How To Date Your Dragon by Molly Harper

How To Date Your Dragon (Mystic Bayou, #1)

by Molly Harper

The first book in Molly Harper's uproariously funny, sinfully sexy new Mystic Bayou series!

Anthropologist Jillian Ramsay's career has taken a turn south.

Concerned that technology is about to chase mythological creatures out into the open (how long can Sasquatch stay hidden from Google maps?), the League for Interspecies Cooperation is sending Jillian to Louisiana on a fact-finding mission. While the League hopes to hold on to secrecy for a little bit longer, they're preparing for the worst in terms of human reactions. They need a plan, so they look to Mystic Bayou, a tiny town hidden in the swamp where humans and supernatural residents have been living in harmony for generations. Mermaids and gator shifters swim in the bayou. Spirit bottles light the front porches after twilight. Dragons light the fires under crayfish pots.

Jillian's first assignment for the League could be her last. Mystic Bayou is wary of outsiders, and she has difficulty getting locals to talk to her. And she can't get the gruff town sheriff, Bael Boone, off of her back or out of her mind. Bael is the finest male specimen she's seen in a long time, even though he might not be human. Soon their flirtation is hotter than a dragon's breath, which Bael just might turn out to be...

Reviewed by MurderByDeath on

3.5 of 5 stars

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Molly Harper is always fun.  How to Date a Dragon is no different; it is the first of a new series set in a new place (fictional Mystic Bayou in Louisiana), and new characters.  

Mostly, this story is about the romance, but there's also a nominal mystery (I say nominal because the murderer was obvious to me from the start).  There's also a much more obvious relevance to today's societal ... let's call them challenges.  Mystic Bayou is a small community where supernaturals and humans live together peacefully and cooperatively, and Jillian is the anthropologist sent to do a study of how they make it work.  Not a stretch, really, to apply this to our current climate, though Harper doesn't go out of her way to make a point out of it.  Really, it's mostly about a romance.  With a dragon.

I usually enjoy the audio for Molly Harper's books (though I skip the sex scenes, because eew... I don't need someone reading a sex scene to me).  I enjoyed this one too, but Audible decided to not only use Amanda Ronconi, Harper's usual - and excellent - narrator, but Jonathan Davis; Harper wrote How to Date Your Dragon with alternating POVs, and Davis does Bael's chapters.  He does a credible job, and I know this sounds like a good idea in concept, but the problem I had was that both narrators are narrating the same characters.  Davis tries to keep the spirit of Ronconi's interpretation, but his voice is, of course, not hers, and I found the disparity between the same character's voice between chapters jarring.  I'd have preferred Ronconi doing the whole thing.  But that's just me.

There's a second book out, with the same setting but different MCs, and I'll definitely be checking it out sooner rather than later.

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Reading updates

  • 18 March, 2019: Started reading
  • 21 March, 2019: Finished reading
  • 26 October, 2020: Reviewed