This was another free one I read to drag myself out of the depression pit. It was more in line with what I expected when picking up a free "romantasy" book.

Despite dragons being present on nearly every page, there was a shocking lack of dragons. Because they were shifters. So they could take a humanoid form because obviously they HAVE to otherwise the characters can't get fucky.
The story didn't have any stakes at all. There was an attempt at making something seem dangerous that fell woefully flat because it wasn't a threat at all. And then a pointless situatin of forced peril that contributed nothing whatsoever. There wasn't...really a plot at all. It was a lot of whining and fucking and then it just. Ended. There was an epilogue trying to tease that there was the shadow of something terrible coming. But when this lacked any substance, I have no interest in pursuing the rest.
How the hell did I read this whole thing????

Looking at this cover again, I think it might be an artificially generated image. Gross. But the book was free so...

Honestly, read this because I just needed something simple to break my mind out of its rut. I normally don't read romance or smut, but I purposefully sought out free stuff on my ereader because I was going through a deep depression and just needed to DO something.
Overall, it wasn't a terrible read. I was actually surprised by how I found myself kind of liking it, mostly for the dragons and an aspect of the worldbuilding revolving around how the riders had closed themselves off and thus made their dragons weaker. I got a little disappointed towards the end as it felt like the story had suddenly taken a hard left in order to provide a "surprise twist". But it resolved in an all right way and was overall an all right book, especially for something I got for free.

The worldbuilding was the best part for me. I knew how it was going to end and it was predictable in that way, but the magic system and the descriptions of Hell made it interesting for me. Hell is a place of our own making.

Really enjoyed this book! I immediately started reading the sequel after finishing this one!

The writing style is so interesting and really adds a sort of ethereal and slightly eerie air to the story that I really love! I'm very excited to learn more about this interesting and slightly terrifying world!

--

This wasn't what I thought it would be and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. As an artist, I found it interesting and I kind of understood it. As a writer, I wanted something else, something more visceral. As a person, I get it.

It's not the story I wanted? But it was a good story anyway, an interesting one.