Dragon Search

Almost Unreadable

I highlighted every error I found - most being missing or incorrect words, confusing grammar, or missing punctuation which impacts readability (not closing or opening quotations, for example) - and had a final count of 88 notes. That's eighty-eight errors in a book which takes only a couple hours cumulative time to read. Eighty-eight errors in a book which cost me over three dollars once tax was factored in.

Eighty-eight errors in a book of only seventy-five digital pages, according to the listing!

This is no book; it's a disgraceful attempt at rushing out a first draft without editing to capitalize on readers who want to know the backstory of AuRon's parents in the Age of Fire series. Not only that, but now it's part of Kindle Unlimited, which rubs further salt in the wound of how much money I wasted on something which the author should instead be paying someone else to proofread and edit for him.

I wish I had returned this when I stalled out at 5% last year because of all the errors in the text. Instead, I let it sit and in doing so wasted my opportunity to return this hot mess. So, I forced myself to finish reading it. I forced myself to try finding something redeeming in the story.

Unfortunately, even the story itself isn't particularly interesting or engaging. It meanders along about an ultimately meaningless conflict; rushes through insta-lust mixed with telling instead of showing the connection developed between Irelia and AuRel; has several time jumps and then dives head-first into an illogical conclusion with poorly-written combat. What few interesting bits I liked, the story quickly glossed over without meaningful conclusion.

I didn't even glean anything valuable in terms of worldbuilding or backstory. Or, to quote an old favourite song of mine: “In the end, it doesn't even matter.” And to add insult to injury? The dreaded “male dragons are calmed by and attracted to human females” nonsense returned from the original series... and was promptly ignored for the sake of having the dragon surrounded by women lash out in anger anyway.

One star is a generous rating. I'm glad I already finished the Age of Fire series and didn't begin with this, because I'd have never read the other books if this was my first experience with the canon... nor any of the author's other books.