Dana Swift: When Dealing with Dragons

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216815886-when-dealing-with-dragons

Book Blurb:

Bonding with dragons gave humans magic to craft metal―now, two school rivals have to work together to protect a priceless secret, all while fighting their growing attraction to each other, from Dana Swift, author of Cast in Firelight.

Copper-crafter Farren Walsh is set on following in her father's footsteps to become a dragon veterinarian. The only thing more powerful than her love for these magnificent creatures is her hate for those who exploit them for their precious metal. That includes her classmate, an arrogant dragon racer named James Murphy, whose silver-crafting family represents the worst of human greed and dragon abuse―plus, he's the biggest competition for the college scholarship she desperately needs.

When James strongarms his way into interning at her family's dragon sanctuary for the summer, it puts everything at risk. Farren isn't just the plain copper-crafter she seems. She's hiding a secret that could not only change her life, but their society as a whole. And James, trying to find refuge from his controlling father, harbors his own secret, years-long crush on Farren. Hating James might be harder than she thought, but Farren can't risk getting too close: the fate of an endangered species is at stake.

Tropes:

*Netgalley ALC  *Young Adult *magical world *Dragons *teenage romance *dual POV *Fantasy

*drama  *Family drama  *Enemies to more *pining *Forced proxmity *school rivals *first love

Trigger warnings: *DV, Animal cruelty, Death, classist society

Thoughts:

In a world with dragons humans have learned how to bond with these beautiful creatures and through this process bonded humans have gained the magical ability to craft different metals.  Unfortuantely in this process it has become a situation where more sought after metals (like Silver) and those who can craft the metals from these dragons don't feel that they should mix with other classes of metals leading to a culture where higher class metals are wealthy and many of them look down on the lower classes.  

Farren Walsh (FMC) lives with her family on a dragon preserve and has helped her father (a dragon veterinarian) for several years while she is still in school she is looking forward to going to veterinarian college like her father but in order to get in she needs the scholarship... while she thinks she's got a good chance she has competition in the way of her school nemesis Dragon Rider James he's handsome, popular and wealthy... he has everything he needs why does he want this scholarship too?

James (MMC) has some secrets first being he has been secretly crushing on Farren for years, to be honest it's been since the day he met her when they were 12... years later he still can't get her out of his head he just wishes he wasn't so awkward when it came to her he always seems to fumble what he says around her and his fellow dragon riders notice this is definately a weak spot for him leaving him to say some less than pleasant things in the past about the FMC.  His home life isn't what it appears to be, and he actually wants to be a dragon Veterinarian... so when he finds out that Farren's family needs help for the summer he talks his mom into helping get this spot.

Farren can't believe this is happening its bad enough that she has to see James at school and at the dragon races... now he's going to be at her sanctuary too.  She has to keep him at arms length if he finds out what she and her family have been hiding there could be a lot of damage... and not just for her it could put her precious dragons at risk and she must protect them at all costs.

Thank you to netgalley and the author for this ALC.  This was a cute quick listen, there wasn't too much world building but it had an interesting magic system and I loved that the dragons once trained if they were happy in their environment were just like loveable puppies/dogs.  

There is some dragon riding and danger in this book especially once (as we all figured would happen) the secret gets uncovered and it becomes a matter of life and death.  

There is a lot of internal monologue of  does he/she like me or not?  Lets pretend to still not like each other so people don't know we actually like each other now... wish there was less of this and more world building but I do recognize it is for a younger audience.

Farren's family is so sweet and welcoming to James, complete opposite of his own home life (which is a heart breaking situation).  

The ending of the book... had my anxiety up! 

Over all this was an enjoyable young adult fantasy with drama, action, a sweet teenage love story and a strong sense of right and wrong with how others should be treated (including our dragon friends).  

Have you read this one?  What did you think?

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