A Tale of Two Dragons by GA Aiken

Narrated by Hollie Jackson

I’ve been hearing about the Dragon Kin series by G. A. Aiken for some time. A lot of my friends told me it was hilariously funny. When I saw a novella length audio coming out I thought it was a good opportunity to dip my toe into the series to see if it would appeal to me. A Tale of Two Dragons was certainly funny – I just wish I’d read rather than listened to it.

Braith of the Darkness is a she-dragon who feels very alone. Her father hates her and her brothers ignore her existence. Her (dead) mother’s family apparently want nothing to do with her. She lives a mostly solitary life and prefers it that way. She doesn’t regard herself as beautiful or interesting or attractive. When she is summoned to the Queen Dragon’s court by her father, she obeys, dreading whatever he will ask of her.

Addolgar the Cheerful is a male dragon and a soldier in the Queen’s army. He is a member of the Cadwoldr clan, a family famous for their warrior nature.

Braith likes to think of him as Addolgar the Handsome though. She has a crush.

Braith is ordered by the Queen (as suggested to the Queen by Braith’s father) to accompany home Catriona, a she-dragon who has been “visiting” (aka has been a hostage for her own father’s good behaviour) the Court. Addolgar is assigned to lead the military escort.

It becomes apparent that Braith’s father plans treason and this leads to all kinds of trouble. In the course of putting things to rights and keeping Braith’s head on her shoulders, Addolgar and Braith fall in love.

Addolgar is handsome but a bit dense. He’s very forthright and a good soldier but he knows little of tact and isn’t used to thinking about another’s feelings before saying anything or taking action. He tends to take things literally. Braith is smart and strong and can think rings around Addolgar. It seems to me that’s the conceit of the series. The males are all idiots and the women are all awesome. Fortunately, the males (well, the heroes anyway) are all handsome and loyal and good in bed. Much of the very broad humour comes from the males being idiots. In a non-dragon book, perhaps they would also be too alpha but as it is, the she-dragons give as good as they get and really, it just works.

What didn’t work for me all that much was the narration. I have to give Ms. Jackson props for the pronunciation of all of the Welsh (or Welsh-ish) names. I’d never have worked it out had I read the book. That’s definitely an advantage of audio.

However, there were downsides which balanced the ledger on the other side for me. Ms. Jackson is an American and uses her natural accent. The dragons are clearly in an alternative universe based loosely on Welsh …mythology (for want of a better word). Addolgar calls his mother “mum” and there are various other clues that an English or Welsh accent would have been far more fitting for the narration.

I could have got past that I suppose but I felt that Ms. Jackson didn’t really deliver the humour of the story. She tended to deliver Addolgar’s dialogue in a very matter of fact tone. Occasionally, this happened to be exactly right and worked, but for the most part it fell flat. I often had the thought that the line would have been funny had I read it or had it been delivered in the right tone. Much of the time, I could recognise the humour but the narration kept me removed from experiencing it.

Braith and most of the other she-dragons had a great deal more expression in their voices and I liked those performances much better. But the delivery of the male dragons’ dialogue wasn’t up to the humour in the text.

I am keen to try other books in the series but I think I’ll stick to print from now on.

Kaetrin

Narration: C/C-

Book Content: B/B+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: Fighting

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Tantor Audio

A Tale of Two Dragons was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for a review.