Blood Warrior
Grade : C+

When I read Wendy Clyde’s AAR review for Caged Warrior, the first book in Lindsey Piper’s Dragon Kings series, I was so intrigued I picked up a copy and dove right in. I enjoyed it immensely and was thrilled for the chance to read and review the follow up story, Blood Warrior. I wish I could say that I enjoyed it as much as the first title in the series, but I didn’t.

For twenty years, a beautiful woman who calls herself the Sun has haunted Dragon King Tallis of Pendray. She visits Tallis in his dreams where she seduces him to the point of near madness and then uses her power over him to compel him to perpetrate acts of violence, all in the name of uniting the Five Clans of the Dragon Kings. By acting on her behalf, Tallis has come to be called The Heretic and has been exiled from his homelands, reviled by other Dragon Kings.

When this mysterious dream demon tricks Tallis into helping bad guys kidnap and brutalize his niece (Nynn of Caged Warrior), Tallis has finally had enough. He determines to find the Sun and destroy her. When he locates her, however, it soon becomes clear that the real woman who calls herself the Sun is not the same woman who has been tormenting his dreams for so many years.

Kavya of the Indranan, known as the Sun, has taken on the noble mission of uniting the two divided factions of her clan. Before she can achieve peace for her people, she is abducted by Tallis, who seems bent on destroying her for reasons that elude Kavya. She’s heard of The Heretic, but she’s never met him or personally done him harm. While she now fears that all out civil war is imminent, Kavya can’t deny that Tallis has arrived at a fortuitous time. Indranans are born as twins or triplets, their Dragon gift split amongst each other. It’s only by killing their sibling that an Indranan can take possession of his or her full power. Kavya’s triplet brother Pashkah has already killed their sister, and he’s now after Kavya.

Tallis and Kavya take off through the Himalayas, barely one step ahead of Pashkah. As they endure one hardship after another, Tallis comes to know the real woman known as the Sun, and the two discover a mutual passion that eclipses their initial dislike of the other. Determined to stop Pashkah once and for all, Kavya and Tallis head to Tallis’s homeland in the Scottish Highlands to fetch a Dragon-forged sword, the only weapon capable of killing a Dragon King. But in returning, Tallis could face possible execution for his past crimes, and by leaving her homeland, Kavya despairs of ever uniting her divided clan.

In the first book of this series, the focus was on the survival of one character under brutal conditions. Blood Warrior shifts to give a bigger picture of this supernatural world, which I found harder to grasp. I did gather many facts and details, but I kept wondering what, exactly, are these beings known as Dragon Kings? They aren’t former dragons or were-creatures or demons or vampires or angels, nor are they based on any one specific mythology. They seemed to be beings with a rather odd mish-mash of powers that have little to do with each other.

Once perceived as gods and responsible for creating the greatest civilizations on earth (think the Greek and Roman empires, the Egyptian pharaohs, the Celts and Stonehenge), the Dragon King population has dwindled to near nothing. They are divided into five clans, and each faction has a particular Dragon-given gift. The Indranan have the ability to read and alter the minds of other people. The Pendray, however, realize their power only when driven into a mindless frenzy, a berserker rage that gives them strength and fighting ability. This man/beast duality is hard for me to conceptualize. Therefore, Tallis’s power seemed rather silly to me.

Throughout the whole book, I kept waiting for answers to key questions I had, such as, what exactly had Tallis done to make him a virtual pariah? How did the woman in his dreams control him so completely, and if he was able to break her hold over him in order to hunt down the Sun, why didn’t he do that sooner? How did Kavya become the leader of her people, and why were they not looking for her once she disappeared? I had the constant nagging feeling that I’d missed some important explanation even though I never once so much as skimmed a paragraph or page. By the end, most of my questions remained unanswered, rendering the entire plot somewhat pointless.

Too, while the passion between Tallis and Kavya grew naturally, once they began to get physical, this aspect of their relationship proved to be a turn off for me. I don’t mind hot, steamy sex, however, a good amount of pain is involved in their sexual encounters, and I generally don’t find that sexy. We aren’t talking BDSM, but when biting is a huge turn on for both characters, I tend to lose my ability to relate.

In the end, I can sum up my experience during this book as one of disconnectedness. As a story, Blood Warrior can stand alone, but I can only imagine my level of confusion had I not read the first book in the series to give me an introduction to this rather scattered and complex world.

While I didn’t enjoy Blood Warrior nearly as much as Caged Warrior, I’m intrigued enough by the characters that Piper has created to give the series one more try. I’ll most likely pick up the next entry in the Dragon Kings saga to see if she can perhaps get through this sophomore slump with another great addition to the series.

Jenna Harper

Reviewed by Jenna Harper
Grade : C+

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : August 23, 2013

Publication Date: 2013/08

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Jenna Harper

I'm a city-fied suburban hockey mom who owns more books than I will probably ever manage to read in my lifetime, but I'm determined to try.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

30 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
30
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x