Dragon Chains
- Apr 5
- 4 min read
Secret Kingdoms: The Draquonir, Book One
by Becca Brayden, Grace Goodwin
Dangerous. Tortured. Desperate. King Ryker of the Draquonir will make one last sacrifice to save his people and his kingdom before he loses control of the raging beast inside him. Dragon kind are dwindling, no longer able to hunt for their true mates in this contemporary, high-tech world. Ryker must do something no dragon has ever done before; have a child with a human woman he has no desire to touch, a woman his dragon refuses to take as a mate. Arrangements have been made. A queen chosen. A loveless, chaste marriage of convenience. No passion. No dragonfire. Nothing but contracts and medical procedures to sire an heir. This is the only way his race will survive. Katy Toure is tired of cleaning up her identical twin's messes, but when her sister calls in a panic, unable to get to an important business meeting worth millions of dollars, Katy just can't say no. All Katy has to do is walk out of her dead-end job, grab her sister's passport, fly to Italy, pretend to be her sister for a few days, sign some contracts and take the vacation she's always dreamed about. No one will know she's an imposter. No one ever knows.
But Katy has never tried to fool a dragon who scents his mate...
This was an OK shifter romance — but nothing outstanding in either direction. I just now realized that this was actually a re-read: I apparently listened to it back in 2023 and remembered nothing. I suppose that’s quite telling.
For the most part, I enjoyed it while reading, but a few things about the plot and worldbuilding started to gnaw at me. And after finishing, the more I thought about them, the more frustrated I got — to the point where I can now barely remember the things I did enjoy.
… So we’re going straight into rant mode:
Starting with the names. They… confuse me. Why all the English — American — names when they’ve supposedly resided in Italy for centuries? The extreme examples: Mist (Myst? Don’t come at me, this was an audio read) and Frost — they’re not even using the Italian equivalents?
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, they’re being fun and changing to “modern” names (and for some reason actually using them with each other) — surely Italian would be the thing? Or more likely, changing them on legal documents every few decades to maintain a mortal front.
But who translates their name? I would never go around and introduce myself as Ms. “TreeBranch”. That’s so stupid.
At that point, just make them American. They’re dragons — let’s say they flew over the Atlantic 1200 years ago and settled, or that they migrated with everyone else. Done.
MMC Ryker (have you ever heard a more American name?) talks about the Italian estate as their ancestral home — but then mentions he was born in northern Norway, and apparently still keeps a cabin smack in the middle of an enemy king’s territory.
And that cabin is still in good shape and usable? Does he vacation often in enemy territory? Is it the same cabin from 1200 years ago? Who’s doing maintenance??
There’s no explanation for why he was born there if their ancestral home is in Italy — just… a badly timed trip? Why that location? Was this maternal vs paternal origins? No details!
Speaking of Ryker’s family — I’m confused about the jewelry he gives Katy (our FMC). He says it belonged to his mother, but I didn’t catch any mention of when she’d died. Was it 50 or 500 years ago? Who knows?
Katy’s sister also pissed me off:
Even if she signed an NDA, she would have to tell her twin the contents of the contract if they’re doing a twin swap — otherwise the whole thing falls apart immediately. And honestly, the NDA is such a stupid excuse. If no one is supposed to know about the swap, then telling her would only make it more believable — because she’d know all the details. They didn’t know Ryker would be able to smell them apart!
Also, if I’m committing illegal fraud for you, you’d better give me all the information I need to not get caught.
Plus — if Katy had taken two seconds to skim the contract (and no one was even trying to stop her), she would’ve found out anyway since everything was apparently written plainly. So. Just. Tell. Her.
GAAH! SO STUPID!
Her whole plotline also… never really gets resolved:
The ghosting is never clarified, and there’s no real confrontation about it (the epilogue is not even close to enough). If she really was stuck in Scotland and Ryker sent someone to delay her… I would have liked something — a mention of who she met, being stranded somewhere, anything. But we never get an explanation.
Also: did Ryker pick her up in Scotland for the wedding? Did she go back to the US first? I think the wedding/epilogue took place months after the closing scene at the cabin.
And honestly, I really would’ve liked to witness the reunion, and — especially the “by the way, dragons are real” conversation. We’re told it happened, but don’t get to see any of it.
There’s no real resolution to her job situation either. She never actually quits — she just leaves because of an “urgent family situation”. Is she getting a job in Italy? Going full-time queen? Taking a break?
I genuinely don’t care what the answer is — but I do care that there isn’t one. Even a throwaway line in the epilogue would’ve been enough.
And was Erik's (Eirik's?) pack really the only threat? Is everything sunshine and daisies now that they fought it out? It didn’t feel like he would be the big bad even before (and especially not after) the kidnapping. I’m just assuming he’ll get his own book eventually.
If the next one is about some random guy and the sister… yeah, I’m out. I cannot sympathize with her enough to care.
⭐⭐ 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Comments