Dragon Blood by Patricia Briggs“Hurog means Dragon” Dragon Blood is an excel­lent sequel to Dragon Bones with a hero that is absolutely yummy. How­ever, this is not a romance but a fan­tasy novel with roman­tic ele­ments added to it. This duol­ogy was escape fic­tion at it’s very best.

Dragon Blood by Patri­cia Briggs takes place four years after the events of Dragon Bones. In this sequel, Ward must face his demons, get the girl and save Hurog, again. Just when does this guy have time for him­self, I ask you? There are cer­tain scenes, pas­sages that I’ve book­marked. I really enjoyed Dragon Blood a lit­tle more than Dragon Bones but both were excel­lent. Dragon Blood has the added bonus of a roman­tic sub­plot which was very nice. Another rea­son why I’ve really enjoyed this duol­ogy is the POV from Ward, the hero. He is such a hon­or­able hero! Sigh. I loved him. I’ll share a one of my favorite pas­sages: here is one where Ward tries to con­vince Tisala to marry him yet again but she keeps throw­ing up obsta­cles and when she tells him that she is not beau­ti­ful and is much older than him, his reply?

“My dear lady,” I said. “I don’t know if I ought to be angry that you think I am so shal­low that I need an orna­ment at my side to be happy….” –Ward, from Dragon Blood

I just love that scene and many oth­ers between Tisala and Ward. To read more you’ll have to get the book I’m afraid as it goes on fur­ther. Beg/steal/borrow/trade/barter to get this book now.

Apart from the love story, there’s plenty of action, sus­pense, intrigue and pol­i­tics. It’s all about pol­i­tics in this duol­ogy and Ms. Briggs does a very good job of keep­ing the reader engaged in all of it. The King of the Five Kingdoms,Jakoven, seems to have found an old arti­fact that has been known to level a bat­tle­field or destroy entire cities. In enemy hands, this could be prob­lem. Jakoven uses it as a secret weapon to crush the rebel­lion to put his brother Kellen on the throne. All it needs is dragon blood to awaken it and prefer­ably, any descen­dent of dragon blood which puts Hurog in the war zone again because Hurog means Dragon. So, Ward, Oreg Tosten, Beck­ram, Gar­ra­non & com­pany pre­pare for war.

I could and did put this book aside when I didn’t have time to read it. I did miss it. Chara­ter­i­za­tion is pretty solid as well as the plot­ting and dia­logue. The atmos­phere at times was down­right sus­pense­ful and creepy. There is a roman­tic sub­plot but no graphic love scenes. I didn’t miss it. If that’s a big turn off for you — your loss. There’s plenty of inti­macy between Tisala and Ward when they’re together. I loved them as a cou­ple. Both are a equal match for each other and both respect each other. Ward, when he’s get­ting ready to go to war wants Tisala to stay behind but real­izes that would not be a smart move. Ward rarely let’s his heart over­ride his head and in the case of Tisala he sees her strength and knows he needs her there with him on the battlefield.

This is fan­tasy and a damn good one at that. Highly rec­om­mend this book.

Patri­cia Briggs — I hope you’ll be writ­ing for a long time to come.

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