Heart of the Dragon

By: Gena Showalter

Narrated by: Madison Vaughn

Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Searching for her missing brother, Grace Carlyle never dreamed she would discover a secret world populated by mythological monsters - or find herself facing a sword-wielding being whose looks put mortal men to shame. But there he was, Darius en Kragin, one of a race of shape-shifting warriors bound to guard the gates of Atlantis, and kill all travelers who strayed within its borders. Now Grace's life was in his hands, and Darius had to choose between his centuries-old vow and the woman who had slipped beneath his defenses and stolen the heart of Atlantis's fiercest dragon.

©2009 Gena Showalter (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Lots of danger and sexy passion give lucky listeners a spicy taste of adventure and romance." (Romantic Times Book reviews on Heart of the Dragon)
"Sexy, funny and downright magical!" (USA TODAY best-selling author Kate McAllister on Heart of the Dragon)
"One of the premier authors of paranormal romance." (New York Times best-selling author Kresley Cole)

Not impressed

struggled to finish this book. it finally got interesting at the end and it was over. took forever to get the story going and was predictable. Unfortunate, I normally love her work.

UGH!!!

Not one of Showalters best.

Ancient Greeks and Atlantean's so much Waste!

All right, I tried really hard. I really did because I have always been a fan of ancient Greek myths and legends and stories of the lost city of Atlantis. I get really excited when the lost city of Atlanta shows up on it. A lot of TV shows like sea quest stuff like that so I tried very, very, very hard, made myself finish this Hoping and praying it would get better. Not only because of the Greek/Atlantis setting, but also because I thought in the beginning that she had an extremely interesting plot started, I fell in love with the character of Darius or the concept of the character. I should say this stoic Guardian that's been guarding the doorway and cutting himself off. I'm a sucker for the tortured soul. What can I say? :-) And I thought in the first few chapters or at least the first chapter or so. There was great potential because the female character started off strong stomping through the Amazon jungle looking for her brother not intimidated by the guy with the sword. However, I got the impression that the author had a moment or two where she couldn't decide whether she wanted to have a dominant heroine or an extremely submissive one. Needless to say I'm not very big on cry whining female leading characters. This one wasn't so much is crying and whining is she just went from being dominant to "yes master" so many times so fast that I started to get whiplash. Also, there were a lot of arcs set up that never went anywhere. I'm not big on giving those reviews that tell the whole story but let's just say in my opinion I think there were quite a few plot holes and continuity errors. And shit that just really didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense or hand-me-down right yelling at the computer screen. "W. T. A F!" I'm not going to quote the actual scene, but there is a scene where Grace is helping Darius research comes in Kevlar vest on the Internet (don't ask. That's not the part that irritated me the most. Anyway, LOL) and she's says, "I found them. They are $250 apiece." Now before this she's explained to him about how surface dwellers use money and he says to her that he understands about money and having to purchase things with it. So he looks at Grace and says he'll take 20 of those. I personally expected her to try to explain that it may be hard to get enough funds to cover 20 $250 Kevlar vests or something. However, all this character does is point out that he doesn't have any money or currency that will work in her world and he the supposed "alpha" male simply says something like "well of course you'll pay for them." Now don't get me wrong I'm a feminist to a point and on the first one to say I don't like men to pay for things, but in this case, since you're setting up the character as an alpha male with mating urges that particular situation. Once again made me look at the computer and have yet another severe WTF moment in my opinion. That is another instance of the author being a little wishy-washy in the character area. It just doesn't fit with the typical alpha male mating picture... That's not even to mention the fact that somehow a so-called flight attendant who gets her. So income from that profession is supposed to come up with enough money to pay for 20 Kevlar vests at $250 apiece without really blinking an eye. That's just a few of the examples that kept me on most turning this one often hitting the return button before I was finished. I'm not going to even go into full detail. My opinion of the sexual content dialogue is anyone this read my previous reviews on certain books will have already heard this particular speech. If you're not comfortable writing sex scenes then don't. I would so much rather have the book fade to black sort of then having the supers shitty cheesy sex scenes or ones that feel forced with the lack of chemistry between the characters because you can tell that when you can tell when people are just throwing and sexual content because they have nothing better to do and doesn't really fit but anyway I'm not going to get on that ramp I could do this all day. If you're still reading this, then, as you can gather. I was highly disappointed by this book because I do believe the character the concept of the character at least the tortured Guardian he's been watching the portals of Atlantis and shut himself down. That has so much potential, but in all honesty the way this is written, he could just be a regular mortal without being Dragon. There's not a whole lot of Dragon shifter in this Dragon shifter book, at least not my opinion I'm going to in this here because I could go on and on and on :-) I hope this helps. Though even if it is little rambled-LdyJulanna

SHOULD HAVE SKIPPED IT

It was a little bit of this and a little bit of that crammed together, but nothing was ever fleshed out to make it interesting. High on the corny side with a narrator whose fake southern accents were eye-rolling and annoying. A few days after suffering through it, I couldn't even remember what it was about.

Disappointed

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

the other books I have read of hers have had great story lines with depth, humor, suspense and action. Unfortunately, this book was not as good as her other books, and I have read a lot of her other books. The story had a good story idea, it just needed her depth, humor, suspense and action.

What was most disappointing about Gena Showalter’s story?

The story was hard to get into and there wasn't depth of character voices. Most of the books of Gena Showalters that I have read have been narrated in a way that allowed you to easily identify each character and brought you into the story. Unfortunately this one was closer to someone reading a book to someone sitting beside them instead of narrarating a story.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Madison Vaughn?

Justine Eyre

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I think the story line as a great idea. it just missed the written qualities that I am used enjoying in her books and narrations.

Any additional comments?

I still look forward to looking for other books by Gena Showalter.

It's more like porn...

IF I WANTED PORN I WOULD GO TO AN ADULT BOOK STORE!

I love epic fantasy. I enjoy magic and mystery.
I got this book for that reason. I made it through the first two cd's hoping for a change; but all I'm really hearing is sex, lust, and a lot of references to the human body. Don't get me wrong. My libido is as healthy as any woman's and I'm no prude. But I didn't sign up for the x rated language or lurid details of how the main characters turn each other on when I made the decision to buy this book. It's actually "x" enough that I wouldn't want my grand kids to hear it.

I'm not going to bother with the rest of the book.
I couldn't be more disappointed.

trite and predictable

Narration was like a prudish Midwestern minister's wife. Grace sounded like Carole Burnette's "Mama" character.

Oh my ears!

Now maybe I'm just spoiled because I listened to the Lords of the Underworld series first and Max Bellmore is one of the best narrators I've ever heard, but Heart of theDragon has terrible narration. I only made it through 35 minutes before I couldn't stand to listen to it anymore. The story is pretty good, I picked the book up at the local bookstore later, and I would recommend the story, but read it instead of listening.
The narrattion was very flat and it was difficult to tell the characters apart, they all sounded so similar. The tone of the narrator was bored, sounding as if she couldn't believe she was reading such "drivel".
I recommend the story, but not the audio.

terrible

OMG!!! This was a very painful book to listen to. The narration was awful. The way she portrayed Darrius made him seem like he was a little slow witted. I couldn't even get into the story for the bad narration. The only reason I started listening to this book is because it was the first in the series and I didn't want to miss any important info about the book I really wanted to listen to, King of The Vampires. Hopefully that narrator is better. It had some pretty good reviews so I'll give it a try. Perhaps reading this book would be better than listening to it.

Not a Usual Gena Showalter Story

I bought this book because I loved Gena Showalter other books. However, this book was very disappointing. The narration made it nearly unbearable. Very disappointed.