Review: The Dragon and His Prince by Adara Wolf and R Phoenix

The Dragon and His Prince by Adara Wolf and R Phoenix
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was unfortunately a let down for me. I was very excited for the sex pollen/aphrodisiac body fluids and double dicked dragon!! How fun! Alas.

Having read both these authors individually before, I skipped the content warnings for a more fun surprise (this is very fun). I still suggest everyone else read them first, in the book and on the authors website.

Now, to book:

I was told by a friend to expect more of a fluffy dubcon fantasy book, relative to the authors’ individual works, and that was pretty spot on. Very not dark, cute dubcon via sex pollen. Well…yeah okay, that was about it for the book.

I really liked Jade being super possessive of Larkin though, and calling him his treasure and gem all the time. So cute!

I was settling in to have fun guessing who wrote which character, and then it was immediately obvious due to ellipses abuse in Larkin’s POV. So that was short-lived, but still kind of amusing.

As a whole: I felt like this book didn’t know what it wanted to be. It started off very focused on the sex, then a random sexual assault that had zero import to the story or impact on the characters, then suddenly emotions between the two I don’t buy, then more random sexual assault, and then curtains close after a dramaqtique duel. Or something. It didn’t hit a good ground of being unapologetically plotless or having a distinct plot, so it just felt kind of lost in itself.

Larkin was a serious failure point for me. He started off as endearingly naive, but he never grew out of this. The whole way through he’s just bumbling into trouble because he’s such an unrelenting idiot. Sure, having him be sweet and earnest as contrast to Elric is fine, and therefore he’s supposed to be a good ruler or whatever, but I have Serious Doubts about his being fit to do anything but get fucked by a dragon. No growth at all, very helpless character. This lack of change in him and repeated exactly the same failure points just made him grating by the end.

The emotions between the two came out of nowhere. I get and liked Jade being very possessive and Larkin being sex pollened into it, but actual emotions didn’t work for me. No base to work from, and it kind of undermined the fun slightly-unhealthy vibe it started with. Jade’s motivations changing like that made it a bit snooze worthy. It would still work (and be more fun!) if he stayed possessive and selfish the whole way through. Love a possessive one note MC.

The sexual assaults added nothing to the book. They didn’t really fit in with the rest, tonally or for the plot such as it was, and they had no impact at all on the characters. Why were they there? I’m fine with reading noncon/rape/making the MCs suffer, but I want it to have a purpose. Otherwise it feels gratuitous, or like it was added as an afterthought to titillate or attempt to reach some ‘dark’ quota when the rest of this is very fluffy.

I almost hate to add this last bit on….but I was actually kind of bored of the sex by the end. Glad they made it to DP at the very end, I was actually a little worried for a moment there. Maybe I’ve been reading too much weird fic stuff? It felt very repetitive.

Overall, even with my adjusted expectations, this was a stinker for me. I made it through with a lot of skimming. A real bummer. I haven’t been persuaded to continue on in the series, so I’ll probably just wait for solo works again.