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author, book reviews, book, books, characters, dragon books, fantasy, fiction, heartstrikers, literature, nice dragons finish last, nice dragons finish last by Rachel Aaron, novel, plot, Rachel Aaron, read, reader, review, science fiction, scifi, stories, story, urban fantasy, write, writer, writing
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Scifi, Dragons
Pages: 315
Point of View: Third (Julius)
Released: July 15th 2014
Series: Hellstrikers 1
Predictability: 3 out of 5 (Where 1 is totally unpredictable and 5 is I knew what was going to happen way ahead of time.)
Mood: Fun, light, action
Source: Bought
My Rating: 9/10 Stars
My Summary:
Unlike normal dragons, Julius likes humans and spends most of his time holed in his room. His mother’s fed up with him, so one day she has him woken up, sealed in human form, and dumped in a city where there’s a bounty on dragons. If he doesn’t prove himself a true dragon in a month, she’ll kill him.
Julius hires Marci, a young mage, to assist him, but she has problems of her own. She stole something from a mobster and he wants it back.
My Review:
This book has ALL of my weaknesses! Why didn’t I read it sooner?!
A futuristic fantasy! I love when SciFi and fantasy merge and it worked great here! After a comet hit years ago, magic was reawakened and now everyone knows about it. The reawakened spirits, mages, and dragons have reshaped our world. Most of this book takes place in the city of Detroit Free Zone, a city of spirits where its illegal to pollute the water, but pretty much everything except murder is legal. The rich live in high superscrapers and then there’s the ‘colorful’ underground. The magic system was simple, but well thought out. Technology and magic mesh together to create special phones and self driven cars. It was all so cool and well done!
My favorite aspect of course was the dragons and their culture. They’re truly cutthroat and highly magical and strong. (Julius still has his strength, even if he can’t turn into a dragon with the powers of fire and flight.) His mother has dozens of children. So many that she names each clutch by a letter of the alphabet to keep them straight. A is the oldest and she’s currently on J, making Julius one of the youngest at only 24.
Julius is a great protagonist! He’s spent his life bending to his family and feeling like a weak failure, since he’s a nice dragon. (Weakness no 1, the good monster hehe!) He really grew throughout this book and not only got tougher but accepted himself. Marci’s a doctoral student who believes in very structured magic. She’s been through a lot recently, but she’s smart and tough.
Both of the main characters are awkward so that made the romance cute. She also doesn’t know he’s a dragon. (Which I loved, the whole secret identity thing! And a forbidden romance!)
The Bad:
The only thing that kept this from a perfect book in my opinion is I wanted more humor, or maybe some banter.
There were also quite a few errors in my Kindle version. (But this is a self published book)
Will I read the next one? I already am!!
I tried to get my sister to read this, since dragons are her favorite, but apparently she doesn’t like human dragons. (Picky picky)
What’s your favorite fantasy creature? Dragons are high on my list (particularly human ones) but if mages count they’re probably number one and as overused as they are I still have a weakness for vampires.
Woven Magic Books 
Great review Molly! I do love a good Dragon book. 🙂
Me too! Especially when they can pretend to be human! (As long as they aren’t too human-like, you know?)
I love when you find those books that take you by surprise when you read and absolutely love them. So happy this was one of those for you!
This one most certainly did! I mean, I expected it to be good based on some reviews I trust, but it really hit all the right notes for me. Thanks!
I haven’t read many dragon books at all. I think I read one many years ago, and I remember enjoying it, but I can’t even remember what it was called now (though it might have been one of Patricia C. Wrede’s books). Oh, there are a couple of dragon characters in Gail Carson Levine’s books that are really great… though they’re actual dragons and don’t have a human form.
I don’t think I really have a favourite fantasy creature right now. It seems like they’ve all been overdone at this point.
I think my sister owns Wrede’s Dragon books. I’ll have to check them out one of these days. I like normal dragons too! I’ll have to look those up.
Yeah, my favorite Fantasy creature right now is something unique, but that’s so rare to find.
I so wanna try this one, but ebook only 😦
Someone just said it was on audiobook too. Hopefully it’s in print eventually. It’s good enough I’d buy it again!
I just got this on audiobook yesterday because of some of the reviews I’ve seen. Looks like another strong recommendation 🙂
Oh yes!! I hope that you enjoy it too. At least you won’t have to wait for the sequel.
Dragons and Unicorns are probably my favorite fantasy creatures. Glad you’re enjoying these. Great review 🙂
Thanks! I haven’t read many books with unicorns, which is why they didn’t make my list.
I love the title of this book, it gave me a good laugh! 🙂 Wow, what a mean mother, poor Julius. This sounds really interesting… I’m just a bit worried about the scifi elements with all the technology, me and technology just don’t go too well. But I’m glad to know it is on audio book. Your great review is definitely swaying me here. 🙂
Yeah, Julius has had a rough life. It’s nice seeing him finally happy with himself and his life though. The Scifi is very light, pretty much just what I mentioned and it’s all run off magic so it’s more magic tech. Thanks! I hope you give it a shot.
I also love when SciFi and fantasy merge! This truly sounds like a great book, I am adding it to my TBR right now 🙂 Great review, Molly.
Yay! I hope you like it! I’m hoping we get more Fantasy tech in the sequel, because I love that too!
Somehow I ended up with an audio copy of this book. I guess I should get to listening to it much sooner. It sounds very interesting. Great review.
Yes, yes you should. I was surprised by how much I liked it. I hope you do too! Thanks!
So glad you finally read this!! I absolutely loved this and can’t wait for book 2!!!!! I listened to the audio and loved it even more than the ebook because the narrator was amazing.
Thanks!! I loved it too!! The sequel is really good so far too! I have issues with audiobooks, but it’s nice to hear it’s a good one.
Eeeee! So happy to see you liked this one and that you’re reading book two already. I liked One Good Dragon even more than this one, personally. Very curious to see what you’ll think! 🙂
I’m glad I listened to the recommendations on this one, because I loved it even more than I expected too. You have a review of the sequel? How did I miss that. I’ll have to look for it once I’m done. So far I’m really liking it, but I haven’t had much time to read lately. I’m so glad you thought it was better than the first!!
I don’t really HAVE a favorite fantasy creature, which I know angers most people 😉 I mean, unicorns are usually pretty, same for mermaids. Idk, maybe I will make up my OWN fantasy creature, and you can all love that one day hahah. I am so glad you liked this book so much, great review 😀
Sounds like an excellent plan. I always love original creatures better than the ones that have been done a million times. Thanks! It was a great book!
I’ve yet to stumble upon a book that features an epic dragon tale – well, except for The Desolation of Smaug of course, but that is a book that is incomparable. Your high rating for this one has me curious though! I may just have to look into it 🙂
I’ve read a few Dragon books that my sister forced me to read. I hope that you like this one! If you’re looking for Epic you should look into Dragonriders of Pern.
Thanks for the recommendation! Would you be able to tell me if this series suitable for a middle grade reader? More specifically, a 7th grader? 🙂
You’re welcome. 🙂 Pern? I’d think so. That’s the age my sister was when she started it. It’s an older series so it doesn’t have the stuff they stick in nowadays.
Yay! Thanks so much Molly!
Anytime. 🙂 I hope she enjoys it!
I’m glad to see you had such a great time with the book. I heard great things about it and since then it’s in my wishlist. I need to try it now!
I think you’ll really like it. At least I hope so.
I loved her Legend of Eli Monpress series -in fact, it has become one of my favorite fantasy series- so I’ve been wanting to check this one out too. I really enjoyed your review! I’m having doubts though. I feel like this book is for me, and then not at all at the same time. I’m afraid I won’t love it as much. But dragons are some of my favorite tropes, so I think I will pick it up -plus, your review really made me excited to read it.
Great review