For the love of a Dragon

Let me digress from the start and congratulate Sandra Sookoo for being the top seller in May at Desert Breeze Publishing (http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/StoreFront.bok) Her book Winner Takes All, is not paranormal, but it is fabulous and we are so proud of you, girl.

Now onto other things.

Let’s talk for a moment about Dragons.

I know, this seems like a strange discussion considering that I write about wolves, wizards, and space creatures, but I will admit that I have a strange fascination with all things Dragon. Which, if I’m honest, is probably why I don’t write about them because I know that’s why I don’t write about Vampires…but more on that another day.

The first time I can remember being aware of the Dragon was when I was a child watching the movie The Never Ending Story.

You all remember this movie, don’t you?

It’s the story of Bastian, who is basically friendless and alone and then finds the key to enter this amazing fantasy world through a book that whisks him away to another land where he gets to save everyone by giving the Childlike Empress a name. (On a side note here, I have never been able to understand him when he shouts out the name, if anyone happens to know what name he actually chose, I would appreciate being informed, thanks.)

Anyway, at the end of this movie, when he can choose anything he wants, he chooses to ride a Dragon. This always seemed so cool to me. What child doesn’t want to ride on a Dragon? (This from a person who white knuckles the arm rest every time I fly in an airplane but we could go on for hours about that.)

So how does it happen? How does a character, admittedly a mythical being often portrayed as the bad guy in literature—let’s face it, they are always burning down a village, kidnapping a princess, guarding the potion that the hero needs to save the princess—go from being a thing of horror or a children’s fantasy to a romantic hero in the lexicon of the paranormal romance genre?*

For me, it was an easy transition. Okay, so in these books some of the time the dragon is green and scaly. Other times, usually, he is able to transform himself into a really hunky guy with a bad temper and our heroine (and yes, I know sometimes this can be reversed, it can be the heroine who is occasionally green and scaly but hey aren’t we all?) has to first learn to accept that it possible for the hero to be both and then learn to love him despite his lizard-like tendencies.

And isn’t that the point of all Paranormal Romance? We take what is inherently scary and we twist it up. What was frightening, is charming. The bad guys are really good at heart and it only took the right woman to know this about them. And I think as a hero, the dragon is actually pretty benign. Wolves have their problems, if they’re of the Were variety, they have to shift every full moon with no memory of what they’ve done...or at least no control over it when it is happening…the shifters have to live with the animal inside of them. Watch out for the Vampire, even though he loves you, ladies, he wants to eat you too and he is very possibly soulless.
But the dragon…I guess you could get swatted by him if he’s not careful.

Am I alone in this? Or does anyone else ADORE a really good dragon-hero in their paranormal romance books? And if you’ve read any really good ones, shoot their titles my way, I’m always looking for a new read.

Best,

RR

*For the record, I am talking about making the dragon the hero, not the books where the dragon carries the hero around. In that case, and I still love those books, the dragon is really a smarter version of a horse. I love horsies and I love dragons in those books but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

!!My very darling husband has just e-mailed me, after reading this post, to inform me that had I read the book version of The Never Ending Story, of which I claim to have been ignorant to the existance of, I would know that he shouts out Moon Child as the Childlike Empresses' name. Thank you sweetheart. I love you!!