Heart of the Dragon by Jamie Sullivan is being published on June 15th.
This is the story of a dragon who accidentally kidnaps a baby, and of what happens 17 years later when a knight comes to kill the dragon, and instead finds himself captured by the dragons human son.
This is a heartwarming story of how love for a child can change a big bad dragon. It's a very quick read but one I thoroughly enjoyed. The characters were well thought out and vividly drawn upon the pages.
The events were a little predictable but didn't affect my enjoyment of the story.
LGBTQ+ with some sex scenes so probably not suited for younger readers.
4 stars.

A charming fairy tale for fantasy lovers. To be fair, in the beginning i didn’t really enjoy reading it. I don’t like the fact that almost every second paragraph started with the name Madfall, instead of using a synonym. For me these repetitive elements made it seem like a children book at the start, however later on it contained very much adult things.
The story itself and the idea is very unique and it can make it a must have read for fantasy lovers. The novel is easy to read, with lots of additional values like love. A totally new perspective to see a dragon as a father.

Definitely different for me but if I see Dragon in the title I'm in. It did remind me of The Jungle Book a little bit and I liked that part. Overall cute read.

I’ve found a new favourite trope. It’s called the *takes deep breath* grumpy-prickly-hermit-dragon-reluctantly-adopts-a-random-human-baby-they-accidentally-found-and-ends-up-being-an-incredibly-loving-supportive-and-kind-father…trope. We’re off to a great start with this premise!

Up until the ending, this book was potentially a solid 5 stars. I enjoyed reading it SO much, it’s compulsively bingeable (I read about 80% of it in one sitting), utterly hilarious and the dragon Madfall is ICONIC. One of my favourite fictional dragons – I’m not lying when I say I would lay down my life for Madfall. I really would. Madfall’s sarcasm, personality and relationship with his adoptive son Oenyn are truly the stars of this book. He never fails to crack me up! Madfall has certainly nurtured his son’s wit and cleverness, and I loved Oenyn’s character too – to be honest, all the characters were great to read! I even liked the sheep (Nani) and goat (Gaf). I’d also like to add that despite the abundant humour, there were a few sobering moments which made the story more grounded and less fanciful.

While I enjoyed the gay romance, I think the primary love story here is between Madfall and Oenyn. It was so heartwarming, reminiscent of Hiccup and Toothless from ‘How To Train Your Dragon’, and I could absolutely see this as a Disney/Dreamworks/pick-your-studio film (provided it’s made PG-13 of course – there were a couple of more, ahem, raunchy scenes in here). As Richard’s most meaningful role in the plot is his representation of Oenyn’s human side (more so than his role as a love interest), I did wonder if a more open-ended romance storyline would’ve made this symbolism clearer. That being said, though, Oenyn’s dilemma over choosing his humanity or his dragon father was very realistically and emotionally portrayed.

Literally my only niggle was with the ending. While the main plot revelations were done well – nice foreshadowing – I just didn’t find it believable with how the story closed. I really can’t elaborate without spoilers!

Pick this up if you’re looking for a laugh and a cheer-up! Bonus if you love dragons.

3.5

This was a pretty quick and cute read. I thought it was interesting; the idea of a dragon raising a little boy and it really was! Oenyn grew up to be curious and kind, but obviously living with only a dragon for company was not ideal because people need human interactions.

I really liked Madfall and his character arc. He began as a stereotypical dragon who loves to steal shiny things for his hoard, but he ended up being a caring father to a human boy. This is definitely a story about family and how you can be family even if you don't have the same blood flowing through you (even if you're a whole different species). Madfall and Oenyn were 100% father and son and no matter what anyone else thought, they stayed true to that. Honestly, Madfall was literally one of the best father figures I've ever seen LOL. He was willing to consider everything Oenyn said, he did his best to become a better "person", and he did whatever he could to protect Oenyn.

I liked Richard, but I thought his 180 from saying that Madfall was a monster to telling the king that Madfall loves Oenyn was a little out of place. There wasn't really a gradual transition in his mindset, it just seemed like a switch flipped in his brain (and maybe it did? Idk haha) But yea, I would've liked to see Richard actually warm up to Madfall.