Heart of Fire by Bec McMaster

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Oh my gosh, I absolutely loved this book. It's been a while since I've read a dragon shifter book that just hits what I want from a dragon shifter novel. The last that really met all my expectations was G.A. Aiken's Dragon Kin series, which I have mentioned before. But back to the brilliance that is Heart of Fire by Bec McMasters. This is the first book in her Legends of the Storm series. I first heard of this book through Juliette Cross and the Smart Women Read Romance Podcast she does with her niece Jessen. They actually did a podcast episode on it too! This also worked perfectly for FaRoFeb!

We start with our heroine Freyja outside, trying to get things on their homestead put together for a storm coming. The sheep are bleating and going crazy. She's trying to get them all in the barn when surprise! A golden dreki appears and steals her ram. As her father is suffering from illness and they are having to scrimp to survive, she gets instantly mad. Almost illogically, but at that point she's "over it." Freyja decides to hike up to his lair and demand her ram back. Upon meeting the feisty Freyja, Rurik is immediately intrigued and feels pulled to her, even if he doesn't realize it at the time. There is a fated mates vibe to this (which I love) and I also love how afraid yet strong she is when facing the dragon in his lair. 

Since her village has stopped tithing, he stole her ram. So evolves the twisty plot that's being set up for the series in why the tithing stopped. We meet Haakon, a dragon hunter (who is the hero of book 2) and also start to learn about the politics of the dreki court back home. Being that Rurik is in exile, he has to make the choice if choosing to mate with Freyja is the correct choice for them both, but since Freyja is his twin flame they choose to stand firm in what's to come. It's also intriguing that Freyja is part fae or magical creature. The only thing I wanted is more into figuring out where her powers come from (outside of her mother), but hopefully it'll be brought up in future books. Their romance was sweet, and I liked that he kept laying hints when dealing with Freyja that he was the same dreki. They were very steamy together and I loved the pull both of them felt. Especially when they first met with Rurik in his human form. Such a great make-out scene! There was a little misunderstanding, but I liked that even though she was hurt by how she perceived him needing some space, she still fought to save him.

This book took me a little bit longer to get through, but mainly because I had to set it aside for some book club books I had to get through first. I am definitely going to be continuing the series and can't wait to see how Haakon's book turns out. I'm so happy to finally get to this series and am also super intrigued by Bec McMaster's steampunk series as well. I haven't read very many steampunk romances, so that'll be fun to try. 

Have you read Heart of Fire?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Heart of Fire, Bec McMaster, 5-stars, 7 days, eBook, 370 pages, published in 2017