Rating: 2.75 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel

 

Jake decompresses by playing a somewhat silly online game. But his favorite part is the connection he’s made with another player, Skydra. Jake doesn’t know anything about them, other than the pull he feels toward them, and how their banter has turned into daily chats and flirtation. His days revolve around chatting with Skydra and his cat, Moonlight.

Adelphos turned over his duties as grandmaster to a younger generation, but in the ensuing time, he’s grown bored and listless. His magic is fluctuating, and his only joy comes from the tablet his grandson set up for him, the silly online game, and his conversations with a player named Jake. As time progresses, Adelphos knows he’s drawn to Jake in a way he hasn’t been since his fated mate died. He’s also been plagued by vague and terrifying dreams of a heart wrenching event from the past that was so long ago, the salient details have long since disappeared.

Jake finally asks Skydra/Adelphos out on a virtual date, but before it can happen, the truth about Jake’s actual nature comes out. By a twist, Jake and Adelphos can meet in person, only to discover that Jake is so much more than either man expected. But in order to have a life together, Adelphos has to finally confront his past.

First things first, this is the third book in the Elements of Dragons series, which I haven’t read. And for the most part, it works fine as a standalone. I did feel a little bit like I was missing background, and clearly the main secondary characters were the MCs of previous books. I think Adelphos would have been a little more fleshed out had I read the series. But all the important details are here in order to understand this story. However, this book as a whole was somewhat chaotic, and ultimately didn’t work for me.

It all begins with a prologue that sets things up, but left me feeling lost. And then we jump into the story, but things didn’t get better for me. My main problem with the narrative is that there’s a choppiness that inhibits the flow. The characters’ thoughts and dialogue are fast paced, but instead of pushing the story along, it feels as though nothing is given proper time to develop. Every character suffers from this, as they literally say one thing, then immediately in the next sentence resolve it or contradict it. My head was spinning by how quickly things shuffled around and it didn’t flow naturally. There were few transitions between parts of scenes and it just gave the whole tale a very choppy feeling to me.

On top of that, Jake has thought he was human his entire life and, in fact, didn’t even know the dragon realm existed. But he takes the revelation in stride and accepts things far too easily to be believable. What’s even worse, he then accepts his past connection with Adelphos without even blinking. To be honest, it just felt like more of the chaos and was completely unbelievable. All in all, it just didn’t work for me and I couldn’t get on board with any of their interactions.

For me, this story was lacking a lot. Some of that, I’m sure, was due to not having read the previous two books. But even more than that, the style of narrative was not for me. It was too choppy and chaotic, lacking the smoothness that let things flow naturally. Unless you’re a fan of this series, I would let this story pass.