Book Review – The Deer and The Dragon by Piper C.J.

“At least Hell has good booze.”

The Deer and The Dragon by Piper C.J.

Why This Rating?

Full disclaimer, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a rollercoaster of a feelings and a whirlwind of events that somehow made me sit on the edge of my seat waiting for the next thing to happen. It is full of demons and angels, nymphs (a.k.a. sugar goblin) and witches, gods, goddess, pantheons, realms, and I feel like that is only scratching the barest of the surface. Needless to say, it’s a whole lotta whole lotta happening in this book. And all I could do was buckle up and hang on because, just like Marlow experiencing this stuff, it was a lot to grasp as it was being tossed at us. But the mix of mythology, magic, and reality made for such a fun read!

Now, I’ll be real, the beginning of the book is on the slower side. There is a lot of explaining and showing who Marlow is and the life she is currently living. She thinks she is half crazy (like a step from a hospital help crazy) and in love with an imaginary friend. She rarely goes anywhere or wants to interact with people other than short conversations with her two bffs and her editor. And that about sums up the first 1/3rd of the book. Then hell breaks loose in her life and things start to get cooking. We do have a long “run around and find leads” feel happening but it was so cool to see the world develop out. We get to visit another realm and it was totally wicked! I did want more realm jumping to happen, but I can be patient for the next book. Speaking of, the ending was mean and left me grumpy. “Lets be sunflowers,” the fuck! I wanna know what happened! Who’s gonna clean up THAT mess? No, I don’t wanna be a fucking flower with you. I want more of my wicked, sexy demon prince and hell’s assassin. I need that next book!

I think the number one thing I had to recover from was the shear loudness the author has in the religious abuse Marlow went through growing up. It is one of the biggest character points in Mar’s background. We are constantly faced with her aversion, struggle, or perhaps religious fear(?) of anything that might come across as blasphemy. So when Fauna (our friendly neighborhood Nord who is obsessed with sugar) just causally drops the whole “all those myths you’ve studied and write about are real,” then harshly expects Mar to just jump on board with that bomb, is odd to me. And it isn’t like this is a singular occurrence, Fauna does it multiple times after Mar has explained the why/what. There is certainly growth that happens from this trauma which is beautiful to see, but it was a rough road to get there. But i guess when it turns out the Prince of Hell is your bae, your reality does tend to shift.

The writing was full of beautiful descriptions and smooth conversations – when we weren’t going on a full minute of internal dialogue and thoughts. I’m really glad that we only stayed in one POV the entire time for this story. That is something I don’t say often either. If we had to jump around and everyone got the same level of internal monologuing that we got from Mar, I might not have been able to finish the book. I was afraid of forgetting the initial conversation that started her internal drifting already. Then you add more POVs and those personalities?? Nah, I’m good. I was already drowning in the level of self deprecating thoughts this woman had which is really sad. I don’t know if I could handle other character’s POVs that have deep developed backgrounds. I wished we saw mar grow a bit more with her personal view. She is a strong, independent woman who has traveled the world, super successful career, two of the greatest friends who are her chosen family, and won’t have any money worries ever again. Yet, she is constantly questions and pushing down her sanity and her right to just be herself. And then a full 180 happens with the pep talks sprinkled in to bring some light to the heavy decision moments.

The men are freaking SEXY and damn they are FINE. The women are too, don’t get me wrong. Basically, everyone from the other realms are sex on a stick. They are willing to either act on your dirty thoughts or play with you while having the naughty thoughts. There are some smutty moments happening, but overall I’d say this is a relatively quiet smut read, which I found surprising. More of a teasing and foreplay read for us. It makes me wonder what the next book will have in store if this was only the first one in the series. No, I’m not reading it for the smut! This is genuinely a great book to read, but if there is a little heat happening, I’m certainly not going to complain!

Overall, this was a great read! Left us on a cliffhanger that I’m not happy about. The characters were fun to interact with even if Fauna was a bit on the aggressive with her words. Loved our boys from Hell. I’m interested in our loner from Heaven. I’m already wondering when more pantheons are going to get involved. I want to jump realms more. And I really want that next book! Side Note: The title doesn’t make any sense with the story. I guess Marlow is the deer and the Prince is the Dragon? Or is Fauna the deer and Marlow the Dragon? There could have been something better to name it. Something with the Fox? (when you read it you’ll understand that one) Or maybe her mythology writings?

Time to get lost in the next story!