A review by tanyad74
1001 Dark Nights: Dragon Claimed by Donna Grant

4.0

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Dragon Claimed is another of the 1001 Dark Nights novellas. It follows Cináed. He is a recently awoken Dragon King. I will admit. Even with the pronunciation spelled out for me. I still had a hard time remembering that his name was pronounced like "kinney". My mind could not compute with what I was seeing on the page! I laughed at myself every time I caught myself trying to call him something else.

Cináed feels a pull to Gemma right from seeing a picture of her as a child. He doesn't understand the pull, but he knows it has something to do with the current fight the Kings are in. What is more convenient is that she is living in the little town just outside Draegan.

I think Gemma subconsciously moves around alot because she fears she is being watched. She was severely introverted and hates to leave her house. Gemma has some pretty horrifying history and you can't blame her for just wanting to be away from people. But who could resist Cináed? He understood her feelings like no one else ever had.
 

 
The love story and the adventure were well balanced. We get to see further into the overall arc of the Dragon Kings and how the Others fit in with their desire to kill them. The fae assassin in Dragon Claimed has me confused because I really thought she wanted an alliance with the Kings. She is very powerful, but to everyone's surprise, Gemma has a little something that can help with that. Surprise even to herself! You get to see Gemma really grow and come out of her shell, and Cináed is a big part of that.

I would not miss one of these novellas! They can be read as standalone, but honestly I think readers of the series do not want to miss any of the new revelations we get. Dragon Claimed packed everything I love about a Dark Kings book into a novella and I truly enjoyed the read.
 

 

Excerpt

“Gemma!”

She glanced in the direction that her dog had run. She hated storms. Her parents and Kyle knew that. Why hadn’t they helped her? Anger seethed within her. They hadn’t helped because they wanted to leave Daisy behind.

Well, Daisy was hers, and if she had to leave her friends and her home, she wasn’t leaving her dog.

“Gemma!”

She ignored both her parents, who were now shouting her name as she raced after Daisy. If she had to carry the forty-pound dog to the boat, then that’s what she’d do. Just as soon as she found Daisy.

Another flash of lightning bathed the land in light, giving her just a glimpse of the dog as she headed toward the house. Gemma ran as fast as her seven-year-old legs would carry her. She reached the house and Daisy.

“Hey, girl,” she said to the terrified dog. “It’s going to be all right.”

It took her four tries before she was able to lift the dog. She shook badly, but at least she wasn’t trying to get free. Gemma knew her parents were going to be furious with her. She didn’t know why they were sneaking away in the middle of the night in a storm, but the fear in her father’s voice and her mother’s face let her know that the questions would have to wait.

In less than two hours, they had packed up all they could and put it on the boat her father owned. She’d asked where they were headed, but her parents hadn’t answered and her brother had shot her an irritated look.

Once she got on the boat with Daisy, she hoped someone would tell her something. She hated not knowing what was going on. Kyle didn’t care. He always said that their parents would tell them when they needed to know.

Gemma stumbled and fell to her knees. She pitched forward so that she had to release Daisy in order to catch herself, but she managed to keep a tight hold of the leash and pull the dog back to her. Daisy seemed to like being held, so she didn’t put up a fight.

“I’m coming!” Gemma shouted, hoping her family could hear her.

She couldn’t see the dock through the driving rain and dark. Which was odd. There was supposed to be a light on the dock. She knew the way to the water, so she hadn’t gone the wrong way. But...why wasn’t the light on?

 



This review was originally posted on Rantings of a Reading Addict