t even find much out about her heritage, though Silas thought he figured it out—and, while I came to the same conclusion long before he did, and I believe his speculations are true, I was a little irritated that he assumed he was right and treated his speculation as fact. We never found out from a solid, non-suspicious source that Gwen’s parents were, in fact, Tolenka and some as-yet-unnamed elfin princess. We didn’t learn that story, and we didn’t learn why they suddenly want her back. We didn’t learn anything solid about her mysterious origins, and this was her book!
I think Gwen’s origins will be revealed/clarified in Sorcha’s book, because if we follow the pattern, Sorcha’s going to get with the elfin prince (Gwen’s older brother? Half-brother? Definitely related somehow) and become queen of the elves by the end of the next book—and that’s a deliciously ironic twist of fate that fills me with storytelling joy. But it’s really a bummer that Gwen was such a strong character and only ended up being as useful as secondary ex-machina.
Aside from that, I felt Gwen’s investigation was a bit underwhelming, as was her finding a cure for the plague; I expected something a little more dramatic than soaking items in water and tossing together a crapshoot of ingredients (that tonic sounded nasty). I thought the process would be—I don’t know…fraught with danger, I guess. Or she’d have a sudden, exciting epiphany. But no, it was rather sedate; just logic and hard work. She’s not extra like Sherlock Holmes, but she got the job done.
Well, I can’t say that. She figured out the cause of the poison—that was interesting—but we don’t know if her tonic will do any good. We’re probably supposed to assume it will, but I wish the epilogue had taken place a bit further out in time, like maybe several months later or even a year or two later, and all sorts of Norveshka women were getting pregnant and carrying to term and the newborns were thriving. But it could be we’ll see that in the next book or something.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize this novel had very little closure. That’s expected for the overarching plot of a series—but the smaller plots specific to this installment didn’t get wrapped up properly, either. The only thing that did was the romance—Gwennore and Silas will live happily ever after. But I don’t like being left with questions that should have been answered.
Lastly, I once again lament the title. It’s needlessly silly, and apparently Sparks felt obligated to actually incorporate those eight rules, and none of it was necessary. Whatsoever. I guarantee you could delete the lines about the stupid rules and it wouldn’t make one lick of difference.
But don’t let any of these issues deter you from checking this series out. Sparks is a wonderful writer; she doesn’t linger on exposition and works most it into the dialogue and character interactions. Her style is easy, smooth, and entertaining, and her choice of words is fresh and descriptive without seeming like she’s trying too hard to impress us or be poetic.
And the references! Puff the Magic Dragon, obviously, and Gwen’s teasing Silas about huffing and puffing made me think of the Three Little Pigs. But I particularly enjoyed the myths about the Ancient Ones; they reminded me of the movie Dragonheart–a favorite. The bit about a dragon sharing his heart with a human to save his life was similar to what happened in that movie. (I highly recommend it; the SFX were super amazing for their time, even better than some movies today, in my opinion.) There were other references, but those are the ones I remembered.
Oh—I thought this was hilarious. When I reviewed the last book in the series, I remarked that the language usage clashed with my understanding of the medieval-like culture. And here, it was specifically explained that the five main girls, including Gwennore, speak rather archaically compared to the other characters, who tend to use our modern idioms and expletives, because the girls learned the other languages by translating centuries-old texts from one language to another. I knew that was how they learned, but I guess I didn’t make the connection between their learning material and their speech. Which makes me feel kind of dumb. Anyway, I highly doubt that was included as a response to my remark, but it felt like a personal message from the author to me, and I appreciated it.
Overall, I’m very eagerly awaiting Sorcha’s tale, which I would presume to expect this fall, though I can’t find any information on it at the moment. Focusing on this release first, no doubt, as they should.
