Audiobook Review – Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers, Book 1) by Rachel Aaron, Narrated by Vikas Adam (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 13 hours and 2 minutes (287 pages)
Publisher: Audible Studios
Release Date: November 18, 2014
ASIN: B00PRSDRAK
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Heartstrikers series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4/5 stars
“As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn’t fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.
Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ–a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit–Julius has one month to prove that he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test.
He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons…”
Previously I had read Aaron’s The Spirit Thief, I thought that book was okay but opted to not continue with the series. I was curious when I saw she had an urban fantasy series and decided to pick up the audiobook for Nice Dragons Finish Last at an Audible sale. I ended up really enjoying this book a lot. It starts kind of slow but by the end I was hooked and immediately wanted to read the next book.
The audiobook for this is very well done. Adam does a great job with matching the tone of the story. He does great with character voices and emotion. I would definitely recommend listening to this on audiobook if you enjoy audiobooks.
The world for this book is interesting. It’s set in some sort of future Earth where a flooding disaster happened when the Lady of Lake was awoken. As a result magic flooded back into the world and dragons, mages, etc. came back to be part of human society.
The characters were a lot of fun. Julius is a dragon part of the infamous Heartstriker clan, but he’s just too nice to be a dragon. His mom kicks him off the mountain and seals his dragon form because he never leaves his room and is bingeing on video games and getting a million online degrees. He is forced to make something of himself or be eaten by his formidable mother.
I enjoyed Julius’s character a lot. I also enjoyed Marcy who is a witch that Julius ends up teaming up with. The side characters are just as interesting as the main ones; with witches, shamans, dragons, and seers making up the bulk of the zany cast.
The story was pretty straight-forward but did have some interesting twists and turns. I enjoyed some of the interesting magical monsters we ran into and loved Julius’s non-conventional way of solving problems. Things were wrapped up well and left the story at a place that resolved the main story but still left me desperately wanting to read more.
Overall this was a great start to this urban fantasy series. I enjoyed the world, the characters, and the story a lot. My only complaint would be that I thought the story started a bit slow. However, once things got moving I really enjoyed it. I plan on continuing reading this series. I would recommend to those who enjoy lighter urban fantasy.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge
– Audiobook Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Paranormal Reading Challenge
