It's Monday again, and only a few more days until Christmas and the reveal of the Secret Santa authors! If you haven't already done so, make sure to go read the stories and send a PM to A.J. with the name of your favorite. Voting will end at 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday, so don't delay! To start our week off, we have a review of lomax's story Kissing the Dragon provided to us by Timothy M. Enjoy!!!

Reviewer: Timothy M
Status: Complete
Word Count: 145,912

Lomax is a fairly new author at GA, and I got acquainted with him while reading his first story Uninvited Guest, which is no longer here due to it being snapped up for publishing. However, Lomax has started a series called The Croxburg Chronicles, the first of which is Kissing the Dragon, a thriller / romance.

There are several reasons to read this story, and one of them is of course the murder mystery itself. As the story unfolded, readers speculated about whodunit, both in reviews and in the story discussion forum. There were several wild theories, but none of them got close. Lomax sprinkled various hints, and some of the bad guys were obvious, but he still surprised us in the end.

An even better reason is the way lomax portrays his characters. They are never one-dimensional, but very quickly seem real, with all their annoying habits, endearing quirks, and understandable doubts or wants. We go from feeling sorry, to disliking, to laughing, before we end up admiring or even loving some of the protagonists. It’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster at times, and I think I wasn’t the only reader who wanted to shake or slap the main character, Colin, as well as one or two of the others.

To quote from one of my reviews: Why do all your characters annoy me so much?

But luckily Kissing the Dragon also has plenty of funny, scary, hot, sad, and painfully honest moments. Perhaps best of all: Colin manages to think about and revise his decisions and perceptions of his ex-partner, his past, his life, his job and his friends. He is confronted with his own faults and misconceptions and realizes he needs to change something. But whether he is capable of this and how the story ends, you’ll have to find out for yourself. Oh and this also applies to the significance of the title, which isn’t revealed until we’re more than half way through the story.

Give Kissing the Dragon a chance – and remember: You’re lucky because you don’t have to wait anxiously for the next chapter to post.