Heart of the Dragon

Darius en Kragin has been schooled from the tender age of 8 to become a Guardian of the Mist, a dragon that stands between people who enter Atlantis through the portal and his own people. No one can enter, everyone has to be slain for the safety of Atlantis, no exceptions.

Grace Carlyle is lost in the jungle after her guide deserts her in her search for her brother who seems to have disappeared after mailing her a necklace, an old dragon necklace. As she now tumbles through the jungle, thirsty, hungry and sweating she finds a cave, the cave transports her to a new location where a man wielding a sword comes at her. No matter how hot the guy you can't mistake the big sword and the fact that he's about to use it on you.

Darius can't believe show more what he's seeing, he hasn't seen colors or smelled or tasted anything in close to hundred years and now in front of him is a curvy woman with blazing red curly hair, one who smells divine and he bets taste amazing as well. Against all his teaching he takes her captive instead of slaying her where she stands, as would be prober. Now he has a prisoner in his chambers, tied to his bed, but not for long because Grace isn't just any girl and she might just be able to pull a fast one and fool the dragon.

Darius fights between having to kill her and needing to bed her and have her be his for the rest of his life, while Grace must find her brother, escape Atlantis and figure out just what does Darius want from her.

Great start for the Atlantis series! I'll definitely be reading the following books! show less

Fun book! I really enjoyed the premise of the story. As always, Gena's writing is smooth, flows easily, and remains engaging throughout. Her characters have a lot of chemistry, and because her focus is on the developing romantic and sexual relationship, reading one of her books is an almost voyeuristic experience. The dialogue is witty, the characters well-developed, and the plot is entertaining.

However, the ending felt rushed, like she needed to hit her word count and it didn't matter how she got there. I was disappointed, and felt she'd glossed over a few key scenes.

Overall, this was a fun read, and there is wonderful potential for future books.

A fun story about a strong warrior who has supressed his emotions and the woman who fires them to action. He's a shapechanger with the blood of gods in his veins and she's a modern new yorker.

Amusing, fun and thrilling.

Atlantis exists! It is guarded by a race of shapeshifting dragon of unbeilevable fighting skill and hunkiness (even if they do sprout scales when provoked). Darius is the head man...er dragon, and is entrusted with guarding the portal that separates our world from his. His duty is to slay everyone that comes from our side and he takes his duty seriously, never letting any pass. Then one day Grace stumbles through and something changes. He breaks his sacred vow for the first time, intrigued by the fiery red head that dares to defy him.

But this isn't the only change heading towards Darius. As he runs around after Grace, trying to keep her from getting killed by the other dragonmen, he discovers that she isn't the only human in Atlantis show more after all. There is a second portal, guarded by his mentor and father-figure that becomes strangely silent, and suddenly Grace finds herself caught in the middle of a battle to save a world that most still think is mere myth and legend.

As Grace and Darius rush to save not only Atlantis, but all the people they hold dear, they find themselves plunged into a very heated romance. And wow...do I mean heated. This is not a book for any who blush easily. While the romance plays second fiddle to the fight for Atlantis, it is definately there and wants you to know it!

Grace is a fantastic female character. Not only is she not stick thin and model georgous, she actually has a head on her shoulders and isn't afraid to fight to get what she wants and protect those she cares about. It isn't suprising that Darius struggled to resist her.

Darius is a lean mean fightig machine...with the additional abitilities you would commonly associate with dragons as well. While his character is hard and ferocious, we occasssionally are allowed glimpses into the inner-Darius and can easily see why Grace would fall head over heals for him.

This is the first book in the Atlantis series by Gena Showalter and I have the next two sitting in my filing cabinet drawer (I ran out of room on the TBR shelf) and I can harldy wait til their turn comes up to read more about this fascinating new world, Atlantis.

4/5 (would have been more, a bit too steamy in places for me) show less

This was really a "meh" book for me. It was enjoyable, but in a month I'll probably have forgotten everything about it except that there were dragons.

The main dragon of this book was Darius. He's the guardian of one of the portals that leads to Atlantis. Basically, he gets to chop off anyone's head who comes waltzing through. In the beginning of the book his fellow dragons make a bet that the first person who gets Darius to crack a smile gets... something. I don't know and it doesn't matter, because that part of a would be plot gets dropped fairly quickly. While the bets are being placed, Darius's spidey senses tingle letting him know that someone is about to come through the portal. Grabbing his big ass sword he prepares to start show more chopping. Only to come up short when a red headed woman steps through. This is Grace, who is looking for her brother who has gone missing. Grace stumbled on the portal by accident while roaming the jungle. She also has some kind of magical dragon medal from Atlantis. This confuses Darius so he decides to spare her temporarily and the plot develops from there.

There's also a side plot going that involves Grace's brother and a lady dragon but that one bored me to death so I ended up skipping most of those sections.

Darius was an average dragon who spent most of the book hemming and hawing about whether or not to kill Grace. Then the magical sex encounter happens and he decides that Grace is his and he likes the warm fuzzy feelings she inspires in his cold scaly heart. This is the second book I read by Showalter and so far both of her heroines have been virgins. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. It is extremely unlikely that a full grown healthy woman in modern society would be a virgin. If you're going to make your adult female protagonist a virgin I demand some kind of explanation for it! Instead, the fact that Grace was a virgin was glossed over. Darius basically shrugs off his shock and the story moves on after that. Why was that even necessary to the plot!? Couldn't we have just had a sex scene and moved on? Is the protagonist being a virgin supposed to somehow make the sex more sexy? Cause that's not the case. Does Showalter have some kind of contract with the publisher where her heroines have to be inexperienced sexually? I guess that would make sense.

But like I said, this book was pretty standard. It was enjoyable, but the plot and characters were fairly normal. The aspect of the book that stuck out the most for me was Showalter's idea of Atlantis. Atlantis is a haven for all mystical creatures. We have dragons, mermaids, sirens, nymphs, vampires, etc. etc. living together in this kind of Utopian underwater world. Pretty interesting idea. As was the back story for why they all live there in the first place. Unfortunately, we don't spend much time there in this plot but I have hopes for the future books. show less

Non male anche se lontano anni luce dalla serie Damon's, che ha praticamente resa famosa l'autrice in Italia.
Carina e traballante, come tutti i primi libri di tutte le serie della Showalter.
Qualche scena traballante, tanto testosterone e un Guardiano decisamente "ruvido ma sexy".
Apprezzabile, come primo romanzo, ma niente più di un romanzetto da leggere in un paio d'ore.
Debolezze - molte - e pregi - qualcuno c'è -, tendono a compensarsi abbastanza da spingere il lettore ad attendere il secondo.
Ah, giuro, troppi deus ex machina!

Vedremo ^^

Dragon changeling, Darius, is a Guardian of Atlantis. He spends all his time protecting the portal from the human world, to theirs. He is cold, non-emotional, and very lethal. Grace Carlyle is searching for her lost brother deep in the Amazon woods when she stumbles into the cave with the portal to Atlantis and is face to face with the most gorgeous man she has ever seen with a sword aimed at her throat. Darius most choose between his vow and kill the beautiful redhead before him; or keep her all for himself and find out why/how she brought all his emotions back from deep within.

Showalter's Atlantis is very intriguing and I cannot wait until the next one.