Review: Warming Up To the Ice Dragon by Charlie Richards

Warming Up To the Ice Dragon by Charlie Richards
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Warming Up To the Ice Dragon is an even shorter version of the standard Charlie Richards' romance.

On what was supposed to be a fun trip to go skiing with his friends, Stefan has an accident. Alone and frightened, he thinks he may die until he's rescued by a knight dragon in shining scales.

Kazeem has been looking for his mate for a long time, and to find him in such a way is surprising, but he has no time to ponder fate as he must hurry to ensure Stefan survives.

These two have some issues. Stefan knows nothing of paranormals. Kazeem isn't really good with humans. Will Stefan's suspicious friends make Stefan discount the mate-pull and run away?

I really like a lot of Charlie Richards' books, but they consistently have the same flaws. The actual story being rather abbreviated with an overwhelming amount of unnecessary sex scenes to flesh out the book, in addition to an abrupt ending. This novella had an even shorter story and more abrupt ending than most. Luckily for the reader, it also had other consistencies from this writer--good and interesting characters and interesting story lines that are otherwise well-written.

Stefan and his friends are a fun bunch of guys and it's easy to picture them together as buddies. Kazeem strikes a interesting contrast with his brusque and hermit-like nature. All the main characters are just right. Well-developed and complex enough to tell they have backstories.

The setting of this one was rather bland. I guess it was a rather typical ski area and typical hospital? It sometimes seems like the writer doesn't picture her settings at all as otherwise her very competent writing would do a better job of conveying them.




The story wasn't overly complex but it was plenty for such a short tale. A really interesting take on the getting hurt while skiing bit. And it was a bit surprising at times.

The ending was like many of this writer's books, a sudden stop that didn't have enough information to leave you feeling finished. It almost felt like there were missing pages as this was even more of an abrupt ending than most of them. I tend to like books that set it up so we can tell that everything has been solved, there are no loose threads, and the couple is going to have their HEA. I didn't quite get that satiated feeling with this one.



Sometimes I get the feeling that it's just that too many books are asked of this writer and that's why they seem to get shorter and shorter with so much sex-scene filler. It sucks because there's so much good writing in there and I love the varied characters (often including POC), and the variety of shifters and really interesting stories make me want to read more, while being a bit disappointed when each one never feels quite complete.

The recently released Spring Fever Anthology has a short story that gives one of Stefan's friends a mate. It too is just a tidbit of a story, but at least we get to see how Stefan and Kazeem are and get a bit more of them.

While this story is listed on both Amazon and GoodReads as part of the Wolves of Stone Ridge series, it shows no connection to it. As with several of the other series by this author such as Kontra's Menagerie, A Paranormal's Love, A Loving Nip, and now Shifter's Regime, I'm hoping the Wolves of Stone Ridge series makes a connection and the dragons show up there later.