A DRAGON’S DESIRE (The Pretern Wars 2) by Shiloh Walker -a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date July 18, 2022.

You will wander, you will roam

SORIN: He is Zmeu, one of the great dragons of myth.

As a young dragon, he was told an important truth: Dragons do not fall in love. They definitely do not fall in love with mortal women.

It’s a lesson Sorin takes to heart. He might have had a mortal mother, but mortals had also killed her, leaving him alone.

A dragon grown, he dwells in an impenetrable castle, living a dragon’s best life. He dances with fae swan maidens, steals baubles from unknowing kings, scoffs at mortals stumbling through life wasting time on war, hate…love.

Then love finds him.

In the village of his birth, a woman teaches him a truth his dragon family hadn’t—it’s rather easy for a dragon to find love.

Ever seeking solace, ever seeking home

Easy to love, yes. But understanding the woman who steals his heart? Not so easy. He doesn’t realize it at the time, his arrogance leading him to assume he knew best. After all, he was a dragon. Sorin’s arrogance led to her death…and a curse.

Hundreds of years later, living in the New World as the world prepares for war, he is almost numb to the curse that haunts him still.

You will wander, you will roam, they’d said. He did. But seeking solace, seeking home? Home and solace were lost to him, every bit as much as his love.

As penance, he guards the mortals in his territory, as she had protected those under her care. He’ll hold off the coming war as long as possible. When the time comes to take up a sword—or breathe fire—he will. It’s little comfort, but his lost love would expect him to protect. So he does.

One night, a sudden awareness yanks him from deepest sleep. Chasing the faint magical trail, he finds a woman battling for her life. Just before a killing strike, he sees her eyes…eyes of haunting green.

The eyes of the woman he’d loved, the eyes of the woman he’d killed.

•••••••

REVIEW:  A DRAGON’S DESIRE is the second instalment in Shiloh Walker’s adult THE PRETERN WARS paranormal/fantasy romance series. This is dragon shifter Sorin, and Adela/Witchling Fae Gia’s story line. A DRAGON’S DESIRE can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story line is revealed where necessary.

Told from third person perspective, covering several hundred years, A DRAGON’S DESIRE focuses on Zmeu dragon Sorin, a powerful beast who, hundreds of years earlier, fell hard for a human, a need that eventually killed the woman he could never love. Cursed to wander the world without friendship or love, Sorin eventually takes refuge in America, considering sleeping for all eternity. Fast forward to present day wherein Sorin, who now lays claim to a vast territory in the United States, is drawn to a stranger, a stranger who bears a striking familiarity to the woman he lost. Enter Gia, a witchling/Fae, a powerful supernatural in her own right but a woman who is protecting a young boy from a fate bestowed upon him by a powerful curse. As Gia, Sorin, Amy and her young son Wyn Bitterbirch, journey away from the hate that follows, a build up to war is directed at anyone not considered normal by human standards.

There is a war approaching, a war between the humans and ‘preternatural’ beings including witches and dragons, shifters and Fae. The revelation of ‘something other’ has provoked the fear of the unknown, and a war to decimate anything or anyone not of human blood is about to take hold, killing millions and destroying thousands of lives.

The relationship between Sorin and Gia is one of second chances, of a sorts. Gia is the embodiment of Adela, the woman Sorin wanted as a mate but a woman Sorin destroyed by his need and lust. Not necessarily a story of reincarnation but a tale of transmigration in which Adela’s memories, soul and magic are now a part of someone else. The $ex scenes are limited but passionate.

We are introduced to Amy, and her son Wyn Bitterbirch, a young boy who is a halfling Fae. The requisite evil has many faces.

A DRAGON’S DESIRE is a story of lust and need, obsession and revelation, discrimination and speciesism, forgiveness, acceptance and love. The premise is entertaining, dramatic and captivating; the romance is seductive; the characters are powerful and strong.

Copy supplied by Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy