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The Heir of Bluescale by Erin Duffin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I got this a few years back at Tsubasacon and never got around to it. I'm being a bit generous in the star rating mostly because I feel like it had a good story but bad editing and I know it had some because she thanked them in the author's notes. So either the editor was bad or she didn't listen to them because that's the only way to explain this level of errors. Homonyms were not her friend, repeated uses of them suggesting that it wasn't a mere typo like hostel for hostile, vial for vile and sorcerous for sorceress (many times). If you didn't know this was self pubbed you would have from this.

The dragons in this world can shape shift into human forms and they're all under attack by a would-be dragon king. He is wiping out entire lines (divided by color bluescales, blackskins, yellowbacks etc) If he succeeds all of the dragon's world will fall and to stop him the heirs of bluescale were sent to the human realm and were raised human.

Zane, the heir of blackskin (and how I wish she called them blackscale) is betrothed to Lavender of the green dragons (naming in this really bothered me, seriously.) He's sort of the pinnacle of dragon kind and he's set to protect the two heirs of blue, Paige, the queen and her younger brother Dean. Things go awry. They're all nearly killed by a traitor.

In saving her (and her saving him) Zane is appointed protector (half appointed by himself). Paige and Dean, having suffered child abuse in the human realm (and hinted at sexual abuse) are wary but learn to trust him. He's also to smooth the way for his stepbrother Ryder to bond with her because it's imperative that she take a mate.

Of course there are many dangers in their path. There is forbidden romance. There is betrayal. Zane, Dean and Paige aren't bad characters. The rest of them aren't well developed enough and neither is the whole worldbuilding. It ends with an interesting twist and then ends in a cliffhanger which made me groan. I am not a fan. I'm not sure I'd hunt down book two to see how it shakes out. If this got reedited, it has a chance to being a good story instead of almost being there.




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