After finishing Icehome series, I wanted to read more romance books. One of the characters from that series, Ashtar, is a drakoni which is a species featured and explored in Ruby Dixon’s Fireblood Dragon series. So, I thought I would check it out. All books have been released in the series as of March 2022. I figured instead of reviewing each book individually, I would share my thoughts on the series overall.
Fireblood Dragon is a series that takes place on Earth after a rift is opened up between the world of Drakoni warriors (dragons that can shapeshift into humans) and Earth. Seven years have passed since that event and the world is post-apocalyptic. Almost all dragons are lost to the madness and chaos that rage their minds, so they have no sense of who they are anymore. That is until they take a mate, then their minds clear so long as their mate remains around them as an anchor. Some handle this better than others, and once they come to many of them have no memories of their past. Some recall they have lost their full name or have no knowledge of their friends/family from before the rift.
Similar to the previous two series I’ve read from Ruby, each book takes place between two different characters. The main couple of that book. They all have connections to each other with some characters appearing more than others. While some characters disappear completely. Though considering those characters have zero ties to the others it makes sense they don’t appear or get mentioned (not completely but I’ll get to that in a second).
Books in the series:
- Fire in His Blood (Claudia/Kael)
- Fire in His Kiss (Sasah/Dahk)
- Fire in His Embrace (Emma/Zohr)
- Fire in His Fury (Amy/Rast)
- Fire in His Spirit (Gwen/Vaan)
- Fire in His Veins (Andrea/Liam)
- Fire in Her Eyes (Teva/Gabe)
- Fire in His Chaos (Rachel/Jurik)
- Fire in Her Dreams (Jenny/Mhal)
- Dark Fire (Melina/Azar)
This series explores relationships as well as an underlining plot of the Salorian vs. Drakoni.
Almost all of them are human female and male drakoni, but there is one where it’s the other way around. But that’s purely because Teva is the only red (female dragon) that is out of the chaos enough where she can get a mate. The rest are too lost to even have a coherent mental voice according to the male dragons that try to speak with them. Even then Teva/Gabe was an interesting couple because the culture is so different. In Drakoni culture, females challenge the male then they fight, if the male bests her (not harming her just showing strength) then and only then can they mate. But first, they have to share their fires (a spirit bonding that allows the two parties to be mentally connected on all levels), or else they quite literally will burn each other. So, Gabe had to figure out how to make that work to bring her back to reality and keep her there. It kind of fell into a Dom/Sub relationship where Teva is sometimes a brat, as that was needed for Teva (who turns out to be Kael’s sister, not that he remembers her). The rest of the relationships don’t fall into that Drakoni culture relationship, but rather more human ones on some level.
As for the Salorian vs. Drakoni conflict, their species was divided into two classes. Mind controllers/slave masters (Salorians) and the warriors/slaves (Drakoni). They were in the middle of transporting from one place to another when the rift opened and pulled them to Earth. The Salorians lost control of the Drakoni as they all went into a mating frenzy but were unable to handle the scents around them to the point where the Drakoni lost their minds. We only see one Salorian in the books named Azar, and he tries to corrupt every dragon into being his puppets again. Every single dragon has a bad experience with him (except maybe Kael as Azar didn’t appear until after his book). The others are around or discuss him when things happen. However, the Drakoni and Azar make a tentative truce. Azar can’t take over the minds of any more dragons save the ones he already took (they only agree as it would be a bloodbath if he released them for the humans they surround), and the Drakoni have to help Azar figure out a way to seal the rift or stop whatever he senses on the other side. It’s revealed the threat is real through Rachel and Jurik who go to the rift and almost die trying so. And it’s determined in Jenny and Mahl’s story that the half-drakoni infants are the solution. So, all the mating! Azar also releases the dragons in his control as a compromise to get the last couple to join Fort Dallas. Even though Mahl was once one of those captive dragons. (Note: This was written before the release of Dark Fire. I’ll get to thoughts in a bit of that book) It will be interesting to see what happens in Melina/Azar’s book. As I can’t tell at all if Melina likes Azar or loathes him. It’s hard to tell from the other girls’ perspectives. Plus, how the hell did he get her to be his mate?! I have a feeling she didn’t exactly agree to it, but it can’t be reversed so she’s just dealing with it. I don’t know until that book is released at the end of the year.
This series also covers disabilities. Rachel is missing half her arm and Mahl can’t see without glasses. The latter is kind of funny, the biggest scariest dragon cannot see anything. They find him a pair of glasses and he has one of those moments where he was like ‘oh those blobs are images’. I remember that feeling when I first got glasses. I remember literally saying to my mom on the drive home ‘oh look the trees have leaves.’ Not that I didn’t know that as I didn’t always have bad eyesight, but I remember the moment everything came into clarity that I realized how bad it was. Mahl has one of those moments. It was great.
Another thing I found odd was the timeline of pregnancy. Claudia gives birth first (obviously as first one pregnant) followed by Sasha. Then it should’ve been Emma then Amy followed by Gwen. But it went Claudia then Sasha then Gwen. Amy and Emma were both pregnant before Gwen, what happened to them? I know Amy is in Louisana but I’m 99.9% sure Liam hears Claudia’s kid all the way out there. So why wouldn’t Amy’s be heard in Texas? Also, Emma just disappears after Gwen’s story. We know she’s pregnant but then she just disappears. She was going to be halfway between Texas and Louisana in case something happened at either fort to help out. This could just be that character doesn’t tie to the others, but when the drakoni straight up mention they can hear the infants and mention them all by name repeatedly, it’s odd those kids aren’t included. I can chalk Amy’s up to she didn’t get pregnant until later as it wasn’t 100% confirmed at the end of Gwen’s book but she is by Andrea’s book. But Emma was pregnant weeks before Gwen got pregnant, so her child should’ve been mentioned in Rachel’s or Jenny’s book. If not Amy’s in Jenny’s since that’s when Gwen gave birth. And considering how quick the pregnancies are (like 3-5 months at max), we should’ve seen some mention of Emma’s kid with Zohr. As I’ll mention in a second, sometimes things are missed so it could be related to that. They could just be having longer pregnancies. Claudia’s was 5 months, while Gwen’s was 3. So maybe they weren’t born yet, but I still find that weird.
As it turned out after reading Dark Fire, Emma did have a kid they just live so far out of range of where Azar is since they don’t trust Salorians. Also, I don’t know how I didn’t realize that Melina wasn’t a true mate of Azar’s. They were together in the sense they lived together and were romantic, but not in the way that the rest of the couples are. Melina also dumps him after learning the truth about the enslaved dragons and doesn’t forgive him or take him back until after she almost dies from the flu. Since he gave her his fires (essence/soul) in order to save her life. Then he with the assistance of the half-drakoni children seal the rift which gets rid of the ability for drakoni to mentally communicate. But considering the madness is gone and there isn’t another world trying to destroy Earth, it’s for the best. The drakoni just have to learn how to verbally communicate for the first time ever. It was a nice way to wrap up the series. Also, I’m glad Melina didn’t just forgive him outright when she learned the truth about what he was doing. And I liked that he learned over time how wrong he was. That his Salorian culture didn’t always mean his actions were right so he made changes. Not only that be he genuinely wants to better the community of Fort Dallas. Some of his earlier attempts were misguided but he corrected those.
Overall, I liked the series. I think it was better in some aspects than Ice Planet Barbarians and Icehome since there was an added element of an overall series plot with Azar while still maintaining the romance aspect. The other two series didn’t have that to the same extent. While things happened that connected them all, they were still very standalone with a few elements that tied the next book in so they flow together. However, in this series, if you tried to skip a book or read them in a different order, you would miss that overlaying plot and things mentioned wouldn’t make as much sense. There are some questionable moments in some of the books including borderline and attempted sexual assault (so trigger warning). There are also some editing errors though those are minor, mostly dates and ages.
I would rate these books between 3.0 and 3.25 stars out of 5.
After thoughts written back in August 2021 (leaving them in, though I’ve already read the books I mentioned at this point).
I’m not sure what romance series I’m going to read next. Ruby Dixon has a few other ones including one called Corsairs which takes place in the same universe as Ice Planet Barbarians and Prison Planet Barbarian (which I haven’t read either but that’s standalone), so I might read those. But I’m open to read other authors as well. I’m kind of tempted to read Neon Gods by Katee Roberts as it’s a romance/erotica retelling of Hades/Persephone as compared to A Touch of Darkness which kept the fantasy lens. Prior to this year, I never read this genre but I’m finding as long as it has that fantasy or sci-fi undertone, I don’t mind it. Plus, I find reading these after I finish a fantasy series helps with the book slumps that typically follow after those. Not to mention they’re quick, mindless reads. If you have any series or books that you think I would enjoy, feel free to recommend them. Sci-Fi or Fantasy twists usually tickle my fancy, while contemporary or historical do not. I try, but I usually end up DNF’ing those.
Love ya,
Mae Polzine
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