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checkoutmybookshelf · 5 months

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...Ok, So When I Said We Weren't Doing This, What I MEANT Was...

...We would do it in a single post because I cannot get this series out of my head where it has been living rent-free for literal months. And also I had green fairy lights my husband put on my bookshelf for me, so obviously we had to give this series some atmospheric lighting. I've already covered the first two books in this series, so let's talk the final four books of The Dragon Prince of Alaska series.

As usual, spoilers abound below the break, so be warned!

The Dragon Prince's Bride picks up with the idea Tania and Rian developed in the previous book that eldest brother Fask can rules-lawyer the compact into activating a fated mate for him. They also use this moment to cement a further alliance with Mo'orea, another of the small kingdoms.

Unfortunately for Fask, before he can so much as put eyes on Princess Leinani of Mo'orea, she runs into Tray and both their dragons basically do the spider man meme going "FATED MATE." Tray and Leinani are both absolutely horrified because of all the possible engagement day faux pas, this has to take the cake. And they do TRY to deny the fated mates thing; the premise of magic in the series is "all spells fade," so the logic here is that Tray and Leinani just keep their distance until the initial fated mates magic wears off, and then she and Fask get married as planned.

Which works for all of five minutes until a fanatic cult leader intent on breaking tbe way magic works in the world to take it back from shifters kidnaps our fated mates and holds them prisoner in a tiny-ass hotel room with literally nothing to do but get to know each other. Even WITHOUT the fated mates spell and "only one bed" trope, there is no way on this earth that Tray and Leinani don't fall in love in this situation.

Especially when you contextualize the captivity with the fact that Amara (our fanatical culture leader) is testing various spells on Tray--including one that separates him from his dragon. That level of sheer psychological torture is both freaking terrifying and beautifully handled. Eventually, Tray and Leinani work out a couple of loopholes in their prison to escape, and then get trucked back to Alaska with the help of some rogue Majorcan bastard Princes. They also get some help from Amara's disaffected right hand, Mackenzie, who helps them escape and defects with them.

The trio arrive back in Fairbanks just in time for our boys' estranged brother, Kenth, to come barreling through the door yelling about his kidnapped daughter.

Which is precisely where The Dragon Prince's Secret picks up. Kenth has been estranged from his family long enough that of his brothers, only Fask knows about Dalaya, Kenth's five-year-old daughter. And poor Kenth takes about six rapid-fire metaphorical punches to the chin in as many minutes when he arrives, because not only are three of his brothers mated now, Mackenzie is HIS mate, magic doesn't work on Mackenzie so she can't feel the mate bond spell, and Kenth has to deal with FASK. Some people just bring out the worst in each other, and Kenth and Fask basically cannot exist peacefully in the same room for longer than about two minutes.

And this is about when everything goes directly to hell. Because Kenth and Fask more or less immediately begin fighting about the best way to get Dalaya back and whether Mackenzie can be trusted. They eventually do come up with a plan to break Dalaya--and the other eleven kids Amara is holding an exploiting to copy spells quick-and-dirty so she can more effectively assault the small kingdoms--out of captivity. However, the plan is scuppered in about the first five minutes, and Kenth barges in like a dragon-shaped wrecking ball, with Toren yelling behind him that "This is not a plan! This is the opposite of a plan!" Which is not wrong, but Kenth's baby girl is in that cult hotel, and I'm pretty sure nothing was stopping him from barreling in there. He's a motherfucking dragon, after all. (I adore this chaos cat of a man, not going to lie.)

Ultimately, however, it's Mackenzie who gets Dalaya and the rest of the kids out, with Kenth taking a seemingly ineffective magical shot to the shoulder on the way out. Which of course he tells nobody about until he quite literally keels over unconscious in screaming pain because the "bullet" didn't "hit" him; it hit his dragon. Three days of agony and the entire palace expecting Kenth to die later, Dalaya breaks the stalemate, wields chaos magic and takes a hit that would have killed her if she were a dragon to fix her dad. This chaos cat of a man has a chaos cat of a daughter and honestly it's kind of awesome, even if Fask throws a massive temper tantrum in response.

I have to say, in my first read through of the series, this was the book that solidified my suspicions about Fask that Tray and Leinani being fated mates in the last book sparked. If the question Tania was supposed to be asking was why a mate wasn't called for Fask, then the fact that them trying to crowbar one on was so DECIDEDLY thwarted was sus in book three. Then Fask's ongoing suspicion of Amara and weirdly aggressive feud with Kenth just nailed it home for me, because even if you and a sibling cannot get along to save your lives, there was something WEIRDLY toxic about Kenth and Fask's relationship, especially given the circumstances of their mother's death and who had ordered who to be where when. I wasn't sure what had happened at this point, but I was sure Fask knew and was involved.

The other fantastic thing about this book was the fact that Mackenzie wasn't affected by her half of the bond spell. It was a really interesting change in the typical fated mates dynamic, and I appreciated that it let Mackenzie--who had spent soooooooooo many years under Amara's thumb in a cult setting--not feel stressed that something or someone else was messing with her head. She had the freedom to find her feelings on her own and to work toward learning to trust herself again. That could have been handled so badly or even just handwaved because fated mates, but instead, Birch thought outside the box and worked with it. A+ no notes. I don't even object to Kenth still getting his half, because chaos dad is not like...super great at feelings? So while Mackenzie got freedom, he got training wheels.

I'm not going to stand here and say that an ungenerous reader couldn't find that invasive or one-sided, but I would argue that the text does not support such a reading.

Ok, I have definitely spent too much time on my second-favorite book of the series, so let's remember that we still have eleven stray kids and a cult out to take down the small kingdoms to deal with and move on.

The Dragon Prince's Magic starts with hiring a tutor for said eleven stray children. Even with all their royal resources, the Alaskan princes aren't having any luck locating their parents--its likely Amara kidnapped them from poor circumstances, negative foster situations, or even just off the streets, so they weren't even reported missing as far as anyone can tell. What IS evident, however, is that one of them is neurodivergent and all of them are still experiencing aftereffects of being raised in and used by Amara's cult.

This is where Katy comes in--she is a professional tutor with a metric ton of experience with neurodivergent kids and knowledge of shifters' existence. Her best friend as kids was a shifter who shared the secret, so when dragon shifters are revealed after Katy signs a HELLA binding NDA, she's not horrified or shocked. She's ecstatic. There is MAGIC in the world, and it has just invited her in.

Also, there are kids who need her help, and she is THERE for her kids.

But upon arriving at the castle and running into Prince Raval, Katy is also there for HIM, because hello fated mates. Raval and Katy are an absolutely adorable couple to follow...which is good because the grief project that Raval has been working on since his mother's death is a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang TARDIS that sends him, Katy, and all eleven kids back to ancient Mo'orea. Turns out that time loops are VERY much a thing, because the eleven kids end up being the eleven founders of the small kingdoms and Raval and Katy negotiate with the dragons and spirits to get the compact written originally. It's actually VERY cool, and it's an interesting look at the compact itself.

They're also in the past without birth control and with a mate bond long enough that when Raval and Katy come home, Katy is cooking up a cousin for Dalaya. Raval, however, also comes home with a glass disc that reveals truth, and when he goes to visit his sleeping father, the spells keeping him alseep are revealed, as is the caster...which is the cliffhanger the book ends on.

The Dragon Prince's Betrayal is ultimately Fask's story, but because Fask's story isn't a romance--it is, in fact, a goddamn tragedy--our POV couple is Captain Luke and Draygar. This is a complex book for me emotionally, because while the writing and progression of the romance is fine, as a couple, Luke and Draygar feel a bit like Camillo and Paulina at the end of the Winter's Tale. It's a bit...ok, sure? But the bit about investigating Fask and finally seeing the threads he's been pulling for the past five books was possibly my favorite thing and it was heartbreaking.

Thirteen years ago, Fask had worked with Angel to plan a prank on Kenth. Unfortunately, that prank ended in the accidental death of their mother (and really made Fask and Kenth's relationship so toxic that Kenth left). Then Fask got toxic as hell, repudiated his own dragon, and turned around and murdered his father and magicked his dragon into something that looks like sleep but is likely something closer to stasis. And then he spent YEARS telling his siblings that he thought their father's sleep was the sort of thing he simply...wouldn't wake up from. He was THAT CLOSE to admitting that their father was dead from day 1. Given all the guilt and attempts at blaming magic and Kenth and the compact itself, it's honestly not a surprise that Fask starts pulling strings and plotting to not renew the compact at all. He was pullling Amara's strings, setting portal anchors in his brothers' bedrooms and the vault, and ultimately, his death at the hands of Angel is basically on par with Hamlet's: Ultimately tragic and ultimately of his own making.

As a conclusion to the series, I loved this book. As a romance...meh. I wasn't so much of a fan. But reading the series together as a single story (and the books will tell you they can be read as standalones, but I disagree; they're better as a single story arc) was hella fun and rewarding. Every couple was unique, which is impressive given that five of the male leads are brothers and the sixth is their half cousin. Each story feels different and like it exists for a reason, which is not always the case in romance novel series.

Overall, this series is living rent-free in my head and I would highly recommend it to shifter fans and romance fans. And to anyone who is feeling vaguely homesick for Alaska, because wow did it scratch that itch for me.

#the dragon prince of alaska #elva birch #the dragon prince's bride #the dragon prince's secret #the dragon prince's magic #the dragon prince's betrayal #shifter romance #shifters #romance #romance novels #contemporary romance #dragons #dragon shifter #books and reading #books & libraries #books and novels #books #book recommendations

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