Heart of Chaos by Madeleine Eliot review
{Heart of Chaos by Madeleine Eliot} is the first book of the Chaosborn series.
I have mixed feelings about this book, some parts I really enjoyed but there really was some missed opportunities that detract from the book. Overall I enjoyed it.
sub genre: none (norse inspired world with dragon shifters (with the dragons sharing the body of their bonded human))
Narration: 1st person dual POV, past tense
sexual content: open door sex scene
Writing:
The writing was good, it was descriptive without being overly flowery. I had no trouble picturing anything. However, there were those instances with small mistakes like someone standing up that is already standing. But that was only very few instances so I could overlook this.
Worldbuilding and story:
The world is under attack by Odemarksdyr, monsters from another world that spill into the world through a rift in the icy expanse of the Odemark. Defending the realms (humans, fae and all others) are the Drage, humans that bonded with dragons (who are also from a different world). The Drage share their bodies with their dragons, who are seperate beings, gaining the ability to shift into their dragon form, enhanced strength, hearing, healing and extended life. In exchange the dragons can escape their dying world (they have no physical form on their own in the world of our main characters).
The FMC, Eisa, is a slave in a tavern in the back end of nowhere. During the yearly search for new humans, that are able to bond to dragons - so called Chaosborn - she meets a drage, Arik, the MMC, that discovers that she is chaosborn and offers her a chance to become drage by buying her freedom to escape her life as a slave and to protect her friends, but in exchange she has to come to Ironholm, the fortress of the drage, and try to bond to a dragon to fight the odemarksdyr.
I really liked the norse inspired world, the norse inspired names, the dragons and the mystery of the dragon's dying world and the origin of the odemarksdyr and Eisa's heritage.
I just wish the author kept the shared feelings thing out of the dragon bond equation (more about that later, when I talk about the romance). But the book was interesting enough that I bought book 2 to know what happens next.
The book is very fast paced and there is a lot of action. I wish it would have been a bit slower because I think it would have worked better for the romance. It would have been more realistic if a bit more time had passed before they fell in love.
Characters:
I really liked Eisa, the FMC. She reacts appropriately for her situation, she does not just completely trust Arik. The only thing the general public knows about drage is that they are powerful and to be feared and that they fight against the monsters. They do not know they are shapeshifters, they think they ride dragons. They don't know about the specifics. And she operates based on that knowledge. He offers to buy out her slave contract and offers a clearly mutally beneficial bargain. But she is still wary, as she should be. She does not just mouth off at him immediatelly nor does she just shrink away.
I just found that she pretended for too long to not like Arik when she clearly did.
I loved her character development. She has been a slave for a long time so the thought of her having power to do with what SHE wants to do does not even cross her mind at first. But she gets there. I thought she had solid decision making skills, knew with whom and when to keep her mouth shut and with whom she can be more open. She did not make stupid descicions constantly which is a huge plus for me.
She has very, very rare blood which allows her to bond to the strongest kind of dragons. So she is definitely the chosen one.
I liked her relationship with her best friend Branka, they clearly love each other very much and they are very supportive of each other.
I also really like Arik, the MMC. He is a good person who takes his responsibility to protect the realm from the odemaksdyr very seriously. It is so important to him, that he does gives his best to convince the FMC to come to Ironholm - that includes not giving her all the information about the drage. Time is running out and he plans on giving her all relevant information once in the fortess. It does not sit right with him to do this and I liked that he recognizes that and makes no excuses for his behaviour. He knows when to keep his mouth shut with the boss of all drage whichbis rare for MMC and I really appreciated this. He is kind, honorable and very protective and supportive.
So when his personality glitches a few times in the book for a oneliner, it really sprised me. He had these standard cocky/arrogant lines from standard romantasy heroes three or four times which made me wonder where that came from since it does not fit his character at all. It feels like the author was trying to appeal to the shadow daddy fans here with a character that just is no shadow daddy. That was disappointing but it was not that often that it impacted the book very negatively but I still noticed it. At least Arik's dragon calls him out on it...
I liked Arik's team mates and the dragons.
The villain, however, was to one dimensional for me. I get it, he is an old man stuck in his ways but the way he actively works against Arik no matter the significant negative consequences to the very important fight against the odemarksdyr was sometimes too much.
Romance:
Generally I liked the romance. However, I have a few grievances.
Arik is bonded to his dragon, Baldur. Baldur's dragon mate, Idunn, is a blue dragon, the most powerful kind of dragon who can only bond to humans with very rare blood. Eisa has this blood. Therefore Arik really wants Eisa to bond this blue dragon to have a chance against the odemarksdyr.
As I explained above, the dragons are seperate beings, but when they bond with the human they also kind of become one, two halfs of the same coin. They can talk to each other in their minds and can feel what they feel and the lines blurr who feels what. That includes sexual desire.
So it is clear, that if Eisa decides to bond to Idunn, Idunn will want to have sex with Baldur, because he is her dragon mate. Since the dragons have no form of their own, Eisa and Arik would have to have sex for the dragons to have sex.
This could have been an interesting conundrum:
Being a slave Eisa had no good experiences with sex, she was not raped but always had to fear it. So she has no sexual experience. Arik simply wants to have a powerful ally for the fight.
It was the perfect setup for a great slow burn - if the author had just decided to keep the feelings of dragon and human completely seperate. Arik promises Eisa if he bonds to Idunn, he will not force himself on her, he will wait until she wants him. The author had the opportunity to let Arik slowly gain Eisa's trust and let them get to know each other while dealing with their dragons already being in love. The humans falling in love as well would have been so much more believable that way.
Instead Arik and Eisa are heavily influenced by their dragons love and desire for each other, so they fell in love very quickly, especially Arik. Wasted potetial, it could have been awesome.
Furthermore, I did not really like the idea of them basically having a foursome, the lines between the drage and dragons really blurr during moments of sexual desire.
But in the end I was able to look past this, especially because Arik is very kind and patient with Eisa and I liked them as characters whom I liked to see happy and in love because they both deserved someone good and decent in their lives.