Rating: 2/5
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Romantasy
Pace: Kind of fast
Vibe: Dark political intrigue and focus on character development

Summary: Arla is an Orphan from a war toen country who is picked up by the King (for no apparent reason) and basically adopted to become his assasin after she trained to become captain of the guard. She and the neighboring Kingdom's ambassador, Hark Stappen, are sent to straighten out some trade problems where iron is being stolen, only to find out that its not iron at all.

Review: I liked the concept of this book going in but it just didn’t live up the potential. This book majorly lacked details and world building. The magic had no explination at all- I think it was kinda like the magic system in Graceling but I am not totally sure. The dragon Bonding- Most underwhelming and dissapointing dragon bonding scene because it was basically non existent with no magic- Just “oh the dragons are awake and suddenly a dragon voice in my head”
Beyond that I thought the book read like a younger YA novel but there is an explicit sex scene so I wouldn’t even recommend it as a YA.

A child-of-war turned King’s assassin, Arla, finds herself forced into a retrieval quest with the loathsome enemy ambassador, Hark, in this slow burn romantasy filled with mystery, drama and delicious angst.

This story utterly gripped me, and every twist & turn was a new surprise...except for one little secret I was eagerly waiting to be revealed *IYKYK*

And don't even get me started on the mouthwateringly slow build of the relationship between the two. Will they, won't they, or will both of them end up dead?

Read this as soon as you can!

I devoured this book! 5 ⭐
I went in expecting a fun fantasy romp with dragons and a bit of enemies-to-lovers tension, but it delivered so much more. It’s one of those reads where you sit down just to check it out, and suddenly it’s 2 AM and you’re telling yourself just one more chapter. 😅

Arla Reinhart is everything I want in a main character - she's a deadly assassin with a sharp tongue, a heavy past, and a chip on her shoulder big enough to level kingdoms.
And then there’s Hark… arrogant, smooth-talking, and frustrating in all the best ways. I started off rolling my eyes at him, but by the end, I was rooting for him real hard.
Their dynamic is so good!! The tension, the banter, the moments when you know they care but won’t admit it - loved it!

The story itself moves at a great pace. There’s action, court politics, tavern brawls, magical lore, and some seriously cool worldbuilding that feels lived-in without being overwhelming.
It kept me genuinely engaged and I was eager to see where the story went - safe to say I was not disappointed!

The last few chapters of the book were thrilling and have me eagerly waiting for the next book (please say there will be one, I beg)!

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Out on April 18th 2025!!

This book follows Arla, the King's assassin, as she is sent on a mission with the ambassador of the kingdom that killed her parents, Hark Stappen.

I really wanted to love this book, but I had to DNF around the quarter mark. I always read the first 100 pages of a book before deciding whether to continue, and sadly, I had to put down this one.

This book had a lot of potential! I was very intrigued by the FMC as the assassin, and who doesn't love a good enemies-to-lovers romantasy with DRAGONS??? Though I did not see any dragons in the first 100 pages, and as this book is only around 350 pages, it felt too long for me. There was a lot of telling rather than showing and a lot of info-dumping, which confused me and took me out of the story on multiple occasions.

I did enjoy the tone of the writing; it really felt as though someone was telling me a fairytale. The writing gave me "The Princess Bride" vibes, and I think it is very promising!

I could not get attached to Arla as she was too prickly for me. She isn't just a badass FMC, she is someone no one wants to be around. She is very provocative and always very snarly for no particular reasons. She's also not a very good assassin... The story felt rushed, but also slow for what I was expecting. A lot was happening very fast and I did not have any context besides the info dumps.

I think I might have preferred this book in paperback rather than digital, but I might pick it up again! Her use of metaphors and descriptions was very well written and original, and I very much enjoyed her style.

It was not a bad book, it just wasn't for me.

If you want to read a novel with fairytale-like writing about a royal assassin FMC and an ambassador MMC forced to work together on a mission, but they both despise each other, this book is for you!

I will post my review on my Instagram and TikTok on April 18th!

What a fantasy adventure this proved to be
With deception, daring and mystery.
Add in gods and dragons, too
You're starting to get a clue!

Arla Reinhart is the assassin for the King of Hadalyn
Determined against other kingdoms they'll win.
She's feisty, a fighter - and a bit of a brat,
Determined to succeed at what she's at.

So imaging what happens when she's sent on quests
With the ambassador of a kingdom she truly detests!
Their journey takes them through other kingdoms, too,
With a variety of dangers to get through.

However, a discovery made along the way
Makes her question everything others may say.
With magic, dragons and mystery,
This is a different read, I enjoyed as you can see.

There's deception and enemies to lovers romance
In this debut novel I hope you'll give more than a chance!
For my copy of this fantastic book I say thank you
As I share with you this, my honest review.

i really wanted to like this, especially since it’s marketed as “enemies to lovers with dragons”.. but i COULD NOT STAND the fmc Arla. she’s made out to be a skilled assassin and i just want to know who lied to her? she literally almost got everyone caught on more than one occasion and lacks any and all self awareness. Arla’s parents were killed by the mmc Hark’s people, so for that she’s so aggressive and angry at him.. but her animosity is so misplaced.

she “hates” him but meanwhile the whole time Hark was secretly helping the exact slaves that Arla was concerned about?? make it make sense. he honestly deserves better than her and her 52782 temper tantrums. i just didn’t feel the chemistry between them.

in this world there used to be dragons and magic but since Arla doesn’t believe that that’s true, she belittles anyone who thinks so and is beyond condescending about it. so naturally, she’s the one who ends up being gifted the opportunity of becoming bonded with the dragons. the plot itself made no sense to me and felt like there were 20 different ideas fighting for the chance to be thrown into this book. Arla is also rude and immature towards Hark’s friends, he has more patience than me— i can tell you that much. i can’t for the life of me understand why he was even into her whatsoever. i also don’t like that she’s 18 years old.. I don’t want to be reading sex scenes involving a teenager. i was just so aggravated the whole time i was reading this and couldn’t wait for it to end.

I’m so impressed that this is Abbie Eatons Debut novel, it was Fun, it was engaging and it had dragons! Say less 👏🏻
A Younger version of me would have been kicking my feet and squealing at the romance, the tension, the banter, the angst!
The 38 Year old me? I had so much fun reading it!
But I think the slightly younger target audience would totally eat this up and leave no crumbs.
Is it a groundbreakingly original storyline that will blow you out of the water? Not really…
Was the FMC arrogant and overconfident and at times annoying? Yes but she’s young and you see her growth even in 300 pages!
Dragonhart just has that fun youthful energy that had me smiling and turning the pages for more, I will definitely be picking up the next book if we get more from this series ❤️

Arla Reinhart has to put aside her strong aversion to Hark Stappen as they head on a mission crucial to their kingdoms.

This was a fun read. It had the typical cold and snarky fmc and enemies to lovers romance. The plot was interesting, the political tension created a lot of mystery and suspense. I really liked the magic, so I would have liked a bit more detail as it felt a little rushed, especially at the end.

This book promised all my favourite things: dragons, forced proximity, and enemies to lovers. However, it was not for me. I think the thing that put me off the most was Arla, the FMC. She was quite an irritating character and I found myself getting frustrated with some of the actions she was taking and some of the things she was saying. She is also supposedly a great assassin but didn’t seem to behave accordingly.

My thanks for the ARC goes to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter. I'm voluntarily leaving a review.

Genre: Fantasy, Dragons, Romantasy, Romance, YA Fantasy
Language: I don't remember any cursing
Spice Level: Some on page
Tropes: Enemies to Lovers

DRAGONHART is a snarky romantasy with broody, stabby vibes.

Arla is an assassin. Hark is an ambassador for the country who killed Arla's parents. And that's the pot of tension for these two.

I wasn't 100% convinced Arla was as competent as she was supposed to be as an assassin—maybe she was getting complacent, but I kind of wanted her to reign supreme in murder. (I don't believe I've ever said that before.) But I liked her and her snarky mouth overall. And she definitely had a blind spot of trust issues.

I was justified in my thoughts about Hark as the story progressed. He definitely had the hots for Arla (hence why this is a romantasy) but I liked how he also had other friendships that he valued.

And of course I liked the dragons. I can see where the dragons could come into play even more in a second book. I'll be interested to see what other readers think of this debut author.

Happy reading!

When I saw that this was for the fans of Sarah A. Parker, Rebecca Yarros and dragons I ran to sign up for this.

Sadly this just fell short for me.

It definitely had the promise of a stabby baddie assassin FMC and a smug morally grey MMC- it was everything I could hope for in a novel with dragons.

Unfortunately I just found myself waiting for the plot to really kick in while also trying to move past the way the FMC was quite insufferable from the very first chapter. I just could not connect with the FMC at all.

The world building and the dragons were definitely some of my favorite parts, it was vivid and really showed the tension and political dynamics.

I feel like this had a lot of promise but the FMC made this book really hard to root for.

Thank you to UK Harper Collins and One More Chapter and Netgalley for this ARC.

Dragonhart is an enemies to lovers fantasy wrapped in intrigue and whispers of lost magic, following Arla, personal assassin to the king, as she is forced to work alongside her nemesis on a dangerous and covert mission.

I will start with what I loved about this book, which is a *spoiler* - although a slightly obvious one given the title - which is the dragons themselves. If you enjoyed Fourth Wing this book is definitely for you! I liked the way the dragons spoke to Arla, as well as their personalities and how cool they were. I loved the scenes with Arla on dragon-back!

Unfortunately, after this praise, this is where my review goes downhill. I did not like our main character. Arla was vain, self-important, snobby, and arrogant. She suffered from the trait of being too good at everything. I didn't personally feel the confident and bad*ss portrayal of Arla was executed super well, as she came off as just downright cruel. She insulted just about everybody, had extremely high opinions of herself, and thought the worse in everyone. Her inner dialogue, despite being in third person, was hard to read, as it gave very much ‘mean girl energy’. She enjoyed k*lling people, and k*lled them in horrible ways. I believe this was likely to show how cold she had become since losing her parents.

Arla was cruelly prejudiced against the neighbouring kingdoms people. I understand it was integral to her character and the backstory of the warring kingdoms, but it didn't make her very likeable to me, as she lacked empathy and basic kindness. Arla would say that she deserved respect and should be shown it by some of the other characters, but she showed no respect to them. I totally get the snarky and cool exterior the author was going for, but it did not work for me.  

Arla just didn't feel realistic to me, and didn't have much redeeming traits other than her strong desire to protect her kingdom at all costs. She began to open up as the story progressed, but by this point I was already half way through, and I already disliked her character so much that she didn't grow on me.

My next critiques are with the plot itself *spoilers from here on*, which felt very forced. To summarise, Arla is sent on a mission to source out the cause of why shipments were going missing, however Arla discovers the truth behind the shipments. Instead of the shipments containing iron like the king had said, they were of slaves. It did not make sense to me why both kings had sent Arla and Hark (our mmc) on this mission, with Arla’s king knowing she despised the neighbouring kingdom and the suffering they caused her people; and with it being revealed later in the book that Hark had previously confronted his king about the involvement of slaves. Both Hark and Arla were reckless characters, and the exact wrong people to be sending on this trusted mission, which surprise surprise, they completely uprooted.

The king would never have sent Arla on this mission as she would very obviously discover the true nature of their shipments, hence ruining their plans. We can see that the king is aware of her attitude and refusal to follow the rules, so why would he risk sending her on a mission that she would most likely dismantle? It felt like too stand out of a plot issue to me that affected all the other intrigue and excitement of the story. It was just a little confusing to me, and I was left frustrated at my continual wondering of what the kings intended to happen, other than the glaringly obvious discovery coming to light.

The plot felt very forced to me, as a way for Arla to discover the secret, and spend time with Hark, when in my opinion the more logical thing for the king to have done would have been to send a group of guardsmen. Arla was an orphaned girl with great hatred for the kingdom that stole her life from her, so why did he think she would behave responsibly and solve his problem for him?

The next issue I had was how Arla didn’t already know about the slaves. There were refugees that constantly arrived at Hadalyn’s gate from the neighbouring kingdom, but they didn't spread rumours of the slaves amongst the people? Considering there were multiple instances of the townsfolk of the neighbouring kingdom discussing the slaves when Arla was across the border, making it clear they were aware of the goings-on’s. 

I won't get into the plan a group of six young adults decided to undertake, and somehow succeeded; which was to take down an army and emancipate “miles upon miles of slave camp" - by themselves.

I don’t have much to say about the romance itself. It was definitely enemies to lovers. Our love interests genuinely seemed to hate each other and said some pretty unforgivable things to each other. I didn't feel engaged or believed in the possibility of romance between them, and when it did begin to happen, it felt all too sudden the way they softened towards each other. 

I do think the authors writing was really strong, and I imagined every scene vividly due to her great descriptions and plenty of detail, especially in the characters' faces. It was just unfortunate that I struggled to get into the book because of the way I was questioning the possibilities of events. There were things purposely left out to keep the intrigue intact, but all it did was create some confounding scenarios that could easily be uncovered if anybody decided to communicate.

Arla’s character ARC was a strong one, but it came much too late. I enjoyed the ending of the book, especially the imagery and the heart-warming moments, but my experience of the book was overall negative due to my dislike of her character and the plot itself.

Arla is an orphan who becomes the Kings assassin.
Hark is Ambassador to a neighboring kingdom.
They are sent on a mission to find some stolen goods,
Things are not as they seem.
Intrigue,adventure,drama,secrets and romance.
And Arla and Hark do not like each other.
A good read
Voluntarily reviewed.

2.25⭐️3🌶️

New Adult
Romantasy
Dual POV
18 yo king’s assassin FMC
Dragon myths
Secret mission
Betrayal
Mythical creatures
Reluctant allies
Prophecy

Tw: slavery, murder

The synopsis compares this book to works by Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros, specifically Fourth Wing, but it doesn’t live up to that comparison.

For starters, the dragons supposedly left only a century ago, which is an incredibly short span in a kingdom’s history. That’s one or two generations at most and some people would still be alive to remember them. It’s not long enough for dragon lore or magic to fall out of cultural memory or belief, even with persecution. Because of that, the worldbuilding felt flimsy and unconvincing. The lore wasn’t fully developed, and the setting never felt real.

Then there’s this gem of internal monologue: “She’d have to do something extra violent to make up for the sliver of softness in her heart.” Seriously? It reads like a parody of an edgy teen novel. That kind of impulsive, over-the-top thinking made the protagonist difficult to root for. I can see that the author tried to add depth to her through her backstory, but it never quite landed or made her feel believable.

The romantic subplot was equally inconsistent. The tone bounced between sexual tension and actual animosity, but there was very little build-up before things escalated suddenly and inexplicably to third base. It felt rushed and unearned.

Once we got to the dragons at 78%, I was just trying to not DNF. Once I got there it felt unearned and didn’t satisfy as much as it should have, revealing something so important to the character growth and plot.

The biggest thing is that I can’t tell if this was a standalone or the beginning of a series. I’m done, either way… but with so many loose ends, if this is a series, I’m not too concerned about continuing.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Dragonhart by Abbie Eaton is a captivating forced proximity fantasy romance story that was utterly amazing.
What a phenomenal debut!
This epic romantic fantasy
I really enjoyed the world building .
This was an extremely strong read, well-written, well-plotted, with characters I couldn’t get enough of.

I know that crafting a morally grey lead can be fraught, however, there is a fine line to be trod between devisive and just plain unlikeable. Arla (the protagonist of this novel) is sadly the latter.

Childish and frustrating, I immediately disliked her. These traits are perhaps understandable when you consider she is all of nineteen years old and still holds the title of King's-Sassy-Murderer-and
-General-Right-Hand.

Perhaps I've simply outgrown the suspension of disbelief this trope requires, or perhaps Eaton really didn't work hard enough on Arla to make her someone I could care about. Either way, it was a dnf for me at 15%.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins UK + One More Chapter for this ARC!

I can see how others might enjoy it because it's such an interesting premise with all my favourite tropes! Super easy and quick to read but alas, it couldn't keep my attention.

I felt things were more told than shown in terms of the main character's dynamics which would have really added depth to the story and their relationship. I was just not convinced nor invested in their connection.

Also, the world building was relatively shallow and not much was really explained about the magic or the dragons. Even the introduction to the friend group was skimmed over. There was also quite heavy-handed foreshadowing so none of the plot twists or reveals were that surprising or compelling.

Would not read again. Not necessarily a flop of a book, just was not for me unfortunately.

Overall rating: 2.5/5

This book was not for me and I wanted to like it so bad. Plot-wise, I wanted to continue the story but I had to dnf at 40%. Arla is not a great an enjoyable main character let alone tolerable. I can tell that her character growth will be great but unfortunately, she's a bit too insufferable. The story itself is really good and I think others would enjoy the series more than me!

I liked it.. but I didn’t love it.

This story follows Arla, the Kings personal assassin. She’s pretty brutal and impressive in her line of work that she seemingly loves. The only downside… She has to deal with Hark, an ambassador from a neighboring kingdom.

Think.. The Hating Game but with magic and dragons. Two “coworkers” being forced into dealing with each other even though they very clearly despise each other. Or.. do they?
The story unfolds as they are sent on an assignment alone together.

I feel as if this book had so much potential but just fell short on some of it. Arla was not my most favorite FMC. In fact, I found her annoying at some points and lacking growth.

I would’ve really loved to see more connection / relationship building between the FMC & MMC.

The story did pick up a bit around the middle point that kept me interested. There are a few good plot twists as well.

If you like enemies to lovers, fantasy without heavy world building, the one bed trope, and dragons.. This would probably be a good book for you!

Thank you Abbie Eaton, NetGalley, HarperCollins UK, & One More Chapter for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Tropes:
❤️‍🔥Hate to love
⚔️Enemies to lovers
🔒Forced proximity
🔥FMC seeking revenge
🔪Knife to throat
🎭Hidden identity
🤺Training together
🥷Assassin



Thank you to NetGalley for giving this ARC, and this doesn’t influence my review. Fans of Fourth Wing??? Sassy FMC??? Sign me up! FMC is an assassin that trained in the company of the King’s guard? Obsessed already.
I lovedthe world-building and the kingdoms, and the plot twists were good (I kinda saw through them though). I love the fact that she actually wants to kill Hark…. And their banter was so good! Read this book when it gets published!