📕 Title: When Dealing with Dragons
✏️ Author: Dana Swift
📖 Genre: YA Romantasy
⭐ Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📝 Standalone Novel

Farren, the daughter of a dragon veterinarian, is determined to land a competitive full ride college scholarship so she can follow in her father’s footsteps. Her fiercest competition is James, a dragon racer from an upper class weathly family, who she believes is an arrogant prick. Farren is hiding a secret, and when James lands a summer internship at her father’s dragon sanctuary, his presence puts everything she’s worked for at risk. But James is hiding secrets too—including his long-standing crush on Farren.

REVIEW

Thank you Wednesday Books for the digital copy!

When Dealing with Dragons is a young adult romantasy novel written in dual-POV first person perspective, with themes including classism, abuse, and conservation. The story feels fairly fast paced with plenty of action, banter, and a very sweet romance.

The rivals to lovers setup of this story is great, and both characters are well developed. Farren, fiercely protective of dragons and humans alike, has big goals despite her lower class metal-crafting and I loved how she constantly challenges the status quo. James, despite being wealthy and upper class, has a controlling and abusive father whose expectations clash with his dreams of becoming a dragon vet. Their rivalry felt well established, with each having a strong reason to want the same college scholarship.

Although Farren never explicitly states that she is demi-sexual, it’s implied that she only feels attraction to people after developing an emotional bond with them. Because Farren has such a deep rooted hatred of James, their romance is a little more on the slow burn side as their relationship first develops into a tentative friendship, providing a solid foundation for their later romance. James is such a great MMC and super sweet underneath his seemingly stoic exterior.

The metal crafting based class system provides plenty of opportunities for social commentary, and the dragon based metal crafting has a uniquely horrifying cost, one that drove up the stakes of this story and kept me very invested. This is not a cozy story; there are dragons who are injured, abused, and killed. James’ father is physically abusive, shown on and off page.

Dana Swift is so good at writing teenagers and I loved this book just as much as her Wickery duology. After finishing this book, I’m so excited that the author will be releasing a companion book set in the same world!