Joint Review: Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison

Reviewer: Holly and Rowena
Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison
Series: Elder Races #1
Also in this series: Dragon Bound (Elder Races, #1), Storm's Heart (Elder Races, #2), Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races, #3), Oracle's Moon (Elder Races, #4), Oracle's Moon (Elder Races, #4), True Colors (Elder Races, #3.5), Lord's Fall (Elder Races, #5), Kinked, Lord's Fall, Kinked (Elder Races, #6), Pia Saves the Day & Peanut Goes to School, Dragos Takes a Holiday, Night's Honor, Night's Honor, Midnight's Kiss, Midnight's Kiss, Dragos Goes to Washington, Shadow's End, Pia Does Hollywood, Liam Takes Manhattan, Pia Does Hollywood, The Chosen: A Novella of the Elder Races, Planet Dragos (Elder Races, #9.8), Planet Dragos (Elder Races, #9.8), Lionheart (Moonshadow, #3), Spellbinder
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: May 3rd 2011
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 336
Add It: Goodreads
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Series Rating:

View our feature on Thea Harrison’s Dragon Bound.Half-human and half-wyr, Pia Giovanni spent her life keeping a low profile among the wyrkind and avoiding the continuing conflict between them and their dark Fae enemies. But after being blackmailed into stealing a coin from the hoard of a dragon, Pia finds herself targeted by one of the most powerful-and passionate-of the Elder races.
Read Thea Harrison's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.

Holly: First, I need to start of by saying: I TOLD YOU SO. I knew you’d love this book.
Ehem. Moving on.

Let’s start by talking about the world-building. This is one of my favorite worlds. I love the concept of the four different courts, politics and intricacies. It was so easy to fall into.

Rowena: The world that Harrison created for this series was easy to fall into. I was surprised with how much I liked pretty much everything. I liked the four courts, I loved that while we get a huge chunk of Dragos’ world, there is still plenty to look forward to.

Holly: What did you think of Pia? I love how resourceful she is, and how quick an witty, too. I really felt like we got to know her.

Rowena: I really liked Pia. She was strong, independent and smart. She didn’t hold grudges against Dragos and she apologized when she made a mistake and I really liked that she called Dragos out on his crap. What made me love the heck out of her was how bloodthirsty she was.

“Her revenge to-do list kept getting longer and longer”

Haha, that made me laugh out loud. She was freaking awesome.

Holly: I like that she admitted she wasn’t much of a fighter (it wasn’t her first instinct) but she didn’t let anyone walk all over her. She was smart and tough. I loved her.

Speaking of smart and tough…DRAGOS! <3

Rowena: When Dragos did his thing in the fight against the big bad guy and Pia said, “There’s my bad boy”, I was so freaking happy. Goodness, they were good together.

OMG, I don’t even know where to begin with Dragos.

Holly: I think this line sums him up best:

“All those years of civilization? Just a veneer.”

He was primitive and fierce, but he really made an effort to be what Pia needed him to be. I love that one of their running jokes was “you’re not the boss of me”. When he tells his sentinels to let her do what she wants because “Fuck you, I’m not the boss of her?” I about died.

Also? This. Just because.

“I have learned so many things over the long years,” he whispered…”I’ve taken tribute from sovereigns and witnessed the end of empires. But you are my best teacher.”

Rowena:  I thought Thea Harrison did a great job of reeling Dragos back from the Alpha line. You know how there’s a line that heroes can’t cross or they’ll cross over into I hate this asshole kind of guy? Not once did I hate Dragos or roll my eyes. More than anything, I loved him more because he was so freaking bossy and so freaking alpha but he couldn’t get away with any of that crap with Pia. You could feel his confusion when they first meet and she just wouldn’t bend to his will. That cracked me up.

Holly: You know what I love about Pia and Dragos? They were both mature adults who acted like mature adults. They communicated with each other, did their best to understand the other side of the situation and didn’t storm off in a huff every time they heard something they didn’t like.

Rowena:  I thought Pia stormed off in a huff a lot, but it didn’t bother me because she knew that she was being irrational and she always apologized when she did that. I also understood her reactions every time too. They didn’t know other for very long before Dragos was claiming her as his but hell, I don’t think it would have taken me long to come to terms with being Dragos because, damn. He was all kinds of hot.

Holly: I don’t think she stormed off in a huff at all. Sure, she tried to get away from him at first – hello, he said he was keeping her and she freaked out – but after that she didn’t. Well, except for that one time near the end, but I thought that was totally understandable given the circumstances.

Rowena: I thought she did, or maybe she just flew off the handle emotionally. Now you made me forget.

Holly: I think she flew off the handle emotionally, but like you said it was understandable. All she’d ever been taught was to run and hide, yet here was this predator forcing her to stay and reveal herself. I thought that was well done on the part of Harrison. I can’t imagine being in her situation and handling it half as well as she did.

Rowena: Same here with handling everything that Pia goes through in this book. From the ex-boyfriend to Dragos’ wrath and then everything else? Pia was legit.

Holly: What did you think of Pia’s Wyr form? Did you suspect?

Rowena: No. I didn’t expect that but mostly because I was still trying to figure out everything else. But holy cow, for her to end up being what she was and end up with someone like Dragos? I loved it.

Holly: I also liked the relationship Dragos had with his sentinels. When he told Rune he considered him his best friend? Aww. So cute.

Rowena: Dragos’ temper and the understanding that his sentinels had of his temper was something. I mean, Dragos damn near killed Rune and Rune was like, “I get it.” I would have not been as understanding. I would have been like, “Look here, Debo. This is not Friday and I will not give you my grandmama necklace.” LOL.

Holly: His temper made me laugh, too. I don’t know if I would have been as understanding as Rune was, either.

To give his sentinels credit, they didn’t run when faced with the nude figure of their enraged lord. In fact, Dragos had to admit it was brave of them to enter his bedroom in the first place. That thought was the thread that helped him to gain enough control so that he didn’t tear their heads from their shoulders.
“Bad dream?” Rune said, keen gaze steady as he straightened from a fighting crouch and let the tip of his sword fall to the floor.

I love that he got off on fighting with Pia. “Who knew this could be so much fun?” I think Harrison did a great job of writing him as a dragon. Even when he was in human form he was still all dragon.

There was a considerable amount of humor in this book, which was kind of surprising. I snicker-snorted multiple times. Like the running joke throughout about Dragos’ “long, scaly reptilian tail”.

Rowena: The entire book was just good. The story was great. The romance between Dragos and Pia. The secondary characters. There wasn’t much about this book that I didn’t enjoy.

I’m really looking forward to Rune’s book. Is his book next?

Holly: Rune’s book is number 3. Tricks and Tiago come next. Though, to be honest, I didn’t love their book and tend to skip it when I re-read. In order to understand why Rune is in the situation he’s in at the beginning of his book, you probably need to read it.

Rowena: Who else gets books? How many books are in this series?

Holly: Right now there are 6. Tiago and Tricks, Rune, and the rest are people you haven’t met yet (you meet all of them in book 3). I don’t know how many are planned, but I know there’s at least one more coming out this year.

Rowena: I wondered if Tiago and Tricks got together. I also wondered if Rune got his own book. I can’t wait to read Tricks and Tiago’s book.  It should be soon. I have to knock some review books out first. Their book will be my reward book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Like, a freaking lot. I thought Pia was strong and just an all around awesome heroine. I thought Dragos was a pretty fantastic hero and together, they were such a dynamic couple. Thea Harrison did a really good job of setting up the rest of the series. Her introductions to the other characters was pretty seamless. They were all interesting characters on their own without overshadowing Dragos and Pia. The bond between Dragos and his sentinels was solid and I felt the loyalty going around.

If I had to pick a gripe about anything, it’d be…yeah, I got nothing.

Grade: 5 out of 5

Holly: You’re giving a 5?? falls over dead

Rowena: Haha, shut up. You knew that I was going to love it and if I was into paranormals sooner than now, I would have read this a long time ago.

Holly: I really loved it, too. Pia and Dragos were both great. The world-building was fantastic. The secondary characters were engaging. I don’t have much to complain about here.

When I first reviewed this book, I gave it a 4.75 out of 5. I’ve read it over a hundred times since then and it remains one of my favorite books. So, I’m bumping that to a 5. I adored this book. I fall into it each and every time I read it. I love Dragos and Pia, the world, the plot and the secondary characters.

Rowena’s Grade: 5 out 5

Holly’s Grade: 5 out of 5

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