Rating: 4.5🌈
Urban Fantasy is a automatic read for me and when you throw in dragon shifters, well, I’m so there!
Lust and Other Drugs by T.J. Nichols satisfies both my book cravings and then some by also being a great start in a new urban fantasy series that has as one of the main characters a dragon shifter.
Nichols, whose world building is always layered and imaginative, throws readers into a place where humanity and mythological creatures aren’t exactly in a equal standing with each other. There’s a toxicity and outright hostility or speciesism apparent in every aspect of the relations. It’s a fascinating and believable state.
As a result of a scientific experiment, barriers between our world and the Mythos world collapses with horrific consequences, causing mythological beings, creatures we’ve only known through legends and myths to flee to our world as refugees. As we know that never works out well. The fear of the unknown, the different cultures and beliefs and beings makes things worse for the refugee situation. Including experimentation.
It’s a dark, grim and fascinating world full of possibilities and worlds of mythology Nichols is continuing to create.
Jordan, a gay cop who’s inwardly sympathetic to the mytho beings, rides the edges of his own life by taking a Fae drug called Bliss and frequenting Fae bars, something that could get him fired. Edra, a dragon, has been assigned to the San Francisco Police Department as a liaison for Mythological Services, a agency that works for all the supernatural creatures.
A case that involves murder, the illegal drug Bliss, coverups, lead to a dual team investigation with Jordan and Edra. Nichols weaves a intriguing interpersonal agency relationship with a complicated dynamic that starts to emerge between Edra and Jordan. Each with their own fears and prejudices, rife with past histories and cultural conflicts.
All this overlaid with a very neat , and complex police procedural that has to go forward with investigations into drug smuggling and murder.
Once you get into the complex storytelling and detailed narrative of Lust and Other Drugs it’s hard to emerge until you are finished.
And then you’re are onto the next. Luckily, they are all available for reading.
I’m highly recommending this story. It’s a fabulous book and start to a new series.
Mythos Series:
✓ Lust and Other Drugs #1
â—¦ Greed #2
â—¦ Envy #3
â—¦ Vanity #4
â—¦ Sloth and Other Delights #5
â—¦ Wrath and Other Troubles #6
â—¦ Gluttony and Other Hungers #7
Buy Link:
Lust and other Drugs: gay dragon shifter urban fantasy (Mytho)
Description:
Police officer Jordan and dragon shifter Edra might have to work together, but they don’t trust each other—even if sparks do fly between them.
If anyone finds out Jordan’s a mytho sympathizer, it could kill his career. No one can know that he frequents the satyr dens and uses the drug Bliss. A dead satyr might not get much attention, but two dead humans who appeared to overdose on Bliss? That shouldn’t even be possible.
And it might not be an accident.
Edra, the Mythological Services Liaison, has been covering up mytho crimes to protect the community’s reputation. With a mayoral election looming, the last thing his people need is a scandal.
To get a murderer off the streets, Jordan and Edra will be spending a lot of time together, and it won’t be easy to keep up with their deceptions… or to keep resisting each other.
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Lust and other Drugs is the mm urban fantasy romance you’ve been waiting for; rich with creative and engaging world building, complicated characters, and an exploration of the intricacies of dragon mating rituals, Nichols gives a captivating and sensual touch to gay paranormal romance.
Book 1 in the gay urban fantasy series that follows Jordan and Edra as they solve crime and figure out how to improve Mytho and human relations. For readers who like dragon shifters and forbidden romance.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 