Review: Wedding Dragon by Liv Rider

Blurb:

Bringing a fake boyfriend to his sister's wedding seems like a great idea. Until he meets one of the groomsmen.

His sister's wedding raises a lot of issues Shaun doesn't want to deal with. The worrying thought that his life is going nowhere. Two adventurous, ring-bearing cats. Bridesmaids from his old hometown who love bringing up his past mistakes and are still convinced he's a car thief. Desperate to get people off his back, he asks his straight roommate to pose as his boyfriend. Telling a few lies to impress people is fine, right? What could go wrong?

The one thing he hasn't counted on: a distractingly sexy groomsman who can't stand liars and is a powerful dragon shifter.

Mitchell never expected his fated mate to have a boyfriend.

Mitchell thought meeting his fated mate would be the best day of his life, but meeting Shaun's boyfriend makes it the worst. How can he focus on his brother's wedding now? As he spends more time around Shaun, he realizes his mate has more problems than just bridesmaids spreading rumors. Resisting the urge to go after Shaun is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. Especially since his mate is irresistible. After a disastrous moonlit kiss, Shaun and Mitchell are determined to stay away from each other. But when the bridesmaids threaten to expose Shaun's lies, he has a choice: Run away from his past, or ask for help from the one man he wants to have a future with.

Wedding Dragon is a m/m paranormal dragon shifter/human romance with a HEA and no cliffhangers. It is the third book in the Lewiston Dragons series, following Protector Dragon and Halloween Dragon. All books can be read separately.

Review:

First of all, the blurb says it all. This is a low stakes, no fighting, romantic story with comedic events and Hallmark-movie logic, except for the fact that one of the characters is a dragon-shifter and they are both male. 

I first picked this book up because I was in a reading slump and needed the tooth-rotting, this-doesn’t-make-any-sense, nobody-would-actually-do-this, I’m-embarrassed-for-you type of romantic story that I don’t have to actually pay attention to and can still enjoy. 

In fact, when I picked this up (plus the day afterward when it was done), I didn’t even think about doing a review of it. Yet, here I am, because it has been a few months since I finished it and as I am in another reading slump, I’m tempted to pick up another book in the series (a series of standalones!) to help me get out of my slump again. 

Now, as I mentioned, Wedding Dragon is pretty much as it says on the tin. Outside of those cringe-worthy moments that are so typical for these types of stories and work so well for that, I do appreciate that Liv Rider tried to draw me in with just enough outside anecdotes and stories to have me interested in the rest of the books in the series, without feeling like I missed something.

From my experience, when there is a series of stand alone books, they either tend to be set in the same world with only a few easter eggs to help you make the connections, or they are so entwined that it makes you feel like you’re not in on the shared joke. This book is my first time experiencing the perfect balance between those two with Mitchell’s best friends, who read like they had their own stories and there were just enough hints about them to get me curious, but not enough to detract from the story in question. 

Now, as for the story itself… yeah, not much to say outside of the blurb. I think it summarizes it perfectly and anyone familiar with this genre or those horribly addictive holiday Hallmark movies will find themselves in a good comfort zone with Wedding Dragon by Liv Rider. There are mentions of the characters’ pasts and there is a bit of a feel like this can go more into Urban Fantasy (please note that I set that as a genre for this review) because it talks about the politics of shifters and their jobs, how Mitchell deals with it before, during, and after, and how both him being a dragon-shifter and being in a family of them affects his life - outside of the love life that the story is about. 

And I think this is why Mitchell was such a powerful character for me. He was not there to just be the sexy groomsman that the MC falls in love with. He has his own needs, goals, and (something very important to me) will. As the story is about fated mates, I appreciate the fact that Mitchell’s first thoughts when he encounters his mate are more geared toward “I can’t have him” and “I have to respect his choices” rather than the “mine, mine, mine” which is disturbing on so many levels. And while yes, there is a lot of the “mine”, the fact that his inner dragon’s solution to most problems is to pick someone up and throw them in the middle of the lake makes it more adorable than threatening. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have anything good to say about Shaun - to me, he is a boring character that acts in overly predictable (and sometimes quite stupid) ways, though I do appreciate his reaction once he is introduced to the supernatural world and his involvement in it. Even more so, I appreciate it that his involvement into this world isn’t limited to only Mitchell and the romantic connection between the two, as family seems to be important to both characters in different ways and they make sure to show it. 

But yeah, if you are the type of person who puts on one of those horrible romance movies in the background while you do other work, I think this may be the perfect quick read for you. The introduction of the supernatural and LGBTQ+ cast is what will make me put down my work more often to peek at this movie.