Dark Heat

The Dark Kings Stories, #0

By: Donna Grant

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

The Dark Kings are sworn to defend an ancient legacy of dragon magic. But their fiercest challenge lies in the modern world, where a woman's love conquers all. These are their stories. Dark Heat gathers together these favorite stories of Donna Grant's Dark Kings.

Dark Craving: Fueled by ancient magic-and enflamed by human desire - the Dragon King known as Hal can transform himself at will into one of the legendary winged creatures he is sworn to protect. But one thing he can never do is fall in love...with a mortal woman.

Night's Awakening: The dark immortal warriors were never meant to experience human desire. But when Guy, a member of an ancient order of shapeshifting warriors, meets Elena-a mere mortal whose beauty and blind ambition shakes him to his core - all bets are off...

Dawn's Desire: For centuries, the Dragon Kings have hidden their shapeshifting powers from the world. But when a mortal enemy threatens to expose them, the warrior Banan must leave his secret lair in the Highlands to risk his life for the dragons within-and resist the temptations of human love.

Passion's Claim: Banan has been waiting for centuries for someone like Jane. Guy knew it was love at first sight with Elena. Can two Dragon Kings commit to two immortal women for eternity? Or does fate have something else in store?

©2013 Donna Grant (P)2014 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Grant's world of immortal dragons is richly detailed and blends beautifully with the familiar realities of her human characters." ( RT Book Reviews)

Love me some DRAGONS!

Great prequel 3-pack to the Dark Kings Series by Donna Grant... Awesome starter for the rest of the series. I think these book will crossover with the Dark Warrior books b/c during the first story when the silver dragons begin to move... the Immortals Warriors are mentioned... (the Immortal Warriors are the warriors from the Dark Warriors Series) so...I am think crossover at some point.

Anyway... the Kings have a spell to block out feelings for humans since one betrayed them and cause them to be separated from their dragons eons ago... but one human female catches a Kings eye... and no magic can stop his true feelings for her...

This happens for 3 kings... setting up the series....

Great stories... although not need to enjoy the rest of the series... which only one book is out now...but well worth it to get a better understanding of the Kings...

Any Donna Grant fan would enjoy this 3-pack...

Great narration too... This can't be Ferguson... didn't sound like him... but if it was... WoW! Ferguson is getting better with his female voices...

LOVE ME SOME DRAGON SHIFTERS

Let me first start off by saying that this is a complication of four novellas of the Dark King Series. Almost like a prequel to the series itself. It does make references to the Dark Warriors Series but I don’t think you need to read that series in order to understand this one. This book tells the tales of three dragon kings and the women who captured their hearts. In the days of old (I love how that sounds) dragon ruled the sky. Than man came along and something was needed to communicate between dragon and man. So the most powerful of each dragon kind (color) was given the ability to shift between man and dragon to serve as a middle ground for both species. These individuals were known as the dragon kings. Sometimes a dragon king would take a mortal woman as his mate, forming an eternal bond that would make the woman immortal as long as her dragon was alive. This arrangement worked well until the dragons were betrayed by a dragon king’s mate. This cost countless of lives for both man and dragons alike. In order to protect themselves, the king of king casted a spell that would bind the dragon kings emotions so that they would never fell strong emotions towards a human female ever again. Ok let’s skip some countless years to present day Scotland and our story begins.

The three dragon kings in these novellas have lived since the beginning of time and are content to keep living their lives as they are until each one encounters their mates. Soon they begin to feel the emptiness that millennia of loneliness have created within them. They will stop at nothing for their mates to truly love the man and the dragon. Each woman is different and complex. Cassey is stuck between a rock and a hard place when she meets Hal but she knows there is something special about him. She is determined to prove to him and his king that she loves both the man and the dragon. Elena is driven and fierce. She has finally reached the point in her career that she has been trying to reach her entire life but that all goes to hell when she goes caving with her new boss and meets Guy. Jane is plain or at least that is what she has been told most of her life. Until she meets Banan, he opens her eyes to the beautiful woman that he sees before him. Even with an unknown dangerous villain that knows about the dragon kings and is threatening their way of life but that will not stop Banan from his woman.

I love Antony Feguson voice. It’s so rich and sinful. It’s the perfect voice for a series about dragon shifters because it sets you on fire (ok even I thought that was corny). But his voice is amazing. Love it.

Bottom line, yes buy the book. It’s worth every credit and I mean really, you get four short stories in one glorious book. Seriously, where is the downside?

Dragons! Dragons! Dragons everywhere!

This story was OK, not one of my most favored ones. It was somewhat interesting with magic, dragons, shifting and mating. Story needed to be more develop and the story line is week. The book had lots of action, and sometimes hard to follow. Antony Ferguson did very a good job with the narrating.

Formulaic romance fantasy novel

Would you try another book from Donna Grant and/or Antony Ferguson?

No. All women are petite, thin but soft in the right places, and American. All men are tall, rock hard bodies and Scottish. Everybody's eyes are like some sort of gem and all looks are smoldering. Every touch is electric, everybody is filled with longing, needing and wanting. Sex scenes are all overly long and surprisingly boring. All people fall in love at first sight and once they touch they can never be separated. The plot, such as it is, is thin and pointless and is a cheap ruse to have one dimensional characters vacillate between having sex and longing for each other while having no connection and only weakly contrived turmoil. Dialog is very weak and sounds like it was written by a computer.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator cannot express voices well. Everybody sounds the same. His American accent is both bad and inconsistent. His Scottish accent sounds like a bad Sean Connery impression. The narrator has an extra challenge with this material is that all the descriptions and most the dialog sounds like it should be spoken by a woman.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Dark Heat?

I would add scenes that would advance the plot. Except or the very early chapters and a very few in the end, most the rest do not advance the plot or develop the characters.

3 Stories in 1

I started listening to the first book and was hooked. Normally I don't like men doing women's voices, but during the first story I didn't even notice. Then the second story began and the character is supposed to be female with a "light" southern American accent. It was horrible! I come from America and I know what a southern accent should sound like. This was more like when someone is being condescending about an accent. I could no longer get into the story. I suffered through to the third story. That's when everything, including the story tanked for me. I like so much of the "world" and the idea of dragons and there are so many ways the next stories can go besides the relationships so I will probably go for the next book but if it just repeats the story lines over and over then we will see where this goes. I am all for strong females but not when the man/dragon partner is a coward.

Dragons rule

This was a very good beginning to a new series if you like shifters. They are as old as time and are guardians of humans as well as dragons. Each dragon king is ruler of a different type and color dragon. There is just enough suspense in each story and fear of the woman destined to be there mate to keep the stories moving and interesting. It leaves you anticipating the next book in the series and the mystery of what has changed and who has learned their secret and is trying to destroy them. I enjoyed it.

Great read..So-so naration..

Any additional comments?

I did read all the Dark Kings books in 2012 and loved them all. It was nice visiting all the players again, Hal, Cassie, Guy, Elena, Con, Rys, etc.. AND I can't wait until the next books come out. Great stories and super sex. Can't ask for more.
I did love Guy and Elena's story best of all but they were all wonderful.
So, I thought I'd listen this time as I read along..

As to the narration: I know a lot of you give Antony Ferguson 5 stars all the time but to me he really doesn't do so good. I mean, he does alright with the male voices and the accents but he kinda sucks at the women's voices AND he has no emotions at all. When the book calls for a laugh or sigh or mutter or anger or shout his voice never changes. THAT'S what makes a good narrator, showing what the characters are feeling or saying with emotion. But that's just MHO..

Good Dragon story

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes I would. Its a good story and I like how it starts out by letting you know about the characters

What other book might you compare Dark Heat to and why?

Black Dagger Brother Hood series

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes and I did

Any additional comments?

I think there could be a little more deviation in the character tones and the way there voices are all sound the same. It made it a little tough to follow.

cheesy

I know it's a romance, but I feel like the dialogue was suuuuuper cheesy.
narrator does good British and Scottish accents, but all the females seemed WAAAYYY too breathy

I love this book 📖!

I can't stop listening 😍. This book is just amazing 👏. I love it. I also love all the couples 💑. They are all perfect for each other. I really didn't want the book to end. It's just amazing 👏. I can't wait for the next one 😍!

A great set of prequel novels and bonus story

4 star prequel novella trilogy with bonus short story, which introduces the Dark Kings world and some of the key characters for the main Dark Kings Series by Donna Grant. The complication includes the prequel trilogy:

Dark Craving - 3 stars
Night's Awakening - 3 stars
Dawn's Desire - 4 stars
And the bonus story Passion’s Claim - 4 stars

I really enjoyed the prequel novellas and the bonus story was really sweet focusing on the next steps for the couples from the second two novella ‘Guy and Elena’ and ‘Banan and Jane’.

The narrator Antony Ferguson does a good Scottish accent for the Dark Kings, buy there wasn’t a great deal of versatility in his voice types between characters and his female voices were impossible to distinguish and his American accents a bit ropey. The narration at times also felt a little phoned in performance wise.

All in all a a great value read and a good introduction to what looks like it will be a great series, audio recording isn’t bad, but could be much better to do the stories justice.