Nice Dragons Finish Last

Heartstrikers, Book 1

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Nice Dragons Finish Last

By: Rachel Aaron

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

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About this listen

Audie Award, Fantasy, 2016

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 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....

Fantasy

Fiction

Dragons

Paranormal

Magic

Funny

Romance

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Critic reviews

"Narrator Vikas Adam's streamlined voice can smoothly shift from the easygoing tones of Julius to the venomous arrogance of his mother, Bethesda.... Adam pays close attention to the characters and their evolution. For instance, as Marci becomes further empowered, the nervous quaver in her voice lessens. This is urban fantasy at its best." ( AudioFile)

Most relevant

A friend spent a lot of time trying to get me to read this book. Described to me as “a very me kind of book” I felt compelled to give it a try. I was not disappointed. Nice Dragons Finish Last is fairly lighthearted and has an amazing and altogether loveable cast. The audiobook is very well narrated and I’ve already started on the rest of the series.

Setting

Nice Dragons Finish Last is set in a future Earth. Magic vanished thousands of years ago, and reappeared quite recently. With it have come magical animals (like dragons), spirits, and human mages.

Characters

In my opinion, the characters are what really make this book. Julius is the epitome of nice; he’s a very loveable character who you just want to see succeed. The supporting cast, his family, other dragons, and his human friend, Marci, are all also great characters who I really enjoyed reading about.

Plot

The plot is driven by the characters and how they deal with the situations they keep getting themselves thrown into. I also have the feeling that there’s a complex layer of plots underlying the series as a whole, and I’m really interested in where they end up. That’s not to say that the plot doesn’t resolve itself in this book, but I have the feeling that events from this book will be relevant all through the series.

Other Thoughts

I listened to the audio version of this book, often while walking around the city, and spent most of the time grinning like a complete loon. Vikas Adam does a fantastic job with the narration, and I was so impressed that I went and bought the next 3 audiobooks, and preordered the 5th book, due to be released on March 1st.

I’m not a great audiobook person. I can’t listen while doing nothing, and I can’t listen while doing something that takes a reasonable amount of brain power, hence limiting the amount of time I have to listen to audiobooks. I enjoyed this book so much that I went and started cleaning things just so I could spend more time with it.