A Post-Apocalyptic Dragon Romance (Fireblood Dragon Book 1)

I was hoping for something more like Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs, what I got was Anne Rice meets Twilight. This was a total disappointment. The main character showed initial promise, but quickly devolved into a (questionably animated) hand-wringing, sex toy.

The story is very good. The concept is interesting and exciting.
I was just annoyed several times by the h.
I understand and agree about how the story unfolds and the thoughts processes of the characters but Claudia and all her inner fights were making me annoyed at her.
The resolution and réalisation I was waiting for, for a while, came later than I d wished which made her rumblings about how unfair everything is in her situation look very ungrateful. I was almost sorry for Kael, who is very patient and loving in regards of his mate throwing tantrums.
She should have put the blame to the ones that really are responsible earlier than blame Kael.
She has discover a pattern in the dragons and their stories but instead to think about all the possibilities and what her situation can bring to the humans she is wallowing.
Her confrontation with the humans at the fort and her at least "protesting" came a bit late.
I would love to read more though. Because the concept is very good and I feel like this world is full of hidden things about the dragons.
I will certainly read the next one.

Fated mates, check
A sexy sweet hero, check
Action, check
This story has everything one needs in a steamy dragon romance. This is a good start to a new series by Ruby Dixon, if you are already a fan of her ice planet barbarians then you will love this book!.
Cannot wait for the next book in the series.

Ruby never fails to create lively characters and vivid worlds. I love her books. I find myself re-reading the IPB books all the time to immerse myself in such fabulous creativity. I am sure this series will be the same. I can't wait for the next book! Team Drakoni all the way!

Great story concept and details. However, it doesn't really get good until your 50-60% in the book at least that's my opinion. The first part just dragged I felt. Claudia was an okay heroine but she did annoy at a few points....mostly when she didn't listen. I'll probably read the 2nd book but hope that Ms. Dixon keeps the dragging wordy parts to a 1-2 chapters rather the whole 1st half.

I enjoyed this. The characters were interesting and the story was engaging. One drawback tho was Kael using the normal crude human vernacular for male and female parts. As a non human I would have found it more believable if he had used more general terminology or even specific 'drakoni' words now and then. A few editing issues but nothing that seriously detracted from this story. All in all a fun read.

As a fan of apocalyptic & dystonia stories, as well as Dixon's Ice Barbarian series, I was excited to see this new series.

This is a tough book to review because so many positives and negatives happened in the same book. Our heroine, Claudia, was caught stealing in order to feed her sister, best friend and herself. Because of this, Claudia is to be used as "bait" by the local government to perhaps tame a dragon. The fact that the dragon may just end up eating her isn't considered a big deal. The beginning of this book details the horrors of the world, Claudia's experiences since the dragons appeared through the rift and the callousness of the government in charge. I was really enjoying the world building, the character of Claudia and the fear the entire world had of the dragons. The plot and writing were great. Even Claudia meeting Kael, a golden dragon, and getting him to understand her was dealt with in a realistic manner. Unfortunately, as the story went along, the plot stalled and we were treated to ENDLESS internal meanderings by Claudia of her sister, her best friend, Kael being another species, etc. Over and over again Claudia thought about rescuing her sister, but for a third of the book she never told Kael about her sister or enlisted his help. Claudia just THOUGHT about it. Claudia thought about her best friend selling herself for food and was sad, but still didn't do much about it. Claudia thought about sex with Kael but just skated the edges of actual penetration. I became so frustrated with the character of Claudia who never seems to make a positive step forward to get anything done other than teach Kael to cook her meat and find stuff for their house. I also became frustrated with the repetitive sex scenes which actually detracted from the book 50% of them could have been cut out. When sex doesn't move the story along in some way or expose some twist in the plot, it is unnecessary, regardless if it is well written or not. Quite frankly, Dixon's sex scenes are pretty tepid to me. I usually find myself skimming them.

This entire book really needed tightened up. If the middle had been hacked and thrown on the floor, it would have been a much better story. At one point, it almost flatlined, but fortunately Claudia finally got it together and decided to use Kael to go rescue her sister; however, the ending of the story was an obvious set up for at least three more books, which I won't be reading. I don't know what happened to Dixon here, but the story didn't have the "magic" of her Ice Barbarians series.

I wanted to love this book. Dragons, apocalypse, romance. What's not to love right? One word - Claudia. Most of the secondary characters fell flat for me, but if she had been crafted well I don't think it would have mattered. Claudia was beyond annoying to me. She continuously mentally whined about the peril she feared her sister and friend might be in, but did nothing about it until late in the book. She didn't even attempt to enlist Kael who she repeatedly says would do anything to please her, yet she enlists him to scavenge for "nesting" items. Huh? At the very least you would think she would have talked to him in some depth about it. I also had great difficulty swallowing her struggles (he's a dragon, the enemy, he chose her etc) with accepting Kael. The longer that whole thing went on the more it felt contrived to lengthen the book rather than add to the story in any meaningful way. I mean she had no issues with those things when they were beneficial to her. That space in the book would have been better served by adding depth to our primary characters and their relationship or to advancing what's going to happen with this dragon vs human thing outside of the romances. Is anyone going to let the humans know the reasons for the attacks? Is anyone going to teach the dragons what they need to "cure" themselves of the aggression? What about the other Forts? This book has the bones of a great story. A great romance or a great romantic adventure book. Depends on how the author plays it. However, parts grew so repetitive - making me ultimately dislike Claudia and had me skimming just to get through it. I like this author, but the jury is still out on if I'll read the next book in the series though.

I love Ruby Dixons Ice Planet Barbarians books! I am always on her Facebook page eagerly awaiting the next teaser she puts out. But this was VERY disappointing. If this is your first time reading from this author, please don't judge her based off of this one. Please read her IPB series, it's great! I promise you won't regret it! As for this book, definitely skip it . This book felt like I had a best friend who is a doctor, that woke up one day and decided to become a writer, and asked me to read her book. That's how painful this one was to read. I don't want to say anything harsh because I think Ruby is great. But it would've been easier to watch paint dry. I found myself starting to skim paragraphs, then pages, then chapters. This entire book could have read Claudia blah blah, Mayor blah blah, Dragon blah blah, bad guys blah blah, save sister and friend blah blah, they live happily ever after… (Sorry to say it but, I just saved you hours.) I will still eagerly stalk the IPB series, I still love you Ruby, but I am DEFINITELY skipping this series. I think you're a great writer, I just don't understand what happened here.

A couple things that drove me bonkers. One perfect example; in one paragraph it mentioned h was frail and the H would be pissed if she was. If you took out the repetitive comments this book would be about 20% shorter. I made it halfway before I mentally threw it at the wall.
The h was just plain dumb. One sentence went something like this. “We were having sex but then he bit me and it hurt.” duh, dragon shifter. What did you expect? So of course that made it perfectly reasonable for her to smash him on the head and run away. After he passed on eating her and raping her, freed her from chains, fed her and saved her from a dragon who probably wouldn’t have been half as nice. Seriously?
Then when she gets back to the city she finds out the militia might have her sister. The same militia that chained her up to be dragon bait. So she decides to go to them and nicely ask for her sister back. Makes sense to you? If it does maybe this is your kinda book. Hard pass for me.

I liked the characters very much. Wish more would have been explained about how or why the Apocalyptic event happened. Hope the other two sequels come out soon. Shows GOOD and bad of people in cruisers. Shows you can't judge someone or something by their appearance. Both main characters Claudia and Kael have heart and she sees past his exterior finally to realize he is who she truly needs and loves.

Poor Claudia is trying to manage to feed herself and her sister, but her only option is to do so in a way that is illegal in this decimated post-apocalyptic world. She is caught, and her punishment is to be dragon bait for an experiment.
Claudia's terror is fully felt, and is all the more heartbreaking when balanced with Kael's narrative and his desperation to calm her fears and get to know her. He is attempting to navigate an interaction that has both cultural and linguistic barriers - as well as the barrier of fear - all while fighting his own psychological madness.
Claudia figures out ways to communicate with Kael after he demonstrates attempts to take care of her and keep her safe. But she struggles with the need to remain safe and provided for with him and the guilt that she has her needs me while her sister and friend are likely starving - or worse.
They develop a comfortable relationship before a major cultural misunderstanding drives Claudia back to the place that left her as defenseless prey for the dragon. She has to decide if Kael's betrayal was worse than what will happen to her in her old community, and what dangers her sister and friend might face.

Was a complete nutter and devoured all five of Ruby’s dragon books (starting with Veronica’s Dragon) in about a weekend. I could not stop reading them! This is actually my second read of this book. I was too greedy to get to the next in the series to take the time to review, but now plan to rectify that. I really enjoyed the characters. There wasn’t a ton of “world-building” and not a lot of info explaining how they survived in the apocalyptic landscape, but I was fine with the bulk of the writing surrounding the relationship with the girl and her dragon. Very unique shape shifter elements (at least the first I’ve read of dragon shifting). If there are more out there I’m game! Meanwhile I will wait for more of Ruby’s writing. And a thank you shout out to Amanda Milo, who mentioned this author at the end of my favorite book of HERS, Stolen by an Alien. So glad I dived in, I absolutely LOVE the dragon riding.

Post Civilization:
Claudia?? struggles to find food for herself and her sister and her best friend in a devastated world since the Dragons?? came through the rift in space.
She scavanges outside the protective wall of stacked cars that encircles Fort Dallas, a small inhabited area that is all that remains of the old Dallas. Outside is a no man's land of destroyed buildings and further away, feral domestic animals roam, and it's also the domain of the terrible dragons?? that now terrorize what is left of humankind.
Humankind.......degenerated into a dog eat dog existence with a hierarchy of corrupted soldiers and politicians taking the best of what is left. Women?? sell their bodies for a bit of spoiled food.
Almost daily, the huge ?fire breathing Dragons? attack and burn or destroy parts of the fort.
Claudia is arrested for theft, and taken outside the city walls and left as bait for a ?Dragon. She is ordered to "tame the ??Dragon" so it will stop attacking the fort.

What she finds is a huge possessive? golden Dragon?. Amazingly, he can also shapeshift into a gorgeous human like all male form! And he's a truly hot? naaasssty bad boy!?????
YEHAW! Ride em Bareback?, Cowgirl!?????

I have never much cared for this type of book, dragons? or other shapeshifters don't dou it for me, but this book was so well written, so good at ?world building, I couldn't put it down. However, I found Claudia's?? grating personality tiresome much of the time.

In this post apocalyptic world dragons have invaded and decimated the earth. Killing billions and leaving the entire planet in ashes. The survivors are few and are forced to live in self governing towns rife with crime, hunger, and danger. Claudia, her sister Amy, and her friend Sasha, do whatever it takes to survive in this new world where lone women are vulnerable. Claudia, after being imprisoned for scavenging, has been forced into a dangerous experiment. Tied naked to a pole in an abandoned building outside of town, she waits for death. But what she gets is a chance at a better life. Can she live with the fact that she’s mated to the enemy?

I absolutely loved Ruby Dixon’s IPB series, and had to check this book out. For the most part I liked the book. The plot was good and flowed nicely. I really just didn’t care for Claudia. Pretty much the whole book she was hot and cold. One minute she would be happy, the next taking out her guilty feelings on Kael (the dragon). The whole time all she had to do was tell Kael that they needed to rescue her sister and Sasha. The whole time! Instead of that she would have him furnishing their makeshift apartment, bringing her food, and pretending she didn’t want to be his mate. It was emotionally exhausting. Poor Kael. He just wanted not to be crazy anymore, and to spend every waking moment fulfilling every and any need or want his ungrateful mate had.

Kael. Yum! I really enjoyed his character, especially as his personality developed with the return of his sanity. Who wouldn’t want a big, constantly aroused, possessive, protective dragon around in a world where women (or really anyone) were not safe?

Dakh, and Sasha’s book I am sort of iffy on reading. This book took till pretty much the end for the mated pair to get to their happy place, and with Sasha’s history the next book I fear, will take even longer. Not saying I won’t read it, just that I might wait till some reviews come out and give me a better idea on the timeline.

HEA, duel POV, trigger would be that Sasha is in an abusive arrangement for survival.

Check out more of my reviews on my blog romance2review.com

Reviewed by theromancejunkie

This was a fantastic paranormal dragon romance. I can’t wait to read more from Ruby Dixon in the future.

Ever since the sky opened up and fire breathing dragons poured out, the world has never been the same. Very few cities survived the attacks and of the few that did, the citizens are in desperate need of food and supplies.

Claudia James is a survivor. She lives with her sister Amy in Fort Dallas and has to steal and barter in order to live. The only other options for young women like herself and her sister is to sell their bodies. They both refuse to resort to prostitution.

Claudia finds herself in jail after being caught scavenging and is worried how she is going to escape this time. In turns out that the Mayor of Fort Dallas has other plans for Claudia – he wants to use her as bait with the dragons. It is rumored that a woman from For Orleans mated with a golden dragon and that the mating has saved their city. They are not sure how it actually works, but the Mayor’s office has been sending young women out beyond the city barriers hoping that a “golden” will take one of the females they keep offering.

What the humans can’t possibly know is that the golden dragons are not just dragons, but half men as well. They are consumed with a madness until they find their fated mate.

KAEL is a golden dragon living right outside of Fort Dallas. KAEL’s mind has almost given in to the madness until he comes upon Claudia. If he can only convince her to not be afraid of him and make her agree to be his forever. The book chronicles their journey towards accepting and loving each other and saving humanity in the process. Enjoy!

theromancejunkie

I will start by saying that reading this genre was an experiment for me. I like shifter romance, but was uncertain about the alien component. I read to about 50%, but the apocalyptic rift in the space time continuum oozing out crazed Dragon creatures was a bit much. This was further taken out of my comfort zone when the Dragon "Hero?" shifts into a scaly humanoid, with reptilian eyes, and flawed hands....yeah, just not sexy, at all. I don't relate to sexy times with a reptilian man. So, I couldn't finish, but it you like this kind of story premise, it might be just the book for you. I will say the characters were not the most exciting, and so, the plot and genre should really be your cup of tea to make this book work. For me, I am on to something a little less alien.

Are you looking for a huge dragon who protects his mate at all costs? A dragon who is half crazy, but makes up for it in hotness and heart? Or one who can shift into an almost-human male and is hot enough to melt the panties off a nun? Well, you grabbed the right book, because this here book is definitely one sexy mess that will have you hot and bothered and begging for more of these crazy sexy dragon shifters!
These books also contain plenty of action, a dash of mystery, and lots of steamy love making to satisfy your urges for at least a few days, depending on how fast you read, of course. So if you enjoyed Ruby's alien barbarians, then you'll definitely enjoy her sexy dragons too!
I know I can't wait to see where she takes this dragon series. I still love her other series and I will always hold a special place in my heart for those barbarian men, and I also look forward to reading more of those books as long as she continues writing them (so keep them coming Ruby), but I also can't wait to read more about these hot and crazy dragons! I highly recommend this book for all romance lovers, especially those who like paranormal or shifter romances. Give it a try, you won't be sorry you did! Oh, and one more thing...If you are a prude who doesn't like sex, then please don't even bother reading this book or leaving a bad review because you were "offended" by the hot lovemaking. You've been warned about the sex and it's not fair to the author to get bad reviews from those who were dumb enough to pick up a book they knew contained material they wouldn't like. There are plenty of "clean" romance books out there, do us all a favor and go read one of those! Leave the rest of us to enjoy our dirty dragon book! ?

Broken worlds do it for me, man. Broken cities. Broken societies. Broken EVERYTHINGS. All things considered, Kael fits into that category, too. He's lost to his madness until Claudia gives him a reason to claw his way out of it.

Frankly, Kael is adorable. You know, for a jet-sized monster out of humanity's worst nightmares. So he has a few flaws. Who doesn't? He works on figuring out what Claudia needs and he's not always right, but his persistence is impressive. Plus, anyone who's willing to fight to the death to make sure their special someone is safe gets a thumbs up from me.

Meanwhile, Claudia's confusion on whether she should remain loyal to the humans who left her to die or one of the dragons who devastated their world was understandable. Kael's devotion to her made her question everything she thought she knew about dragons. Yet, her sister and friend are still back with the humans and...she's torn. She wants it all.

Frankly, I liked this book. I liked broken society. I liked that the dragons have a lot of issues to overcome (OMG, A LOT!). I liked that Claudia and the others are (mostly) scrappy survivors. I'm in for the long haul!

-Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal

Claudia lives in Fort Dallas. About 5 years ago the skies split open and dragons flew through, killing off most of the population and driving what was left into small protected areas struggling to get enough food and protection to survive. Claudia's sister Amy was injured and never healed right. Now Claidia scavenges to try to provide for her. The power in Fort Dallas is with the male militia and a woman without a man's protection is at risk. Claudia and her friend Sasha try to provide for Amy, but scavenging is illegal and Sasha tries to provide by using a 'special' friend who frequently abuses her, but Claudia can't stand that. As the book opens, Claudia is caught scavenging. At first they plan to banish her, a death sentence by dragon or marauders but they have heard something about a woman 'taming ' a dragon and decide to use her as an offering instead. And a dragon comes and turns into an aroused male with no way to communicate. Why are the dragons attacking? How could a human woman tame one? And what will happen to Amy and Sasha without protection in Fort Dallas? This is an edgy and sexy romance. The dragons frequently behave better than the humans, but there is much about their situation yet unknown. It ends with a great set up into the next romance. I will eagerly await the next to see if these new relations can heal a fractured world.

First let me say that I love the barbarian books, so I was really excited about a new series with dragons. Sorry to say I was very disappointed.
I simply hated the h Claudia. Soooo annoying!!! There was a moment when I was hoping she would just die and let the dragon-man find someone else.
I will just wait for the next barbarian book.