Title The Elder Races Author Thea Harrison Cover Art Julia Kolesova Publisher Berkley - 2011 First Printing Berkley - 2011
	Title Storm's Heart Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title Serpent's Kiss Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title Oracle's Moon Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title Lord's Fall Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title Kinked Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title Night's Honor Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title Midnight's Kiss Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title Shadow's End Author Thea Harrison Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Category Romance Warnings Explicit sex Main Characters Pia Giovanni, Cuelebre Main Elements Dragons Website theaharrison.com

Dragon Bound

Romance isn't my thing for several reasons I'll get into later, so if you want an unbiased review from a romance perspective you'll need to look elsewhere. Basically I ended up reading this as part of a reading group challenge to mix SF/F with another genre and I keep seeing all these paranormal romances about and since I'm doing an all dragon year on top of that, I hunted down one with dragons.

I wonder if anyone has ever noticed before how a genre of books designed for women, are written in a surprisingly similar manner to a genre designed for men. What I'm thinking of here is the pulp fantasy adventure stories like Conan the Barbarian. There's lot's of manly muscles and lithe women, the only different being is that the men should be intelligent and the women reasonably strong (Pia still needed a certain amount of saving). And all those muscles and burning glances and unrestrained desires is the thing that makes my eyes rolls in both genres. Especially when the sex scenes are ridiculously timed, either having just escaped from dangers (so you're exhausted and injured) or you get caught because you stopped for a little hanky panky. I kept wanting to yell as the main pair to keep their pants on and worry about not dying first, after which they'll have plenty of time for bouncing in the bed...but then this is a romance so if there isn't sex every few chapters I guess it wouldn't sell. Oh, and remember he's a dragon right? So he's *cough* huge, for those of you interested in that kind of thing that is.

Ok, so what about the story that goes along with it? It wasn't that bad actually. Cuelebre the dragon, is some kind of cosmic being, one of a kind, and there's only about a handful of other beings that come even close to his age and power. Pia is also a half-breed, but the big mystery is half of what? It didn't take me too long to make an educated guess but I was pleased with the traditionaly representation of her true form when it is exposed. Cuelebre has a bunch of hench-creatures loyal to him that kind of grew on me as characters, and he has plenty of enemies to make a decent plot. So by the end of the book, I actually wanted to read more, even if I had to roll my eyes at the women staring at men's crotches all the time. But, I didn't want to read it badly enough to buy the books, and my library had only this one from the whole series which is kind of unfortunately, since Harrison did build an urban fantasy world that had the promise for a lot of potential storylines.

There were also a few mistakes, like when Cuelebre got pissed off and flew about New York roaring and breaking windows, and then just a few pages later the supernaturals are discussing what Cuelebre was, that being a dragon was a secret...wait what? Harrison just wrote that airlines were redirected to avoid his flight paths, how did they *not* know what he was. It wasn't like he was invisible!

Anyway, my reading challenge was met and I got myself to read something I otherwise wouldn't have and that's always a good thing.