| Title | : | Dragons Gift (The Dragons Gift Trilogy, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 236 |
| Publication | : | First published October 6, 2017 |
Dareena Sellis is a nobody. The orphaned daughter of a no-name farmer, she toils away as a serving girl at Hallowdale Inn, her only marriage prospects either shipping off to war, or pawing at her skirts with their grubby, gnarled hands.
But fate takes a strange turn the day a dragon huntress comes to town. Suddenly, Dareena is swept off to Dragon’s Keep, trading in her raggedy dresses for silken gowns, her closet-sized room for feather pillows and spacious gardens, and her miserable suitor for three very handsome, very virile dragon princes.
For Dareena is not a nobody. She is the Dragon’s Gift—the one woman chosen by the gods every century to bear children for the future king of Dragonfell.
Despite her pre-ordained path, Dareena’s fate is far from certain. The crown has not given birth to more than one son in nearly a thousand years, and the line of succession is far from clear. Neither of the princes are willing to cede Dareena to the other, and yet she must choose. For the enemy is knocking on Dragonfell’s door, and Dareena’s decision could either mean the kingdom’s salvation…
…or annihilation.
Don’t deny yourself the pleasure of this scorching hot reverse harem romance. Scroll up and start reading today!
IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a TRUE reverse harem romance, NOT a love triangle. Expect to see danger, intrigue, hot sex, strong language, and fire-breathing dragons between the pages of this book. For 18+ readers. You have been warned!
Dragons Gift (The Dragons Gift Trilogy, #1) Reviews
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2......point......5? A big meh from me.
First off, can we talk about that cover? Who is that scant armor protecting? You could easily stab any one of those sexy idiots in the chest and go right through. Maybe that's why the dragons can't seem to win a damn war, huh?
The setup of this series is great: classic high fantasy with dragons and elves locked in a millennium war. Three dragon prince brothers are all fighting over succession to the throne, currently occupied by a bitter king going insane. The country has gone to war centuries ago with the elves and warlocks over a single offense with sketchy history. The world-building leaves so much to the imagination while we are thrown into court intrigue, spies, political scheming, all kinds of fun stuff. This is the interesting part of the book.
The not-so-interesting part? Dareena, our heroine. The dragon (shifter) race in this world was cursed long ago in retaliation for some war crimes, so all dragon ladies' babies are just humans, basically. The royal family can still make dragon babies, but only with one specific heaven-blessed lady chosen every century--the Dragon's Gift, and you guessed it--Dareena. She's an innocent human virgin (and instant sex-goddess, of course) in her late twenties, whisked off to the dragon court to look pretty and make babies for some sexy princes. Most of the plot unfortunately focuses on her dull romance with the three princes, who fight over her because winning the Dragon's Gift guarantees them succession to the throne.
If the authors had given Dareena a more active role in the world, the politics, and the war, instead of making her sit in her room for 300 pages, waiting to go on dates with the princes, the book would have been very cool. This series had potential to become awesome epic fantasy with some romance sprinkled in, but since the authors decided to put the brakes on that in favor of boring courting scenes with a dull FMC, it's just meh.
Yep.... a no from me.
Thanks for the great buddy read though, RHR ladies! -
Three Dragon Princes!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Romance: 💚🖤💙💜
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍🌏
Character development: 😤😥😊🤩
The heroine: Dareena - She is an orphan and a serving girl at a local inn. Her boss wants to marry her, though she has yet to give him an answer. He is older with yellow teeth and a tobacco stained beard. Though when he dies she would get the inn, which is more than a girl like her can hope for.
The Heroes: Drystan, Lucyen, Alistair - Triplets and sons of the dragon king. The dragons and the Elves are enemies from long ago when the Elves killed their mother. Though when one of their cousins is kidnapped by the Elves, they find from the Elvin prince Ryalus that what they believed might not be true.
The Story: For centuries the Dragon prince has traditionally found his mate after the dragon hunt where three of the most beautiful girls in the village are chosen in a ceremony by the dragon huntress. Though this year there is a difference, since there is not one but three princes and succession is unknown.
Dareena has no thought of being chosen as she is a commoner. However, when she is one of the three chosen to participate in the ritual at Dragons Keep. She is later discovered to be the Dragon’s gift in the ritual yet the King still hasn’t chosen which one of his sons will be his heir, so meanwhile she dates all three of the princes.
There is a decent side storyline about the King who has gone crazy since his mate died, who obviously doesn’t want to give up his throne to any of his children. He is doing some bizarre things. Also the storyline about who actually killed the mother. The King had been doing many crazy things since his mate died and there was a lot of unrest in the kingdom in addition to the war between Dragonfell and Elvinheim.
The story is told in multiple points of view in dual narration. Narrated by Kate Marcin and Adam Gold who did a good job. The narration is done with a British accent which works well for royals. Kate has a soft pleasing voice and Adam has a very deep and gravelly voice which works well for the Dragon Princes. The storylines are good and the world building was surprising and interesting.
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Meh. The female mc's personality changes too much. The men can't change into dragons. The males are actually pretty boring.
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The first half of the book showed great promise. I liked the premise, setting and the characters. The second half of the book let me down. The romances felt suddenly rushed, and the 3 distinct personalities of the princes were under-utilized. The heroine seems to undergo a personality change overnight so I felt like I didn't know her anymore. The sex scenes were cringe-worthy in the use of terminology and seeming lack of understanding of real human biology and anatomy. It pulled me out of my immersion in the story and I wondered if it was written by a virgin teenage boy at times.
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Meh. It was rushed and predictable. When I first downloaded it, I was intrigued by the premise and enjoyed the first half. Then the entire story shifts and the characters just stop developing. Heroine wasn’t that great- she had no substance or depth. At first I thought I might like her, but nope. The brothers are very typical heroes- likeable I guess. The entire story just left me disappointed- the authors wasted a really good idea. This book could have been so much better than it was. I won’t be continuing the series.
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Rating : TBA
That's right, girl, own your sexuality!
That's right, book, have a gorgeous cover!
That's right, uh... no that's it. I made no connection to any of the characters and the story bored me. -
A little cheesy and predictable, but a fun reverse harem trilogy nonetheless.
Also, how can you resist that cover? Beautiful artwork! -
Pages: 236
My rating: 3
Read other books by this author in the future: yes
MC: Dareena, Drystan, Lucyen, Alistair
This was a buddy read with my rhr group.
What I did not like:
- Dareena being a trophy
- Instaluv
- The old virgin to sex goddess theme
- Her being dumb after everyone warned her to stay with a guard or the brothers she still went away on her own.
- Guy are good looking and ripped
- the alpha male stuff (mine, my possession, I need to be her first….)
What I liked:
- Dareena being compassionate
- Caring about other people
- She not dumb (but sometimes behaves dumb)
- Guys caring about her
This is a middle age view fantasy book, because the worth of the women is less than the man and also how they view women is more like breeding mares for boys and they have no say in the big matters. On the other hand the dragon girls are fighters. I don’t like the view of this world but at the end I did want to know what happens to Dareena and Alistair. I will read the second book as it is free for amazon prime customers. -
Omg from the very start this book is exciting and addictive. Dareena is a commoner and her lecherous old man of a boss continually tries to tie her to a promise of marriage, and although Dareena knows she will probably have no other choice she avoids making such an oath at the moment.
She is determined to go to the dragon hunt festival as is her right as a single female goi g against her bosses wishes, she knows she can never be chosen as the dragon gift due to her status in life but she intends to enjoy the festival
Packed with excitement drama twists and turns this is an amazingly well written well executed story that grips you from the beginning and I highly recommend this book -
2.5 stars
The sad thing here is I'm not a fan of the main characters, but I did like the side characters. I hated that the main girl is a trophy, that she accepts just being there, and her job is pretty much just to be a baby factory. I just wasn't into it. -
Maybe more like 2.5.
This was just bland.
The whole concept put me off from the start - Dareena's whole purpose was to get knocked up with a Dragon baby, and the way she just simpered around in pretty dresses totally cool with her fate, apart from the odd token brief misgivings, really did my head in by the end.
She was also so perfectly perfect and different from the other girls, just because she was dark haired with child breaking hips? That had me eye rolling form the first few pages.there was also a massive case of insta love here with her and the three prince's, who were instantly enamoured of her for no discernable reason parat from the fact the other Dragon Borna usually have red or blonde hair!
We also had the virgin to sex goddess withing a single encounter trope, which is a rwmarkebly annoying one.
Add to that neither characters nor a plot that particularly engaged me, and this was a bit if a snoozefeat all round. I won't be reading the next, there qas just nothing compelling in it for me. -
2,5 *
It was alright i guess, even tho i expected more of this book. So i got a lil disapointed but i liked the concept/the world they where living in and the brothers -
Damn! I loved this! It was the perfect mix of high fantasy and reverse harem hawtness!!! On to Book 2!
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I enjoyed this book. Knowing there were more books in the series made it hard to hate on unresolved or undeveloped characters and events. Dareena was witty and lovable. Her men have potential and so far I like something about each of them. Alistair is the least built up though we’ve been given much info about him. Even still this book was exciting and enchanting. I’m not a self proclaimed book critic so I didn’t read this with a grading chart or checklist in mind. This was a great read especially after reading quite a few duds.
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Eh.
It wasn't bad, but it was just ... bland. Like buttered toast. I found the normalized misogyny to be offputting, and overall just never saw any spark or relationship between the characters. They met and started having sex pretty much immediately. Dareena is a weak-willed precious heroine who doesn't really care that she's treated like an object by literally everyone. Lucyan is full of himself and an asshole. The other two brothers are so 2-dimensional that they are forgettable.
It just gets a big meh from me, overall. Not continuing onward. -
This was actually really good.. my review to come
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I don't know how to rate this. I want to give it 2 stars, but the description of that say "it was ok". What happened to this book is really not okay, its almost criminal. I am pissed, I feel cheated out of a great story!
There's this thing with some authors, when they introduce the plot and individual characters, as a reader you can't help yourself but get sucked right in. And then the individual characters meet or come together and the whole thing just falls apart. I am not sure what causes this phenomenon. From the beginning of this book up to about 50%, I was so sure this was going to be 5 stars and easily make it to my favourites shelf. But then the main characters met and somehow, they lost their identities and just became cardboard-cut imitations of what we started with. As a result the story suffered, it suffered in a major way. The plot is still interesting but I am no longer looking forward to the next book, because the second half of this book is absolute rubbish. If this book was 500 or more pages I would say the author ran out of steam but with this one I don't have a reasonable excuse. Its almost like the two halves were written by two different people. It takes a talent to mess up a 200 paged book so much. -
The premise of the story is interesting, I think the author had some great ideas about creating a fantasy world.
However the writing is rather amateurish and as many reviewers have stated, it starts out with an interesting story and just kind of drops off about midway through.
1) too many things that pull you out of the story... for example, in one scene the characters drink 'scotch'. Scotch is so called because it is whisky made in Scotland. In a fantasy universe there is no Scotland, so there is no such drink called scotch.
2) There is too much time spent 'setting up' that the character expects not to get chosen but she's going to enjoy it while she can anyway ... surprise, she gets chosen. Like, pages of it. We get it.
3) The main character goes from being a shy, blushing virgin to literally banging three guys back to back and seducing them. There is no arc here to explain this dramatic shift, and as someone else commented, the language used to describe the 'love scenes' looks like it was written by a teenage boy, with sometimes confusing anatomical references, excessive use of the 'P' word, and a truly fantastic amount of orgasming for a virgin. Oh, and she apparently felt her hymen break.... yes, that word was actually used as it was described.
4)She is also described as being of the least attractive physical type to the kingdom but all three male leads have an excessive inner monologue describing how much they want to rip her clothes off. They could have developed an attraction for her, or something, to make this look less like a set up for bodice-ripping.
5) The main character just doesn't develop. She's bland and uninteresting, especially compared with the allure of the 'dragons'. She's sweet and nice and a virgin-come-sexpot-pornstar and that's about it.
It's disappointing, because there could really be the makings of an interesting fantasy series here... I love the idea of a 'dragon race' and how they describe the different kingdoms and their issues is interesting. But there's too little development of the world the characters live in to really set the scene and it ends up feeling like a GOT themed porno: cheesy, poorly acted, and way more sex. -
Mostly enjoyable, but the courting phase felt underused. The eventual realization a out HOW to solve "which Prince to choose" was hella obvious so I was more frustrated then anything else by the "will she choose me? I don't want to lose my brothers!" angst.
Dudes y'all have a thing for her, don't feel like murdering each other and all have compatible traits that together make for a good King. Stop your dithering.
I wish more time had been spent on Dareena being a Chosen. As well giving us more time to see her get to know the Princes. One date with each guy before the sexual tension got to her and then sex all the time.
Meanwhile the King being batshit and dangerous is fairly well shown, though I can't see how he had ever been sane since very little is mentioned about before he became a danger.
Some world building things made little sense as well - mostly involving the Dragon Born vs dragon. And then did the human females mated to the Dragons have lives made longer? One of the brothers mentions dragons got crazy when their mates die...and if dragons live considerably longer then even Dragon Born wouldn't that mean dragons go crazy pretty regularly before they time on the throne is over?
I'm thinking based on the ending Dareena will find herself with plenty of virile handsome men to please her by the end of the trilogy... -
ARC - I voluntarily offered to review this book with no obligations and my opinions are honest!
Dareena didn't expect that good things will happen in her life.
If she did not hope too much, then she could not be disappointed if it did not happen.
Now she is in a castle living a good life, and maybe she will be picked to be the next Dragon's gift.
If only that was true!
This is the first book in a trilogy.
We get to know the characters and some of their background.
I think that we sort of knew that Dareena was going to be the next Dragon's gift.
However there is a twist at the end that I did not see it coming, but it was awesome.
We end the book in a cliffhanger which was expected.
I can't wait to read the next book.
I want to see where is the author leading us to. -
Glad I took a chance
I like reading threesomes and triple-loving as much as the next girl but I wasn't sure how 3 very different brothers were gonna fall in love and have sex with one woman without killing h each other. Add in their dragons and the testosterone levels are going through the roof. Once Dareena has sex, it seems she only has sex with her suitors. I liked getting details on them getting to know each other but a lot happened towards the end to build up for book 2. Even though it's a reverse harem I still had hope she liked my favorite Drystan more than the others. If she's happy I'm happy. Can't wait for the rest of the trilogy!! -
This is one of my favorite Reverse Harems that I have read in quite some time and definitely in my top three RH. I loved all of the aspects of the story. Dragon shifters, elves, & mages! I was sucked in within the first chapter. Not to mention the RH romance! Be prepared to fan yourself with this one! Walt & Sage, all I have to say is thank you and please keep writing! Can't wait for the next one!
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I'm a Jasmine Walt fan. This is a slight departure from some of her other works in that it is really really spicy. So be warned in advance. Dragons...three dragon brothers...one girl...the fate of a nation riding on choices these four make. These brothers will melt the pants right off of you. Need I say more? Enjoy!
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Subtance
So many reversed harem stories have lots of sex and little substance, but this story bucks that trend. We actually get to know each guy in the harem and their personalities shine. Yes we get some sex, but it doesn't overwhelm the story, which is actually a good one. It has plenty of drama and intrigue. I look forward to the sequels. -
Pretty enjoyable -- only two words that took me out of the world of the book (somehow telling musicians they were "terrific" and her first response to an orgasm being "wow" just weren't quite right for this mood!). It's a nice world they've set up, and although I only read this to meet a word search challenge, I expect to be reading the other two books to see what happens to this group!
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It was interesting to read for sure. It is not every day that one can read the reverse harem story. I have to say, at some points even I was shocked by how Dareena was acting. But hey - all 3 princes were as handsome as another, so which girl wouldnt do the same?
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LOVED it!
I loved Dareena and the three princes. I loved the mystery and the sex. I loved everything about everyone in this book, except the king, he was a dick.
This is my first reverse harem and will not be my last. I am going to grab the next one now.
Highly recommend! -
3 stars
Meh... it was good I just did not have any connection to the characters. The next book sounds really interesting though so maybe it will get better. -
In all fairness, I do not like reverse harems. I tried this to give it one last shot. I think, people who like RHs will like this. The world building is great; the characters are likable; and the story is well developed. The romance is a bit rushed and shallow. I really didn’t see a real connection between the three brothers and Dareena. This made it difficult to enjoy the sex scenes. Ironically, I could understand why she liked two of the brothers. But, one lacked personality and presence. The suspense and mystery was enjoyable. I look forward to how it will develop. Ironically, many reviewers complained about the sex. I didn’t find this to have too much sex at all. The sex scenes were short and rushed.
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So, this is a total cliffhanger that ends right in the middle of a crisis. It was enjoyable.
