Book Blurb:
Aspen---a skydiving, rock-climbing, bear-cuddling---adrenaline junkie, finds herself in real danger when she unwittingly ensnares the heart of Obsidian, the dragon king.
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Read on for the Prologue from the book-
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Travis Springs usually didn’t hike in the national parks. He preferred his mountains dragon free, thank you very much, but his buddies told him this hike was safe and worth the risk. Everyone knew the best hikes were in the national parks, and Travis figured he’d have to get over his aversion to dragons if he was going to be serious about climbing mountains. The scenery was breathtaking. The valley below him shimmered in greens and yellows. Not to mention the mist that rose from the steam vents covering the entire Yellowstone floor. He stopped to take a drink. According to the map, he was a quarter of a mile from the top. This was one of the smaller mountains, and so it had to be safe. It was rumored that the dragons in Yellowstone typically didn’t come down from the very top of the tallest peaks. Travis looked up and saw a gold speck high in the sky. He shivered and watched the path as he walked and went over in his head the words he read and heard over the last few weeks. Dragons didn’t eat people. There were no documented cases. His fear wasirrational, but then again most fears were. He concentrated on the ground and climbed up the rocky terrain. After about twenty minutes, he finally made it to the top. Travis refused to look up at the sky and surveyed the valley below him. In the distance a herd of buffalo grazed in the plains. He took a few deep breaths and felt his fear subside. He’d been silly.
He took a chance and peeked at the sky. The speck looked closer, and his stomach clenched. But then he reminded himself that because he reached the top, the speck would obviously be closer. Travis’s hands shook as he took a drink of his water. He convinced himself that he’d spend fifteen minutes or so and then head back down. But he didn’t waste all day climbing to the top, just to race to the bottom. Travis dug in his bag and found his camera. The air around him suddenly felt ten degrees warmer. Sweat beaded on Travis’s forehead. A hot wind whooshed from above him. He clutched at his camera and looked up. The golden underbelly of the dragon was only about ten feet above him, flying over him quickly. The thing had to be a hundred feet long from snout to the tip of his tail. Travis felt his jeans go wet. If he lived to tell this tale, he’d leave out that detail. He reminded himself to breathe. As fast as it had come, it was gone. Travis couldn’t move. He watched the dragon turn and head back toward him. Travis clutched the camera and took a picture as the dragon opened its wide mouth. Its teeth were three feet long and wicked sharp. Seconds before the jaws clamped down on him, he dropped the camera. The air from the dragon’s throat blistered his skin, but it didn’t spew fire. Travis’s final thought was, “ What a horrible way to die.” As the dragon flew away, thoroughly pleased with his meal, he didn’t realize he left behind not one, but two souvenirs. The camera. And a foot.
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My Review:
3 Out Of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery, Royal-Court, Supernatural--
Obsidian has been putting off his mandatory time spent in his human form, but when he is chosen to be the next king of the dragons, his time is up. He becomes “Sid” and must accomplish many tasks expecting to take 10 years, including becoming a high school student. While enrolled in school, Sid meets a fascinating girl named Aspen who is the only person he has met who loves dragons, instead of the fear most feel. Aspen wants nothing to do with Sid, who causes her anxiety and brings back painful memories, instead she just wants to take pictures of dragons and do her own thing. The two of them are thrown together by a fate neither could predict.
The book is really short, at only 120ish pages as per my ereader, and I was instantly surprised by how in-depth the world is that the author created right at the get-go. Based on the complexity, I knew that this few amount of pages could not contain everything that I felt could possibly happen and that I was reading the first in a new series that deals with Dragons set in an altered USA.
I liked the background world the author gave me, with dragons as an accepted part of the ecosystem and National Parks are where they live and can be seen. Also, the dragon hierarchy was complex, with color changing bodies, fire breathing and magical skills based on type of dragon, mating and living among the humans so that they can understand them better. I liked that the humans had no idea as to what the dragons were up to, or that they had human forms.
I think I liked Sid better as a dragon than a person when he was first introduced. I was a little put out by Sid having this intense long term relationship with his dragon-almost-mate Skye, and then within a month being interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with Aspen. Not only did Aspen tell him she was not even a little bit interested, but the fact he got over his “deep” feelings so quickly was surprising. He came off super strong in a stalker kind of way and I found it a turn off. For someone who can read other's emotions, he sure didn't seem to pick up on her dislike of him. Why not try and be her friend, and be happy with that? Nope, it has to be romance or nothing. Also, he fell kind of flat as a person for the first half of the story or so , but that is just in my opinion. He definitely became a more well rounded character once he started dating Aspen, but maybe that was the author's point, to make him more human as he has these experiences and feelings.
Aspen was kind of an odd duck. She hated school and could care less if she graduated, felt little sympathy for her twin brother who suffered from anxiety, lived like her parents were her roommates, kind of pretty much disregarded every rule and gave no cares to other's feelings. With both characters, it felt like their emotions were one dimensional and that they overall lacked depth, so it was hard to get invested in them at the start of the book. Also, I have no idea why Aspen was friends with Tori, who was a total tool, by stealing her stuff and changing her physical appearance to become Aspen. Can you say creepy? I wanted to warn Aspen to watch her back before Tori took over her life and disposed of her body. The situation with Marc was really terrible and I felt bad for her, but it did raise a few questions with me. Oh and when did it become ok to give your child anxiety medication laced ice cream? That one caught me off guard, yet it was casually referenced like everyone does it.
I hard a hard time getting into the book when I started, but by the middle, I flew through the pages. I feel bad saying negative things about the characters but I have to like the characters to really enjoy a story, so they were a hindrance to me enjoying the book when I first picked it up. Both characters became more fleshed out as the book progressed and I became more interested in the story the further I went. I think the world the author created was great and detailed with tons of potential and I look forward to what she will create next.
I received this title from the author in return for my honest review.
Author Bio:
Kimberly Loth can’t decide where she wants to settle down. She’s lived in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Utah, California, Oregon, and South Carolina. She finally decided to make the leap and leave the U.S. behind for a few years. Currently, she lives in Cairo, Egypt with her husband and two kids. She is a high school math teacher by day (please don’t hold that against her) and YA author by night. She loves romantic movies, chocolate, roses, and crazy adventures. Kissed is her first novel.
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