We now come to the toughest part of any book or series, in my opinion. The ending. You can leap for the moon, but in writing the big question is always whether you’re gonna stick the landing. There was a lot riding on this book. Will Anna get a satisfying ending with her dragons? Why did Lee send her to the Blur? And will we finally get to see just what kinda chemistry all these people have? Well, I’ve got something to say about each of those things. So if you’d like my two cents, keep reading…
If you’ve been waiting not-so-patiently for sexy times, this is where they’re at. I can understand why Terry hold off on this, wanting to use it as drama in Anna’s indecision about which dragons she’ll choose. (Although that aspect kinda didn’t work for me—we know this is reverse harem where the #WhyChoose? Element is as integral to its execution as an HEA is to romance.) I also found that for me, as someone who finds love scenes can be something that is hit or miss, that everything started to blur (pun not intended) together. I liked the scene with Griffin and Rainier, but after that it all started to get read and forgotten almost faster than my eyes could skim my kindle. It was too much, too close together. And that’s unfortunate because Terry *can* write good love scenes and I could tell she *was* trying here.
As much as the overdose of sexy times bothered me, though, the whole issue with Lee was the most unfortunate part of the book. I love the idea that he was kind of a villain. I was cool with the fact that he was going to be redeemed. Terry has done stories where this happens before, and they have worked. But because of the way this trilogy was structured, and the number of love interests we were trying to juggle, there just wasn’t enough her to give him the necessary teeth to be really interesting, nor the room to properly grant redemption if he had been given those in the first place. On top of that, Lee is a Blue (healer) dragon, and they are traditionally very gentle and kind (which likely explains the lack of bite.) What this resulted in, unfortunately, was an antagonist who was manipulative, indecisive and whiny.
As for that happy ending? Yes, we get it and despite how hard I just roasted Lee up there I am happy that Anna and all her dragons made it through and got to be together. The ending and overall book climax were well done, making up for some of my issues in the first half of the novel.
Overall? My favorite dragons were Rainier and Seth. For the most part the series moved at a good clip that kept me interested. And I was ultimately that little tinge sad to let go of the characters when I got to the end of the story. All by itself, book three of the Bad Dragon trilogy would earn 3 hearts. But since it’s the conclusion of not just a series, but a three book long love story, I’m adding a heart because it ultimately did a great job at getting the love interests together and causing me to close the book happy for them, which is the core goal of any romance.