Tag Archives: Lee Savino

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Book Reviews: Draekon Warrior & Draekon Conqueror, by Lili Zander & Lee Savino

In December of last year, I picked up a free copy of Draekon Conqueror (by Lee Savino and Lili Zander), only to later discover it’s book two in a series. (Yeah, I don’t always pay enough attention. I know.) In March of this year, book one, Draekon Warrior, popped up in my feed as a freebie, so I grabbed it, too.

I chose to read them now as a little bit of a cheat. You see, I need a Z for my yearly alphabet challenge—where I read at least one book by an author with a last name for each letter of the alphabet. I’m swapping the order of Savino and Zander and calling this my Z…or at least a Z.

draekon Warrior cover

About the Book:

Captured in space. Imprisoned. Sold to the highest bidder.
But my biggest problem is the bossy, aggravating, impossible, alien who’s supposed to rescue me.

The bossy alien I kissed.

That might have been a mistake.

Kadir is dangerous. I’ve seen him fight and his body is littered with scars. He’s a soldier. A warrior. And when he loses control, he turns into a big scary dragon and breathes fire.

Everyone’s terrified of him. I’m not. No, call me the biggest fool in the galaxy, because I’m attracted to the big jerk.

When I first met the small human I was sent to rescue, she punched me in the jaw.

And broke her wrist in the process. Irrational woman.

Then she insists that the two of us set out immediately to find her missing friend.

No, what I have to do is get Alice Hernandez to safety.

She’s soft, yet she’s strong.

Fragile, yet so brave.

She’s everything I’ve never known I wanted.

Everything I can’t let myself have.

When the scientists tortured me, they broke me. And when Alice finds out the truth about the fearsome, raging dragon inside me, I will lose her.

You know, I’ve seen quite a lot of discourse lately on why people enjoy monster romance/smut. And a lot of it comes down to how monsters in such books are often bigger, scarier, and more powerful than the female main character. But they are also almost always very obviously conscious of this fact and go to great lengths and courtesies to reduce themselves as perceived threats…to mitigate any risk they pose. They’re often super conscientious about consent and big ol’ cinnamon rolls underneath the scary exterior. (And how many parallels are there to real world men and their perceived threats in that paragraph, hmmm?)

Kadir is honestly too humanoid to qualify as a ‘monster,’ but he shares many of those same qualities. Not least of which is seeing himself and feeling himself perceived as a monster. And he is every bit as careful and considerate of Alice as any monster, even before he sees her as mate material and the real romance starts. It’s sweet.

The story isn’t complicated. There’s no more to it than any number of other alien romances. But it’s well done and sweet enough that I’m happy to have book two on my Kindle.

drakon warrior photoI did, at some point, realize that this must be a spin-off series, as characters started showing up that were obviously pairings from another book. Turns out it’s a spin-off of the Dragons In Exile series. However, as much as this normally annoys me, I have to say this one stood alone well enough that I noticed but wasn’t too bothered. I didn’t feel like I was missing too much information, having not read the previous series. There were also a couple of minor consistency mishaps. But all in all, I enjoyed this.


Draekon Conqueror cover

About the book:

I’ve lived an eternity. I’ve killed thousands. Destroyed worlds. I thought I’d seen everything. I didn’t think there was anything left in the galaxy that could surprise me.

Then I met her. Lani Dennison. A human woman. My mate.

My mission was simple. Find Lani Dennison.

Zorahan scientists tortured her. I killed them, of course.
Okaki pirates abducted her. I tracked them down and infiltrated their ship. Routine stuff. Nothing that presented a problem to a trained soldier that could shift into a fire-breathing dragon.

I expected her to be smart. You’d have to be, to survive the Okaki pirates.

I didn’t expect her to be lovely.
I didn’t expect her to make me laugh.
And I definitely didn’t expect her to be the one woman I was destined to be with, the missing piece of my soul. My mate.

Now what?


I enjoyed this for many of the same reasons I enjoyed the first book. The Draekon is marvelously solicitous to the human mate. Everyone is careful about consent. There aren’t any needless misunderstandings or mind games. Everyone is delightedly straightforward.

But I admit that I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as book one. I didn’t find Ruhan quite as charismatic a lead male. Sure, he’s cocky and cock-sure to cover his brokenness, which hits you in the feels. But I just didn’t like draekon conqueror photohim as much as I did Kadir from the previous book. That’s not to say I didn’t like him, just not as much. Similarly, I didn’t find Lani as multifaceted as Alice. I liked her. But I didn’t think she had quite the depth.

But the real question is whether I would read another book in the series, and I would. In fact, book three, which involves pirates, looks especially tempting. I don’t have it on my Kindle yet, but I look forward to reading it in the future.


Other Reviews:

In Between the Pages: Draekon Series Reviews

Scary Mary Hamster Lady: Book Review: Draekon Conqueror

 

 

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Book Review of Alien Captive, by Lee Savino & Golden Angel

I picked up a copy of Lee Savino and Golden Angel’s Alien Captive from Amazon, I think on a free day.

Who knew reading sexy alien abduction stories could get a girl into trouble?

Or that an e-reader could also be the gateway to another galaxy? I definitely didn’t… but here I am anyway, mated to the Tsenturion High Commander just like the unwilling human heroines in my favorite sci-fi romances.

The Commander demands obedience. He intends to claim me, train me, and turn me into his perfect little pleasure trophy.

He doesn’t believe in love. I don’t believe in giving in without a fight.

There’s no amount of discipline or ecstasy that could break me to his will… I hope.

Alien Captive is a hot alien abduction romance, starring one feisty human and the Tsenturion Warrior strong enough to master her.

Utterly ridiculous, but not taking itself too seriously either. Meta enough to make it interesting, as Dawn is well aware that her predicament is predicated on her favorite fictional erotic books (which are just like this one), but that fantasies aren’t necessarily what one wants in reality.

Unfortunately, the book lacks in connection. Several of the important conversations that need to be had either aren’t had or are had with the wrong person. Essentially, Dawn and Gavrill may speak to others, but when together they’re entirely inside their own heads. They don’t have conversations, they just fuck. I couldn’t feel their love grow in the slightest. Further, all that sex got boring. It’s not just that there’s so much of it (I would expect that in an erotic novel). It’s that it’s all basically the same and eventually it felt redundant. Lastly, Dawn’s ‘misunderstanding’ felt forced and artificial. It’s been done better a thousand times before.

The writing is pretty sound though. And I feel like the authors tried to grapple with the fact that the ‘brides’ will be enslaved, even if that word isn’t ever used The reader is supposed to understand they love their situations. I never could quite make the leap, personally. I also thought some of the BDSM tropes felt shoehorned into the plot, honestly.

All in all, not great. But not a horrible version of what it is either.