I went back to read this book and I must say it was sufficiently written but I would've liked to have experienced what the characters went through rather than being "told" by the author.

Also, I did not feel as though this was a romance although the blurb read like one. Maybe that's my bad but I went in expecting a deeper connection between the MCs but did not experience that.

All in all, this was a good showing by this new to me author.

Valgaforis is lonely until a bunch of humans invade his home. He decides to follow them in order to answer the mystery of what happened to the rest of the dragons, except the journey he begins might not ever end.

This doesn't happen a lot, but I just couldn't finish this book. I couldn't even get into it. I can't say whether I might have even liked the plot or the characterizations because I couldn't muster the will to read far enough to get an honest opinion about this story. Every single word in this story falls under the disappointing cliche of "telling instead of showing". There's no emotion, no build up, and nothing to draw my interest.

I was completely fooled by the synopsis because what I read did not match up in my head. There was a lot less of the dragon and human romance in here than I thought. I pulled out after all that. I struggled with the rest of it after the first 1/3rd. I have high expectations of fantasy when some of my favorite authors are Patrick Rothfuss, J.K Rowling, and Tamora Pierce. This author's style and writing is probably very much what other's like, but this settled for simply "ok" in my book.

It definitely cannot be considered MM or romance in the slightest. It was like reading the story of an uninteresting person with no personality, or depth. I was rather disappointed.

DNF@25%

I couldn’t get into this one, there’s just too much tell and a complete lack of… anything. Valgaforis is a dragon in his cave. Some people come in looking for a sword. He decides to go with them. I have no idea why, or why they’re willing to take a complete stranger into their company. Alessio is a jerk, it takes far too long for the only female character to get any kind of description, let alone dialogue, and to be honest there was nothing in what I read that held my interest.

So I stopped reading. Sorry, but I guess this one just wasn’t for me.

2,5 *, rounded up.
Dragon's legacy is a book I would read as an adventure fairy tale to my 12-year old cousin. Which by itself isn't a bad thing, however, it was marketed to me as a LGTBIA+ romance and its not.

There is no romance in the book, queer or otherwise. Not even hinted or something one might call 'pre-slash' in fanfic circles. There is also no character progression or character growth. There is no conflict - well, the characters do fight enemies, but no conflict in base of the story. Its more a description of a journey "he went there and there, said that and that, defeated this and this".
Its a story about a prince who goes on journey, meets a dragon in disguise, continues on a journey, fights some things, gets help from the dragon, the end.

It feels like a start of some longer saga and the writing itself isn't bad - I had no troubles finishing it. However, it deeply doesn't work as a queer fantasy romance and I wonder why it wasn't even put in such slot by the publisher.

This took me weeks to get through. The writing goes from not good to bad for the entire book. There is a plot but barely. There is no tension or purpose. There is at least one completely superfluous character, I have no idea what he was even there. The main character is a shape shifting dragon who is worried about the human's knowing that he's a dragon but then he transforms to protect them from trolls and it's nothing. "'I'm sorry I lied to you.' Valgaforis chuckled, as the group was rather startled he could speak in his dragon shape. 'In my defense, I was worried you would attack me. But anyway... Are any of you hurt?'"

If you can read those lines and not cringe more power to you enjoy this book. The entire book is those lines for 12 chapters and I found it painful to read. I almost stopped reading a multiple points but didn't think it would be fair to write up a review on a book I hadn't finished.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Valgaforis wants to be left in peace. And if he must be bothered, he would prefer goblins to humans. But these humans come searching for something that sounds like it just might help him figure out what happened to the rest of his kind. He can tolerate some bothersome humans for a little while to answer that burning question.

Things just seem to keep going wrong for Alessio. While on the hunt for the regalia of his bloodline, which will finally secure him the throne, he stumbles across Erik, who's somehow already discovered the dragon cave Alessio seeks. Erik, a native of the Northland, offers to help, and Alessio gratefully accepts, despite the unexpected complications added to his already difficult journey.

Along the way they encounter spirits, hobs, a river bride, and even trolls. In fact, the only thing they don't seem to encounter is the dragon Alessio expected to find when they finally reach their destination…

The storyline and the characters of The Dragon's Legacy by Robin White show promise.  I just can't resist a dragon or dragon shifter story.  And this sounded like a wonderful fantasy tale.  And I think it could be as all the elements are here just waiting to be enlarged into the fantasy saga it hopes to be.

With any story, especially a fantasy one, you need a solid foundation of world building to rest it on and this one lacks that.  You get bits and pieces of the culture and the reason why Alessio and group is off on his mission but you have gaping holes in his history and in Valgaforis' as well.  Those are never answered either by the end of the story to the reader's dissatisfaction.  You need to pull all the threads together, answer at least the important questions in the readers minds to make the story a cohesive whole in order for any book to be an enjoyable reading experience.

I appreciated little touches here and there.  The fact that the dragon joined in on the quest with no one any the wiser was a cute aspect to the story, over too soon for my tastes.   And I liked the whole dragon's sword bit but that should have been explored more as it was a huge part of the storyline.

But the biggest loss here is that of character development.  Each character lacked depth and that "realiness" that comes with a layered personality and time given over to making us believe in them as a person/beings.  Same goes for the relationships here.  All have that shallowness about them that feels one dimensional.  It lets you appreciate some of the nicer points of the story but removes you from any emotional contact or connection to anyone within the story.

This is the first story I've read by Robin White and I would certainly read others, based on the promise this one displays.