The Bastard King

Detailed and complex

THE BASTARD KING is the first instalment in Donna Grant’s adult THE BASTARD DUOLOGY paranormal, romance duet, set in the author’s THE DRAGON KINGS series. This is dragon shifter Derek and Kora’s story line. The BASTARD KING should not be read as a stand alone. I recommend reading the series in order as there is an ongoing premise including the search for a missing King, and the history as to how the dragons came to live in Zora.

SOME BACKGROUND: For tens of thousands of years the Dragons have lived and ruled on Earth but a war between the dragons and humans forced the Dragon Kings to send the other dragons through a portal into an unknown world. Fast forward to present day, the portal has been revealed, and the Dragon Kings have been reunited in Zora, with their family and kin, but a new war is on the horizon between the Dragons, the Divine, the people of Stonemore, and a woman known as Villette

Told from omniscient third person perspectives including Derek and Kora THE BASTARD KING follows Kora as she searches for the woman known as Villette, hidden behind the stronghold called Stonemore but along the way Kora is killed not once, but twice, and each time she believes she has been rescued by a man name Derek. As Derek aids Kora on her quest to find Villette, little does Kora know that Derek knows, and is more, than she could have ever imagined. Kora has her own secrets that she fears will send Derek into places unknown but Derek’s secrets are a threat to our heroine, a threat that grows stronger as Derek and Kora find themselves falling for one another on their journey to take down Villette.

The world building now focuses on the hunt for Villette: a need for avenge the past; and Derek’s discovery that he is not alone on his trek to free the dragon but Derek has been naïve to presume he is alone in the world, taking orders from a woman who plans to destroy them all.

The relationship between Kora and Dederick aka Derek begins as friends but neither one trust the other; both have secrets that could end their lives but Derek’s attraction to Kora cannot be explained by simple attraction. As the couple enters Stonemore, secrets and lies threaten their existence, betrayal comes at every turn. The $ex scenes are limited but passionate.

The secondary and supporting characters are numerous-most are questionable and often threatening and dangerous. A missing Dragon King is discovered, Villette and her sister Miena reveal their plans for the dragons.

THE BASTARD KING is a story of secrets and lies, power and control, magic and murder, mistrust and betrayal, vengeance and madness. The premise is detailed and complex; the romance is passionate but struggles in the face of secrets and lies; the characters are desperate and determined. THE BASTARD KING ends on a cliff hanger-you have been warned.