Review of Elemental Attraction by K. Aten
A lovely rom-com fantasy. Before I start my review I do want to mention that I was a beta reader for this book. I’ve read this story multiple times and have formed more of an attachment to it than I might have had to another book that I read only once before reviewing. Because of that, it’s hard to say that I don’t have any built-in bias, but I’m trying my best just to wear my reviewer hat only. The bottom line is that this was a fun read and I really enjoyed it.
As most of you know I’m not the biggest rom-com fan. I find I struggle with book comedies as my humor doesn’t always line up with them. When Aten told me this was a rom-com, I thought ‘eh’, but then when she told me that the romance in this book was actually a fauxmance and that there would be dragons, well let’s just say my ‘eh’ went to a ‘hell yeah!’ Fauxmances are my favorite romance trope and to put one in a fantasy setting which includes a dragon shifter… I just knew this would be my kind of book. And the best part is that the comedy didn’t bother me in the end. While not all of the jokes hit, and I rolled my eyes a few times, most of them were genuinely funny. It wasn’t a big laugh-out-loud book for me, but I had a smile on my face almost the whole time. A lot of the jokes involved teasing and were part of the main characters flirting together which actually added to the chemistry of their romance.
The romance really was the heart of the story for me. You have a dragon shifter who didn’t plan on settling down anytime soon and a half-human/elf who’s been too scared to love again after a huge loss. But when the two are brought together to make a dangerous journey, while pretending to be in a relationship (the dragon needs a potential mate to take home to meet her family) sparks start to fly. This is a reasonably slow-burn romance so Aten takes the time to really build this potential relationship right in front of our eyes. The teasing and flirting, the subtle touches, everything with these two just build up so nicely that you absolutely believe in their chemistry. The sex scenes also have a nice bit of playfulness but also steaminess that only makes their connection even stronger.
While Aten put a lot of time into the romance, this really is an epic fantasy book. There is a ton of world-building here and this place called Myth World that she has created is wonderful. What I loved is that Aten took us to different parts of this world and introduced us to important characters that have their own story to tell. It’s very clever how she did this because while this first story is completely all done, we got to meet these other great characters and get a small glimpse into what their stories could be. There is a WLW princess and captain of the guard romance that I especially cannot wait to read about. This is not the last we will see of Myth World.
I had fun reading this book and considering this was a comedy, well… that doesn’t happen to me too often. The romance was great and the mains were wonderful characters that I am going to miss. I would not call this a gateway fantasy book because it might be a little heavier fantasy for a new fantasy reader, but because the rom-com parts are good and such a big part of the book, I think this would appeal to readers who read fantasy on occasion and all the way up to hard-core fantasy fans. This is a book I would recommend and I’m hopeful that fantasy fans will enjoy this as much as I did. I can’t wait to read more from Myth World. If you have wanted to try Aten before but know that you are just not a speculative fiction reader, I would absolutely recommend her dramatic WLW romance, Burn It Down, about a firefighter. 4.50 Stars.
A copy was given to me for review.
