Fire of Stars and Dragons by Melissa Petreshock Pages: 224
Published by Swoon Romance on April 29, 2014
Series: The Stars and Souls Trilogy #1
Genres: Dragons, Unicorns & Mythical, Fantasy, Love & Romance, New Adult, Paranormal
Source: eARC from Publisher
Following the death of her uncle, twenty-one-year-old CAITRIONA HAYDEN finds herself in the midst of a trio of quintessential alpha male suitors in 22nd century sovereign America where human females should be seen and not heard.
Theo Pendragon claims her as his ward, ordained to guard her through to a long-awaited destiny unbeknownst to Cait, but finds more than he expected when passion ignites within the dragon for the first time. Always drawn to the pursuit of knowledge rather than the heat of desire, powerful demigod Dante cannot deny everything his future holds in Caitriona. America's monarch, ancient vampire Corrin, has no interest in the frivolity of love, yet marrying Cait could be the answer to his continued survival.
Soon, Cait goes from studying for college exams to choosing a husband knowing the consequences are eternal, the love undying, and the bond timeless.
I have wanted to read this book ever since I first saw the cover months ago. I was so curious about these dragons and I loved the sky in the background behind the girl. This is a really hard review for me to write because there are so many things that I really loved about this book. But there were two things that didn’t work for me, and they were fairly large things. I’m going to start with what I loved.
Cait is super spunky, sassy and fiercely independent. The story takes place in the future when supernatural creatures are mixed in with humans in the United States. In fact, the king is a vampire. Even though the story takes place in the future, it had a very old world feel to it. The laws, meant to “protect” women from being taken advantage of from supernaturals, were very restrictive, and even the writing had an old, historical feel to it. The writing was one of the things that I loved about this book. I thought Melissa Petreshock’s writing style was wonderful. It was very rich and full bodied. Does that even make sense? I love how creative the writing can get in fantasies.
The story is driven by the fact that Cait had to petition the court to be able to live alone. She has a lot of money from her dead uncle, but the laws state that she must be betrothed to a man. The court does not allow her to be left alone but it does give her the option of choosing between three men. 1) the king- a vampire 2) Theo- a dragon that has sworn to protect Cait and 3) Dante- a demigod that turns out to be the original vampire. (Think Klaus or maybe Michael, his father.)
I really enjoyed getting to know each of the three guys. They are all very drawn to Cait, and I loved seeing how different they viewed romance. I was surprised at how much I ended up liking each of them in their own way. I thought for sure, it would be a clear pick for me. And it was, but it ended up being much closer than I thought. The romance in the story was great as well. very swoonworthy and I was rooting for Cait to be happy.
But now for the stuff that didn’t work for me. We were just dumped into this world and they were throwing words and phrases and languages around without much explaining. It felt very jarring at the beginning of the story. I wish there was more back story into the creatures, the world, and the dragons before Theo claimed Cait as his ward. It would have helped things not seem so sudden. But my biggest problem was how crazy every went over Cait. I liked Cait too. I loved how sassy and independent that she was, but these were three ancient beings. They have been alive for thousands of years and all of a sudden this 21 year old shows up and they are all acting like she is the first woman they have ever seen in their lives. It was a little crazy. I just thought it should have been toned down a little bit.
I am certainly interested in reading the next book because I can’t wait to see what is going to happen. This prophecy that the dragons kept glimpsing with Cait is going to play a big role and I feel like that is going to make more sense of things. When I was done with this book I was so torn with what to rate it. On one hand, I loved the romance and the writing and getting to know each of the well developed characters, but on the other hand all of insta-loves surrounding Cait felt forced to me. In the end, the romance won out. Once I was able to tell myself that Cait was just a really special woman because of her mysterious destiny, I was able to accept all of the hype surrounding her and I was able to just enjoy the story.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
kindlemom1
I hate it when you really love a book but just can’t quite get past a few things that either just didn’t work or really bothered you.
I agree, the cover on this is just gorgeous and totally would have drawn me in as well.
Michelle @ Book Briefs
Yea, this was tougher than normal too, because they seemed to be a big issue while I was reading, but I was also really loving the story and the characters. No one else seemed to have an issue with it on goodreads though, so maybe it was just me. 🙂
Still a good book though.
kimbacaffeinate
It was the money. LOL You made me giggle at how crazy these men went for Cait. I am bummed that you were just dumped into the world. Wonderful review Michelle