The War God's Favorite (Dragon Empire Saga)

Ok, so I don't talk about books much on here, which is probably odd as I'm an author. But there's a few reasons for that -- I honestly don't do nearly as much reading for pleasure as I used to. I read a lot for research. The bit of pleasure reading I tend to do lately is either manga (which I sometimes write up here) or are re-reads of some of my favourite books. Comfort reads, if you will. And it's not like people read this; it's just for me. Very unofficial. I've got no reason to write up re-reads.

And, for some reason, even though I have NEVER indicated any interest in werewolf smut or dinosaur porn books (except to maybe make fun of them ages ago the first time I came across the very unlikely pairing of a randy tyrannosaur and a barely dressed ingenue when a friend was like WTF is this--which was very much my reaction), Facebook insists on inundating me with ads about them and for self-pubbed stuff in general. And for kinda dodgy book apps, though that could very well be related to my slight obsession with otome/visual novels. Which, let's face it, very much vary in quality. When I get really frustrated, I go through and Hide all the ads and they stop for a while and then come back. 

Anyway, that's a very long preamble to say that recently either Instagram or Facebook one presented me with an excerpt of this book--with a prince that's a dragon rider and a slave girl that his dragon takes a liking to when it's supposed to eat her. The War God's Favorite by Jenny Fox. The writing wasn't bad in the brief sample (unlike 95% of what it's usually showing me), so I clicked through and read the free sample bit (it probably helped that I was procrastinating and avoiding my own writing because I am at the point in this book where I. Am. Just. Over. It.). It was on some app (I forget which one) and it was one of those things where you pay to unlock every chapter. It was decent and diverting and the world building was surprisingly interesting, BUT, yeah, it wasn't good enough that I was gonna spend a bunch of money to unlock the book. I didn't add it up, but it'd be tons. 

But, curious enough, I checked to see if it was on Amazon and it was -- and you could get the Kindle version for less than £3. The paperback is, like, 20 something, which is ridiculous. So I went ahead and bought the Kindle one and have just been reading it via the web version since I don't have an actual Kindle.

I'm not gonna say anything about the cover beyond that it's both awful and typical and makes me glad I just have the virtual version of the book.

I'd say I'm about half way through it now. It's freaking long--too long, honestly, and it really could have used an editor's touch--but it's generally an enjoyable read. I'm not going to rehash the full plot, but I will talk about a few things as it's probably the best self pubbed thing I've seen and it has a lot of promise. 

• It has sex. A lot of sex. You kinda get the sense that the author would think, hey, it's been like ten pages since they last got it on. Better fix that. It's not terribly done BUT some of it definitely could have been cut, which would have improved pacing and the length and the repetitiousness of it. But, fair enough, I imagine it's what most of the readers are reading for.
• There's quite a bit of repetition and stock phrases that get used so often that it's a bit annoying. A professional editor would have helped a lot. I mean, maybe she hired someone. I dunno. But if she did, they didn't do their job. And, seriously, I have read "pink extremities" (i.e. nipples) WAY too many times. Enough already. His rod. Her trembling. 
• It's a fantasy world--high fantasy at that-- but the dialogue slips into too modern phraseology enough that it's awkward and off putting. It's especially obvious when the characters are trying to be edgy and swear and show how badass they are. 
• It's a wish fulfilment read. That's not necessarily a bad thing. You want that kind of read sometimes. But, honestly, it's actually a bit ridiculous that the male lead is essentially: "oh my dragon didn't eat that one, I guess I'll keep her" and goes right into a completely monogamous relationship where he's devoted to her completely. And the family, including the Emperor, all like her except for the other princes that are competing with him. I mean, I like that on a personal level, but there's a lot about the actual story that doesn't actually make sense logically for the world. Rather than what would likely happen, it's what you want to happen.
• That said, the actual world building is pretty decent. Like, some actual thought went into it. And it's not all info dumped in the beginning, which so many inexperienced writers do. She's worked it in reasonably.
• There's too much head hopping and it's not done well or seamlessly. The transitions between scenes are also often not done well and you're suddenly in someone else's head or in a different location and have to figure out what happened. Even scene markers would have helped. I mean, I get it that it's very tempting to head hop and get that little shot of a character's POV, but it's just not done well--sometimes it's literally just a sentence or two and then boom, back to the main character. It's probably the weakest bit of writing and a fair bit of it leads to the next point...
• There's way too much telling instead of showing. A lot of scenes could be fixed SO EASILY that it's kinda making me sad. The potential is there. This is a decent book and a guilty pleasure type of read, BUT it could have been a really good book.

I looked briefly and it appears that she's written quite a few books, mostly web novels and many of them have a lot of reviews. She posts on Patreon and Dreame (?) and is on Ko-fi. She's French but lives in London now. No idea how successful she actually is at the self pub thing. But, man, it makes me feel like if I could bring myself to write ALL THE SEX scenes I'd do okay. Though I honestly don't know that I'll really ever mess with self publishing. Not at this point. I mean, I did just fire my agent, but...meh. 

Anyway, I'll try and remember to update this after I finish it and see how I feel.