Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Ryder MacGree has missed his brother Ian since he left the village. Ian was supposed to marry the daughter of a rival clan’s chief. This started a string of people disappearing from his village who were never seen again. Having learned that Ian went to the Kartelle Valley has driven their father Chief Goth into madness. No matter how many men the Chief sends, they never return. Ryder wants to end this pointless one-sided war but is not sure how to do this.
Returning home one day, Ryder finds Ian’s best friend Ewan in his home. Ewan tells Ryder that Ian is nearby and will take him to see Ian. With Ian and Ewan is Elder Combs. Combs proposes a solution to Ryder’s problem as suggested by Ian. As Ryder has reached his majority, if he should take a consort then Goth must step aside and Ryder would become Chief. And seeing as Ryder is Ian’s brother and probably an asda (a human who can bond with a dragon), Combs brings three prospective consorts with him. Ryder must choose between Eustize the male herald, Ryantra the female warrior or Tygo the male healer.
Tygo is the best healer in the Karstelle Valley. Despite his young age, he desperately wants to claim an asda as his own. When he hears of the trip to Clan MacGree’s village, he goes along. He is taken by the beauty of the clan’s countryside and interested in the plants that he has never seen before. But that is second to the beauty he sees in Ryder. While Tygo knows that Clan MacGree has not had same sex consorts as Karstelle Valley does and he will probably lose to the female dragon warrior, he hopes he can win the heart of the future chief.
This is the tenth and final book in Charlie Richard’s Highland Dragon series. I have enjoyed this trip to medieval Scotland. What started out as a son’s refusal to marry a woman he not only does not love but could not “lie down” with as he prefers the company of males ends with a satisfactory resolution to the obvious one sided war started by his father. The dragons of the Karstelle Valley would just want to be left in peace and in the end they will get their wish.
As for this book, Ryder must decide between the easy choice of selecting Ryantra (and probably ensuring a successor) or the difficult choice of Tygo whom he seems to have a connection to but is of the same sex and may not be accepted by his clan. He must also ensure that they all live until the bonding as his father is out to stop this arrangement before it can be completed. As the two cultures are different, how Ryder must prove a bonding goes directly against the possessive nature of dragons and he must find a solution to that as well.
Once again the cover by Angela Waters is simply stunning. Tygo’s yellow dragon is seen flying behind a kilt wearing Ryder. Ms Waters has never failed to deliver the perfect cover for any of the ten books in this series. I must complement her on the work she has done.
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Book Details
Ebook, 84 pages
Edition Language: English
Published: October 7, 2016 by eXtasy Books
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0896-1
