2.5/5

Ok, so this book wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly great either.

First off, I really don't like the term sacrifice for the women who agree to bear children for dragon-shifters. It just has weird connotations floating around it.

Secondly, Donovan's story was pretty interesting. I thought that it was a decent plot. However, I wish that there was more action, more drama than just convincing Tristan's sister to like Mel, Mel and Tristan overcoming their issues, and Tristan nearly dying - the action around that situation, I would've loved to have read, more than Tristan simply saying "oh yeah this happened."

Thirdly, some of the sordid scenes were very well written, while others were reminiscent of fan-fiction type sex scenes. Also, if I had a shot for every time "fuck" "curves" "stubborn" "beast" and plenty of other words were used, I would've been drunk at least a quarter of the way into this read.

Lastly, I felt the epilogue was kind of cheating. I get not showing the full term of the pregnancy, but come on. There could've been some interesting tales going on there. Maybe Mel and the *SPOILER* children could've been put in a dangerous situation, maybe there could've been an interesting meeting with Tristan's dad. Not much is said about daddy MacLeod (in fact I don't think he was even mentioned. Was Mumma MacLeod the Virgin Mary, dragon-shifter edition?). Either way, I would've loved to explore more of Tristan and Mel's relationship instead of skipping straight to "Hey, here's our kids!" Also, I felt twins was a bit of a copout as well. A race that has more male births than females, is trying to repopulate and expand the gene pool, trying not to go extinct, and then all of a sudden a RARE compatible female just happens to SUCCESSFULLY birth twins, after so many mothers die from birthing ONE?! Yeah a little too perfect really.

Overall, it was a decent effort and I'm invested enough to read the next one. Maybe it will be an improvement. Who knows? I will soon enough.