Review - To Love the Dragon King by Antonia Aquilante
To Love the Dragon King
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Volume 1 of Dragons of Ivria
Tags: Fantasy
Posted in Book Reviews on March 15, 2026
Sascha was born without the Talent to shift into a dragon, so he was raised to believe his only value was to be offered up as a concubine to bring his parents money and powerful connections. As soon as he comes of age, Sascha is packed off to Lord Jannick, whom he has never met. His sense of foreboding proves to be well founded when he arrives at the isolated castle to be met by an unattractive and clearly cruel man. But Sascha doesn’t even have a chance to get to his room before the castle is overrun by the king’s guards, soon followed by the king himself. It seems that Lord Jannick was near the center of a plot to overthrow the king and discard a centuries-old tradition of secrecy that has kept the dragon kingdom safe. As a traitor, all of Jannick’s property, including Sascha, now belongs to the king. King Lysander isn’t married and has never had an interest in contracting a concubine, but he is instantly captivated by the frightened young Sascha. He can’t be sure how involved Sascha is in the plot, but he hopes he can trust the beautiful young man.
“To Love the Dragon King” is the start of a new series set in the same fantasy world as the Chronicles of Tournai series. Some of the key secondary characters in this story were introduced in the last book of the previous series, The Envoy’s Honor, so you will have a better idea of who’s who if you’ve read that book before this one. This series is set in Ivria, a kingdom founded by dragon shifters who were hunted to near extinction before finding the isolated mountains they now call home. Since then, dragons have become myth and legend to the outside world. Almost nobody outside the kingdom knows that dragons are real.
Sascha is a very sympathetic character. He was raised to be the perfect companion for a noble gentleman, so he knows how to act in polite society, how to dress well, and, at least in theory, how to please a partner in bed. Sascha knows there could be more to life than that, but he accepts that it’s not his fate. He is determined to do what his family needs him to do.
Lysander is probably the more flawed of the two main characters, although not in a bad way. He is completely besotted with Sascha, but in typical romance style, everyone can see it except him. While he quickly becomes very protective of the young concubine, Lysander misses out on a lot of clues that Sascha needs more security about his future, as well as his place in Lysander’s family. In his defense, Lysander is very distracted by the ongoing threat to the kingdom.
“To Love the Dragon King” is available from Smashwords or see Bookshop.org to purchase from an independent bookshop.