Fire in His Blood by Ruby Dixon

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Title: Fire in His Blood
Author: Ruby Dixon
Series: Fireblood Dragon #1
Published by: Tantor Audio
Release Date: June 20, 2017
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Noelle Bridges, Jeremy York
Length: 11 hours and 28 minutes
Genres: Dystopian, Erotic Romance, Post-Apocalyptic
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »forced prostitution, violence against women « Hide Spoiler
Source: Hoopla
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 1
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:

Blurb:

Years ago, the skies ripped open and the world was destroyed in fire and ash. Dragons - once creatures of legend - are the enemy. Vicious and unpredictable, they rule the skies of the ruined cities, forcing humanity to huddle behind barricades for safety.

Claudia's a survivor. She scrapes by as best as she can in a hard, dangerous world. When she runs afoul of the law, she's left as bait in dragon territory. She only has one chance to survive - to somehow 'tame' a dragon and get it to obey her.

Except the dragon that finds her is as wild and brutal as any other...and he's not interested in obeying.

What he is interested in is a mate.

My Review:

2.5 stars — Well that was a disappointment.  I would have enjoyed this book 1000 times more if it was half the size.  I truly don’t know if Ms. Dixon lost a good editor, or if it’s KU padding, but it was repetitive as fuck.

I can also say that I don’t think the narrators work for me.  Mr. York didn’t have quite as much audio time, and I’ve known before that we’re not an excellent match.  He actually was okay as Kael, his weird dragon voice worked okay and sounded kind of alien.  This is my first listen by Ms. Bridges, and her pacing was really slow with noticeable pauses…I had to speed the story up to get through it.  It wasn’t obvious to me at first that I wasn’t a huge fan, but I start to wonder if her choices on how to narrate bits were contributing to my frustration.

As for the story, well…it just didn’t go anywhere fast.  Claudia was not a character I connected with or really cared for.  I found her back and forth and wishy-washyness over how to feel about Kael to be drawn out and overdone.  They were genuine realities she had to face, but after however many chapters I just didn’t care anymore, nor did it make sense given the stage of their relationship.  I expected things to get better once they could talk with one another, but she still had these hangups and wouldn’t talk to him about them…FRUSTRATION!!!

I also found that she came across really callous and careless about this sister she supposedly worried about so much…not to mention her friend.  She didn’t try to talk to ANY other humans about the things she was learning about the dragons, and for someone so happy with her mate, she didn’t give any other women opportunities.

I know these are erotic romance books, but the romance part felt a bit lighter.  Funnily I felt it a bit more on Kael’s side, and he didn’t really have a romance concept.  It just wasn’t like what I get from the IPB series, where you get the lust and the steam, but you also get genuine caring on both sides.  Claudia was so hung up on certain aspects, I just…well, I don’t need to be as repetitive as the book, basically I was frustrated.

So yeah.  I find the whole world interesting, but the author is just not doing nearly enough with it for me to want to try more.  Bummer.