Review of ‘Fianna the Gold’ by Louisa Kelley

This was a fun and lighthearted lesbian fantasy book. I don’t know what is going on but September seems to be turning into fantasy month. Lots of new fantasy books coming out, but you will not see me complaining one bit, in fact, I could not be happier. This book is lighter than I expected in the fantasy elements. Since most of this takes place on Earth, and in modern times, I would say this fits the category of urban fantasy. And because of that and the more lightheartedness of this book, I don’t think you have to be a fantasy fan to enjoy this. The book is very approachable and would work for people who don’t normally read fantasy or are newer to the genre, but there is still something for people like me who love this category.

Dragons, I mean come on do I need to say more? I love dragons and just totally geek out about them. This book is about dragon shapeshifters, I mean that is like geek porn for me. I loved the beginning of the book and was hooked in an instant. While I have read books about dragon shifters before they are not the most common type of shifter. I loved how Kelley brought to life the dragon side with the collecting/stealing of shiny things and other characteristics we think of when it comes to dragons. I found myself having a lot of fun with the book.

I do have to admit the middle of the book lagged for me. It was actually where some of the excitement happened but one of the mains was acting so dumb I thought she basically deserved what happened. The battle was a little anticlimactic and it seemed like one of the biggest fights happened “off-screen” so to speak. I have to say some of the fun that so attracted me to the book was lost a bit.

The romance I would say was about average. When you have books about shifters you tend to get quick attraction because of the animal/creature side that is involved and that did happen here. This wasn’t insta-love and there was some chemistry, there just wasn’t anything that wowed me to push the romance beyond average.

While I did find this book to be very up and down, it is only the first of the ‘Shift’ series. Book ones can have their bumps, especially in fantasy since the author has to explain things to the reader and do some world-building. Towards the end of the book, my interest started to go back up so I have some hopes for the next book in the series. I do want to make clear that this book does NOT end on a cliffhanger.

Dragon shifters could not be more up my alley so I had some high hopes and big expectations for this book. Even though this didn’t meet those high expectations it was still a fun read and a solid start to the series. I will be reading the second book when it comes out. 3.50 Stars.

An ARC was given to me for an honest review.