Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Scales and Sensibility

This book is very much "Jane Austen but put a dragon in it." It fit the Regency romance expectations quite well, just with the addition of magic dragons as a plot point. (I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the dragon is magic. Saying what kind of magic would be telling, though, so I'll let you discover that for yourself.)

The hero is obvious from the start. And yet the adventure of figuring out how to get the couple together is still a bunch of fun. Naturally there are some parts that are less enjoyable in a story where the main character is poor and dependent on more wealthy family members. The reason Elinor is in this predicament, for example, is that she and her two younger sisters were orphaned. Also, there is blackmail (which I dislike), some blatant gold digging, and some rich characters who have quite unpleasant personalities. However, as this is a romance novel, we know going into the story that all will turn out okay for the heroine, so none of the unpleasant aspects truly marred my enjoyment of the story.

Ultimately, when it comes down to it, I think all I really need to say is this: <b>Regency romance that is a Jane Austen homage with dragons.</b> You'll know from that whether or not this book is one for you. It certainly was for me, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

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allisonwonderlandreads's review

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Let me preface this by laying my own biases out for all to see. While I don't tend to mind loose literary adaptations because I love to see new iterations of favorite stories, this one bothered me because it seemed that the only relevant aspect of Sense and Sensibility in the story is Elinor herself, but her characterization left much to be desired. In this version, Elinor's dragon grants her a magic wish that causes her to find self-confidence in the act of imitating it under a glamoured guise. Her journey towards self-expression was greatly accelerated and lost its power by skipping through the growing pains. Elinor became a flattened version of herself who frequently comments on her own famed sensibility even as she does wildly outrageous things. The story also suffered from the loss of a Marianne character as a meaningful foil. Instead, we are left with Penelope: a witless, screeching, spoiled cousin in the role of Obvious and Inept Villain. Our love interest is also a two-dimensional Kind and Devoted Dreamboat with simplistic motivations.

Without strong characters, I don't connect well to works of fiction. To dampen matters further, the plot was predictable and didn't elicit any emotion or even amusement from me. Despite being a regency, there were some weird anachronisms (beyond the obvious dragons) that negated attempts to establish sense of place. That doesn't leave much else to recommend it.

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