Review: Consorting with Dragons: Expanded Edition by Sera Trevor

At last, the novel-length expansion of the award-winning novella!

Lord Jasen of Grumhul, an impoverished young nobleman, has come to the Draelands to find a rich husband to help pay his father's debts. To the shock of everyone, he ends up attracting the attention of King Rilvor himself, and the dragons who control the magic in the land. Becoming royalty wasn’t something Jasen either expected or wanted, but he can’t control his growing feelings for kind and handsome king. Scheming factions at Court conspire to keep him from Rilvor’s side, and now Jasen has to decide if the chance at true love with Rilvor is worth the burden of being the husband of a king.

This sweet and funny Cinderfella romance is complete at ~85000 words and ends in a solid HEA. After all, true love always wins in fairy tales!

Back in 2014 when I read the original version of this story I was overjoyed with the dragons and world building of this slow burn, Cinderfella romance. What Sera Trevor has done with the expansion of that story is wonderfully cinematic making it was again a delight to read.

Jasen tells the story of his falling in love with King Rilvor despite all the pomp and circumstance he's subjected to at Court. Jasen hails from Grumhul which eschews high customs. The Grummish are practical people who aren't afraid of hard work and love their mudball (sounds similar to soccer), but his father has drank and gambled away their money which puts Jasen in the position of trying to secure a wealthy husband to sustain them. Somehow his father secures a highly coveted place for him at Court and lays on the 'your poor ole dad' pretty thick as encouragement.

One of the things I really liked about Court is the lack of heteronormativity. It seems counterintuitive given how rigid the protocols are but a bright spot in an otherwise uncompromising society never hurt anyone, right?

All the provinces in the Allied Realm send their most eligible daughters and sons to the Draelands annually to strengthen bonds through marriages, but also to increase power. Many of these nobles are dragon blessed which gives them some sort of magical ability; that ability can intensify if the marriage is a strong one.

Since Grumhul has no dragons Jasen is automatically believed to be a poor match and certainly not worthy of the King's affections. The King, however, did not get the memo because he is smitten upon first meeting. Jasen, after being called by Tasenred (one of the dragons) and wandering the grounds, has no idea who the King is whence they meet. He's in his low country attire and quite plainspoken all of which Rilvor finds refreshing.

Tasenred is my favorite. There are other dragons but Tasenred is one pushy dragon and I hearted the bejeezus out of him. He takes a shine to Jasen and their connection was heartwarming to read.

The role the dragons play in this realm was marvelous and something that didn't stand out in the original version.

The Court and its protocols were also explained much better too. Court is largely a popularity club reminiscent of the ton, complete with corsets, ridiculously high heels and hairstyles, balls, organized activities, all of which are supervised and exceedingly proper with the requisite backbiting and jockeying for place, and yet somehow Jasen still forges some lifelong friendships. The secondary characters of Princess Polina, Lady Risyda and many of the tertiary characters like Lady Isalei and Larely played a larger role.

Nevertheless, Jasen isn't really cut out for Court. He plays along and does as told, but he is Grummish through and through, preferring to be outdoors, playing mudball or doing something useful which oftentimes prompts him to sneak out of the castle and made for some entertaining scenes.

Generally speaking, I like my romances when the MCs spend a significant amount of time together and while Rilvor and Jasen spend some time together, I craved more. They have chemistry and a few heart to heart conversations were had, but their relationship isn't well developed, instead relying on the de rigueur fairy tale instalove.

Jasen comes into his own, but he did run a little hot and cold, sometimes seemingly self-possessed and others harried. His thoughtfulness and diligence in deciding whether or not he was suited for the responsibilities of Lord Consort to Rilvor are what won me over. I also liked that he stayed true to himself AND that Rilvor loved him because of all those qualities.

If there were to be a follow up I would be interested in seeing where their story goes, because I'm smitten with the world Sera Trevor has built. If you're in the mood for a sweet, high fantasy, no sex fairy tale then give Consorting with Dragons a try. There are new twists and turns in the narrative, so this is definitely not the same story from the DRitC event.

It's still 99¢ on Amazon if you pre-order it too!

An ARC was provided by the author.

Blog Visit: NineStar Press 1st Anniversary!!!

We're so happy to host NineStar Press as they celebrate their 1st anniversary!! Happy birthday, NineStar from BMBR!!

www.NineStarPress.com

It’s our first anniversary.

Thanks to Boy Meets Boy Reviews for hosting us today!

Don't forget to comment here, on our Facebook posts, and our Tweets. We will be giving books away each day to commenters.

You will also be added to the drawing for a FREE year of books.

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Some thoughts from Sera Trevor, a proofreader in the NSP family.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about NineStar Press, the company who will be publishing my next book. NineStar is having its first anniversary this week, which is very exciting! I’ve been proofreading for them for about six months now, and it’s been a wonderful experience. Everyone there is a fantastic human being, working hard to bring readers great books. But in addition to that, NineStar is a little different from most small gay romance presses. We publish across the entire spectrum of queer experiences: every letter in LGTBQA is represented in our catalog, including books that do not fall under the parameters of the romance genre.

As to why this is so important, you can read our owner’s statement about her own quest to find herself here. I was extremely moved by Raevyn’s statement about what this company means to her. I urge you to read her post in its entirety, but the gist of it is that when she was young, she had no narratives to help her navigate her queer identity. In all of the books she read, there were no voices like hers, no people like her, and that lack had a devastating impact on her life. In her post, she says: “I want LGBTQA+ people of color to be able to find their likenesses in characters. I want great Lit/Genre Fiction books out there to show that gay/lesbian/queer people have a voice. Trans people can be in hetero relationships, and Bi people are still bi, even if they end up with someone of the opposite gender. Ace people can have loving and fulfilling relationships without sex scenes, and characters can be gender fluid. Mostly, I want people to see they can find a character like them who is okay and “right” and BEAUTIFUL.”

It’s a wonderful mission statement, and one that I am thrilled to support in my own small way, both as an author and as a proofreader.

But in addition to providing stories for LGBTQA+ people to find themselves in, I think it’s also important to acknowledge the powers of these narratives to reach out to people who do not identify as queer. All over the world, there has been a pushback against empathy and tolerance. The United States especially is entering into a very dark period; large swaths of the country have rejected inclusiveness in favor of insulation and ignorance.

The good news is that people have been fighting back. As a part of NineStar’s mission, Raevyn has pledged that NineStar will donate to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, The Trevor Project, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), and the National Center for Transgender Equality. Every week in our newsletter, she highlights a charity that could use our help. It’s our way of making our voices heard in these difficult times.

But even beyond donating to important causes, NineStar and all queer publishers are already forces of powerful, positive change in the world. And it’s not only the publishers: it’s you, too! As a reader of queer narratives, no matter what orientation you are, YOU are changing the world every time you read a book. I know it sounds a little out there, so let me explain.

One of my favorite academics, Steven Pinker, wrote a book that changed the way I see the world: The Better Angels of Our Nature. It’s a very dense, 844 page book about history, psychology, and philosophy, so it’s impossible to sum up here. However, there is one small section that I found amazing as someone who reads and writes books. He states that “The growth of writing and literacy strikes me as the best candidate for an exogenous change that helped set off the Humanitarian Revolution.”

He goes on to explain that literature—and in particular, the novel—gave people the ability to “live” other people’s experiences. The novel as an art form emerged in the early 18th century and exploded in popularity in the 19th century. Printing presses, cheap paper, and a more literate population made the mass dissemination of novels a possibility for the first time. The special thing about novels is that they require people to put aside their own sense of self for a time and put the thoughts and experiences of characters in their minds instead.

This was a radical form of empathy, the likes of which the world had never seen before. Pinker tells an anecdote about an officer in the British army weeping over Pamela, a melodramatic novel about the misadventures of a young woman. Until he read that book, that man probably had never thought about what it must feel like to be a fifteen-year-old maidservant, but thanks to Pamela, he found himself living the experiences of a person vastly unlike himself.

Charles Dickens understood the power of the novel when he wrote his incredibly popular books. In addition to being a literary genius, he was also a passionate advocate for the rights of children and the poor. His books asked comfortable middle- and upper-class people to live the experiences of the less fortunate, which helped push Victorian society toward social reform. Over on the other side of the Atlantic, Harriet Beecher Stowe used her words to change her society as well. Her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel about slavery in America, energized the Abolitionist movement, so much so that when Lincoln met her, he said, “so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

This is why novels matter. When people talk about the importance of representation in books and media, it’s not only for the benefit of those who are searching for validation of their own identities. It’s also a way into the hearts and minds of people who may otherwise dismiss the experiences of those different from themselves.

That’s why I feel so strongly about NineStar’s mission. A good book is not just a pleasure to read—it’s also an empathy machine. With every novel that you read, you become a better, more compassionate person. I urge you to share novels you love with people who could maybe benefit from a change of perspective. Novels change lives, and when they change enough lives, they can change the world.