I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons

A lovely fairy-tale like story about a dragon exterminator who loves dragons, a princess and a prince who comes calling. Only, the exterminator hates his job, passed down from his father, for he loves dragons and even keeps the smaller ones as pets. The princess is bored with the princes she has to 'interview' as potential partners. And the prince, who fits the physical role of Prince Charming, would rather not try to live up to expectations of his bloodthirsty father who wants to make a 'man' out of him.

They are all thrown together when the princess unexpectedly meets the prince and falls in love (puppy love?). She calls on the exterminator to come to her castle to get rid of the small dragons infesting it before the prince arrives. As for the prince, he decides that he really has to kill a dragon before he can consider himself worthy of asking the princess for her hand in marriage.

But the journey to find a large dragon to kill would darken this fairy-tale when the expedition meets with disaster. An evil wizard will be revealed that has a grudge against the prince's father, and the three would have to work together to try to save the day. In the process, they all discover that they are not meant to fulfill their expected roles in such a fairy tale. But it does have a happy ending, although maybe not the expected one. And, of course, dragons would play a large part in the story.

Seemingly between one minute and the next, the sky was full of dragons. Red, black, and green, for the most part—though Robert noticed an ice-white one to the rear, and another almost turquoise—they swarmed over the horizon, a dozen at a time, a score at a time, with the abandon of kittens scrambling up the sky.

A really lovely read, the kind of old-school fantasy adventure that made me remember why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. The worldbuilding with the twists on the societal structure and gender roles was pretty fun, and of course I absolutely adored all the dragons. So many dragons! Seriously, if you love dragons, you have to read this. They come in all sizes and colors here, ranging from monstrous to cute.

And then there are so many lovable human characters here, too. My favorite was definitely Robert . He’s a lovable reluctant dragon exterminator who would rather be friends with that “vermin,“ and he’s really got such a nice arc (as do other characters, to be fair—and by the way, I really enjoyed how those arc intersected and fed into each the same main theme). I started feeling for him from his very first appearance. Especially since that first scene was so relatable—“I’m dead but I’m awake“ is such a strong morning vibe.

That’s another thing I want to mention, by the way: the story is full of those small, humorous moments. Nothing outright comedic / laugh-out-loud funny, more like gently amusing. Lots of clever turns of phrase to keep the reader smile. Generally, the writing style is really warm and compassionate somehow. It gives the book this soft, cozy feel, even though it definitely doesn’t qualify for the cozy fantasy subgenre. It is, after all, quite the classic adventure where our heroes need to defeat an evil wizard and all. There are some pretty dark vibes here now and then, actually (ew, dragon market…), but still, the aftertaste the story leaves is that of kindness and comfort.