this was a somewhat subversive little fairy tale that reminded me a lot of dragonskin slippers and a thousand and one nights.

i say 'subversive' because most fairytales are very black-and-white, but this one wasn't. i don't want to say too much in case it's a spoiler (it's always hard with very short books because nearly everything you say is a spoiler lmao)

i agree with other reviewers when they say how easily the curse was broken. but other than that i really enjoyed it.

Cursed With Claws is a sweet little fairy tale (a male/male version of Beauty and the Beast, where the Beast turns into a Dragon for six days out of seven).

For a hundred years, a dragon has lived in the mountain. The surrounding area placates the beast by taking it an offering every year of gold and a virgin. When Ode's mute sister is chosen (being mute, she is less valuable that a 'whole' virgin), he volunteers to take her place. And when he meets the dragon, it turns out to be a young man named Elric.

A lot of the beats in the story come straight from the popular 'Beauty and the Beast', right through to the happy ending, but the characters were well drawn, and I enjoyed them, despite the sort of plot holes that most fairy tales suffer from.

My only real problem was what happened between the last chapter and the epilogue, which was very hand-wavy. "This man used to be the dragon, but he was cursed. Okay, he's been killing a virgin every year for the last century, but all that gold you sent with the virgin? Go and get it". And everyone is happy? And where has all that gold come from that they can deliver a number of chests of it every year? And what happened to the witch, who cursed Elric for being an asshole, but then tricked people into killing a girl every single year? Why she did it was sympathetic, but how she implemented it was ridiculously nasty.

Still, while the story felt like the second half was missing, it was a fun read for a couple of hours. I just wish that there'd been more.

Cursed with Claws tiene una premisa muy interesante...<b>dragones</b>. Es una novela con magia, dragones y romance. Ademas es LGBT. Lo cual prometía ser la combinación perfecta. Sin embargo, creo que se quedo corta. Fue una historia muy corta como para que todos los elementos se desarrollaran de la forma más adecuada.

Trama: Un poco lineal, bastante sencilla. Esperaba más drama y acción.

Personajes: Ode es nuestro protagonista y el se ofrece en lugar de su hermana menor, Malle, como sacrificio para el dragón que habita en las montañas cerca de su pueblo. Él me pareció un personaje bastante genial. No sufre una gran evolución, pero no estuvo mal. Es bastante agradable y sensato. Ademas, se sacrifico por su hermana y se aseguro de que ella fuera feliz. Su relación con Malle es muy especial y bonita.

Por otro lado, Elric...no lo sé. No termino de convencerme. Sus pensamientos y acciones me parecen un poco dispersas. Su historia sobre la razón por la que se convertía en dragón, tampoco me engancho. No fue un personaje horrible. De hecho, se podría considerar el villano, pero no era un hombre malo. Realmente intentaba ser bueno.

Romance: Este es un punto positivo porque, a pesar de ser una historia muy corta, no fue insta-love. Bueno, casi no. En realidad, no hubo tiempo para mucho romance, pero trato de quejarme tanto.

Final: Fue muy precipitado y hasta un poco no creíble.

Como conclusión, no es una mala novela...simplemente necesita más hojas para volverse sólida.

This story should have been a novel. It had a strong premise, and strong start, but tapered off at the end. I think dragon-shifter stories are so underrated and not even all that common, at least not good ones. Ode is sacrificing himself to save his sister and his town from the "evil" dragon. In this case Elric (dragon) is cursed and not really evil. Ode slowly sees this overtime as he gets to know Elric, tell him stories as Elric battles his inner dragon to not kill Ode.

Elric is really sweet I wish we had more range of his personality and his interaction with Ode. This is not necessarily an insta-love as time does seem to pass in the story, but it's hard to really tell. To that end Ode suddenly being discovered and causing drama could have been elaborated and done more. I hate short stories and novellas because you don't get a fully scope story. This is barely a 3. I say that because of the characters themselves are the only thing that keeps this story there. Can't say I'd spend money on it though.

I wasn’t expecting anything groundbreaking or particularly different going into this book. I just wanted a nice dragon read with some curse breaking and righting of wrongs.

And, I suppose, on the surface that’s what I got. Ode is self-sacrificing and brave, Elric is… well, a dragon, and there is a curse. But, sadly, everything else was pretty disappointing.

The village elders choices might be believable in a historical context, it also left a really horrible taste in the mouth. Just pick a name out of a hat, don’t make an active choice to rid your world of disabled characters. Although it did provide Ode with a chance to look heroic in many ways.

Then there’s Elric. I didn’t feel sorry for him at all. Yes, he’s cursed, but hey, he deserves it. Really, his only complaints are that he’s a bit lonely up on the mountain. Oh, and he ends up killing people. But mostly, he’s bothered because he’s lonely. Yeah, well, I don’t care because he was a horrible human and I don’t blame the enchantress/witch/whatever-she-was for cursing him. I do, however, have serious issues with what she did to the villages. That was uncalled for. She and Elric deserve each other.

All of which meant I didn’t particularly want the curse to be broken, and the way it is broken… meh. Both underwhelming and disappointing. Throw in the excessive addiction to purity and I sadly didn’t enjoy this anything like as much as I wanted to.

** I received an ARC of this novella in exchange for an honest review**

I love a good ol' virgin sacrifice story. Throw in some attractive, old-worldly boys that are feeling the good feels for one another an I am 100% on board this fairy tale train. It's very Beauty and the Beast meets an adult version of Pete the Dragon. I love dragons, though, so this novella was right up my alley.

Essentially, a witch has cursed a greedy lord to turn into a dragon, and every winter the surrounding villages offer up a virgin sacrifice (this could potentially be a trigger, as the elders of the village like to offer up people with disabilities) and gold to appease the dragon and keep his wrath from reigning down on the villages. One such year, Ode, the male protagonist, is at the sacrificial ceremony with his mute sister Malle when she is chosen to be the sacrifice that year. He offers himself in her place and before he knows it, he finds himself face to face with...a human, rather than a terrifying, scaly beast.

The detail within the novella, especially in regards to Elric's (the second male protagonist) shift from dragon to human and vice versa, is very good. I'm not quite sure why this book has such low ratings. Yes, it's novella length, but even in that short length the author somehow managed to not make it insta-love! I find that miraculous.

The only thing I found a little unbelievable was how easily the curse was broken. Sir Lordship was cursed for decades and *that* one selfless act sets him free?? Seems sketch. But that minor detail wasn't enough to detour me from the overall decency of this novella. I definitely recommend it as a quick, fun read in between longer books as palette cleanser like another mentioned!

Ok

Interesting beauty and the beast type story. Quick read.

I voluntarily read an advanced copy.

I've learned. It took a little while, but it's finally sunk in. Less Than Three Press publishes a certain sort of novella that I dislike. I always get caught by the blurb, but now I know not to be fooled. I read
Alexandria Bellefleur's Frostbite last year, which is also by LTTP and essentially the same plot as Cursed with Claws. I felt about it the same as I did this one. Meh. That's it.

Cursed beast in a mountain cave? Check. Ingenue young man encounters him? Check. Almost instant attraction, despite one party being deadly/monsterous (both dragons)? Check. Love developing in too short a time? Check. Happily ever after? Check. Everything is very shallow, very linear and very Mary Sue/Marty Stew. It's not that there's necessarily anything wrong with it. There's obviously a market, so those that enjoy it. I'm just not one of them. I was not impressed by Idonea's Cursed with Claws, but it was the book that finally taught me what to be on the lookout for, so I can avoid reading it or its ilk again.

I love a good dragon story and this novella started out very strong.

The premise was that of a sorceress being terribly wronged by a selfish nobleman, who was then cursed to live six days as a dragon and one day as a man. Pretty much forever. Rinse and repeat.

And once a year, the villages surrounding the mountain where the dragon lived had to provide chests of gold and a sacrificial virgin as tribute, to keep the dragon at bay.

However, for the past 99 years, the sacrifices had never gone willingly -- until this year. I mean, who's stupid enough to *want* to be eaten by a dragon, am I right?

When Ode's beloved, little sister was chosen as tribute, mostly due to her inability to speak, he immediately stepped up to take her place.

-------------------

Trigger warning:

Some previous reviews were offended by the ableism exhibited by the village elders, tending to choose those with disabilities, even minor ones, as the lucky individual chosen as the sacrifice.

However, the book seemed to take place in the middle ages, so I could *totally* see such a practice happening in real life during those times.

I'm most definitely *NOT* defending that practice, only explaining how I didn't see that plot point as being far-reaching during the time period written.

-------------------

But instead of an evil dragon living in the mountain top caves, Ode found himself in the company of a handsome, seemingly-kind, young man named Elric.

Then Ode was once again surprised when Elric turned into the dragon the next morning and, after a bit of fast talking, the dragon did not eat him.

I loved these parts of the book, where Ode was never more than a hair's-breadth away from being flame roasted and eaten, while trying to keep the dragon at bay. Then spending one more day getting to know Elric better, before the dragon made its next six day appearance.

Although this is *not* a sexy read, it had plenty of feels, for me at least, and I did enjoy seeing their romance form and start to take shape.

The storyline was very strong until around seventy-five percent in, then it took a bit of a "meh" turn and the event that finally broke Elric's cure turned out to be a bit anti-climactic, in my opinion.

I'd still rate the book at around 3.5 stars, because I loved the setup and the majority of the story.

*ARC from NetGalley for Honest Review*
I Give this book a 3 star Rating

This is a Fast read: only 7 chapters.
Despite being very short for my liking, this is definitely a good palate cleanser. I Just really liked this book honestly, I don’t understand a lot of the very low ratings but it was interestingly written and it kept my attention.
This was more of a... m/m bonding and wad really cute I thought, I could definitely see this made into a Light BL/Yaoi Manga.
I would definitely read more from this author :)

When Ode's sister is chosen as that year's sacrifice for the dragon, Ode knows he has to take her place. He finds the dragon in question quickly, but instead of dying he is able to live with the dragon until he realizes the terrible curse the dragon is under.

Cursed With Claws is essentially a Beauty and the Beast retelling, which means I have read this plot before. What's always interesting about a retelling is the unique spin the author gives to the characters or the setting, but I have also read stories about a cursed dragon on a mountaintop and the hero sacrificing himself for another. Basically, there wasn't anything new or exciting in this story. It was well written for the most part and I enjoyed it, but it read more like fanfiction than original fiction.

The book also suffered from differing prose. At points the narrative was overly flowery in order to sound historical, but Idonea appeared to forget that convention at points and the language style changed. I also know that for historical accuracy the women in the book needed to be helpless waifs in desperate need of a husband to care for them, but Idonea pushed that idea a bit too much for me. And then there was the ending which happened so quickly and so easily that I had trouble pinpointing what happened. Overall, I was disappointed in this book, but I still enjoyed reading it.

This just wasn't great. It wasn't terrible either. It's set up as a fairly standard virgin sacrificed to appease dragon story. A group of villages choose a virgin to send up the mountain with a gold tribute every year to keep the dragon from destroying them. One year, in a scene stolen a bit from Hunger Games, Ode volunteers as tribute when his sister Malle is chosen. So Ode goes up the mountain and whoopsie don't you know the dragon is actually the curses once-upon-a-time evil ruler of the area. Ode pulls the Beauty and the Beast move of teaching the dragon to love and loving the dragon and thereby ending the curse.

So there are some problems with this book. It's unoriginal and not in a taking an old trope and doing something with it but in the take all the tropes and don't reinvent them. I have no problems with the writing itself and the plot points all work together but man I've read this book in pieces all over the place. Also, we aren't really shown Elric (the dragon) as anything but a pathetic broken soul and Ode and he don't spend much time together on screen. This was a complaint I had with another book in this collection by this publisher. I know it was only 7 chapters but if you want me to believe that true love broke the not very clearly defined spell maybe show the two characters falling in love? Just a thought.

Also the spell is broken because Elric orgasms with no other stimuli than giving Ode a hand job which made me laugh out loud so there's that.

This book is a retelling of a classic fairytale trope. A tale of redemption and love in many forms. A quick read that some readers may enjoy and others may find too predictable.

Some spoilers and trigger warnings follow.

Trigger Warnings
Ablism, violence, mentions of rape, and equating purity and virginity

Ode's sister is chosen to be sacrificed for the dragon because she is mute and the village sees her as more easily sacrificed. Her older brother says a disability makes the person no less worthy of life in a nice rejection of ableism. He takes his sister's place as the sacrifice. In the dragon he finds a man cursed for the last century to excruciating pain, starvation, and isolation as a result of his actions as a lord who abused his people. He abused a disguised sorceress who cursed him as result and forced the surrounding villagers to pay with him in gold and the lives of innocents. Ode sees the guilt and sorrow the dragon/man feels as the mark of redemptiom and a man reformed and believes he has paid for his crimes. Together they work to set them both free. There are several time jumps that speed the story along to an HEA that is sweet and hopeful. No matter the length, it had the feel of a short story or novella but the story feels completed.