• Characters
  • Plot
  • Writing Style
  • Heat

LYDIA AND THE DRACA
By Louisa Kelley
Series: Daughters of Draca, #1
Publisher: Loose Id
Release Date: Oct 2009
Length: 25,981 words

Science fiction geek Lydia Neal’s just recovering from her latest relationship crash and burn. When she wakes up in a glowing cave surrounded by enormous dragons, she’s pretty sure she’s having a sci-fi nightmare. Why would an entire race of shape-shifters be lusting after her? She doesn’t even believe they’re real, but why is she so incredibly turned on? Then she meets the smoking hot Draca, Eremon, and there’s no turning back. Especially after he shows her the very special kind of ecstasy a Draca male can offer her, whether on the ground or in the skies.

Whatever the obsessed Draca want from her, she’s ready to find out. For once in her ordered, boring life, Lydia’s going along for the wildest ride of her life…with Eremon and the rest of the Draca.

I love dragons, and turning them into sexy dragon-shifters is even better.  In LYDIA AND THE DRACA, Louisa Kelley introduces readers to the myth and magic of the Draca.  The Draca were once part of the human world, but they were hunted to near extinction.  They fled to an alternate time and space, still on earth but separate from humans.  Over time, the dragon-shifters lost their ability to reproduce, and now they’re dying out.

The dragon queen, Nareen, discovered that there are humans on earth that carry Draca DNA, ones they call the Daughters of Draca. She believes that they are the key to the survival of her kind, but her brother Eremon wants nothing to do with it.  Lydia is human, but carries the Dracan gene in her blood.  Lydia has been haunted by dreams of winged, fire-breathing creatures with terrible claws.  When she’s magically transported to their world, she can hardly believe her eyes when she finds out they’re real, and even more shocked to hear their plans for her.  

I enjoyed the world-building in this book, and the rich descriptions really drew me into the story. What would it be like to fly on the back of a dragon?  Lydia finds out first hand!  I liked hearing about the history of the Draca, though in the end I was still a bit confused as to what happened to the Draca while in exile and why they can’t have offspring.  Hopefully there will be more details in future books.  The characters were interesting, though I wish they had been fleshed out more. This was a hot book, but I will caution that there were some unconventional sex scenes, as in some human on dragon action.  This was a quick read, but it laid a solid foundation for the Daughters of Draca series.

Reviewed By: Diana