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Book Review of Dragon Bound (Elder Races, Bk 1)

Dragon Bound (Elder Races, Bk 1)
Dragon Bound (Elder Races, Bk 1)
Author: Thea Harrison
Genre: Romance
Book Type: Paperback
ophelia99 avatar reviewed on + 2527 more book reviews


I have heard some really awesome things about the Elder Races series and got this on audiobook quite a while ago to read. It is okay, but overall I was pretty disappointed. This is definitely one of those paranormal books where the plot takes a backseat to the romance between the two lead characters.

The audiobook was narrated decently. It wasn't narrated so well that I thought it was awesome, but it wasn't badly done either. The narrator did a decent job of having distinct voices for all of the characters and portrayed emotion well.

Pia Giovanni is a half-human/half-wyr. She has spent most of her life keeping a low profile and hiding what she is. However that all changes when an old boyfriend blackmails her into stealing something from one of the most powerful and feared creatures of the Elder Races, Dragos Cuelebre. Little do Pia and Dragos know that the blackmail was instigated by one of Dragos's sworn enemies and part of a much larger plot to bring him down. When Dragos hunts down Pia, he spares her life but tells her he must work off her debt to him. Pia agrees but refuses to be his slave. Both Pia and Dragos are strangely drawn to each other; yet each is too prideful to submit to the other.

This is a very very typical paranormal romance. Dragos is your super alpha male who is centuries old, yet for some reason there is just something that instantly draws him to Pia. Pia is the kind of heroine that has a secret hidden power, yet constantly needs to be rescued by Dragos (to be fair she does help do some rescuing as well). Pia also constantly protests against Drago's advances but when he really asserts himself she melts against him in need. All very eye-rolling inducing and typical romance. The whole series reminded me a lot of the Black Dagger Brotherhood books, but not as well done.

There are some interesting elements to this world. The Wyr are all different types of creatures. Generally they can take a human shape but also have a Wyr shape (Dragon, griffin, etc). I enjoy the wide variety of Wyr creatures that we meet. There is some talk about Other Worlds, which are parallel magic worlds that the characters can journey in between and this was pretty neat too. Unfortunately all of these elements weren't expanded on all that much and were brushed under the rug in favor of the relationship issues and romance scenes.

The romantic scenes between Dragos and Pia were decently done. They weren't the best I have read but weren't the worst either. The scenes are very explicit and Dragos and Pia do have great chemistry together; so the scenes were engaging. There wasn't a ton of creativity in them, but they were good.

This book seems to wrap up the story of Dragos and Pia and I am guessing the next Elder Races book will feature another couple...as is done so often in these types of series.

Overall this was an okay paranormal romance. This book followed a plot and had characters that are very typical to paranormal romance genre. So...if that is what you are looking for this was a decent book. There are some other elements to the story that were interesting; I loved the ideas of the Wyr and of alternate magical worlds. The relationship between Pia and Drago is incredibly predictable and Drago is very much an alpha male stereotype. I won't be reading anymore of this series, but I think for those looking for a serial type paranormal romance series this isn't a bad one.