Reading the book's summary, this story has many elements that I enjoy: fantasy, a dragon main character, vampires, romance, and a mystery. It circles around Penny, a dragon shifter who is living on the down low because she left her husband, her mate, and upset the dragon community. When the bodies of young dragon girls start to wash up on the beach near her hotel, she finds herself caught up in the investigation, working with the police detective who is in charge of cases involving magical creatures. At first, he considers her a suspect, but once he clears her of suspicion, Detective Lachlan asks Penny to continue working with him, as a magical creatures liaison. Romantic stirrings are sure to ensue.

Unfortunately, while the synopsis ticked many of my fluff-read boxes, they didn't mesh together for me. The story and writing were decent. I thought Penny and Lachlan had some chemistry, and I was mildly curious to see the solution to the mystery. On the other hand, I wasn't really engaged by the characters, which made it difficult to worry much about them or their fates, or even get that excited by the romance. I wasn't spurred on by the mystery; I generally need to read though mysteries quickly because I want to learn the solution, but that didn't happen here. The pacing of the plot also was rough, with too much text devoted to sequences that could have been covered in a couple of paragraphs (the visit to Penny's family burial site) and a lack of suspense before the climactic fight, which dragged on for too long. Overall, the premise of the novel sounds awesome, but in my opinion it wasn't executed well. ( )

Dnf. Great premise. Boring as hell. ( )

I am not the intended audience - fairly good writing but mythos had no depth - fairly likable characters but a lot of the details felt like they were added to "kick the reader to get a response" - and I don't particularly appreciate feeling manipulated. ( )