One Good Dragon Deserves Another: Nice dragon saves the day again

One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron

One Good Dragon Deserves Another (2015) is the second book in Rachel Aaron’s self-published HEARTSTRIKERS series. I listened to Audible Studio’s editions of these books with my 19-year-old daughter. We love the story and the performance of Vikas Adam, the narrator. This review will have some spoilers for the previous book, Nice Dragons Finish Last. If you haven’t read it, you should probably stop here and go do that first. Make sure to choose the audio edition!

Julius and Marcy are now business partners in the Detroit Free Zone where, thanks to one of Julius’ siblings, they’ve got a house to live in. They spend their time ridding the city of magical pests.

But the dragon clan drama never stops and soon enough Julius’ vicious mother Bethesda, who sees Marcy as just a servant, is dragging Julius to a family party. There we meet more of Julius’ siblings and learn that two of the ice clan dragons (traditional enemies of the Heartstrikers) are missing. This is of concern especially to Julius’ brother Ian, who’s dating one of them. When they reappear during the party, Julius starts to suspect some sort of trap for his family.

Meanwhile, back in the DMZ, Marcy is in trouble again. She’s been cursed by a famous dragon hunter who wants to use her to get at Julius. To break the curse, she’ll have to work with a few of Julius’ siblings and she doesn’t know if she can trust them. They don’t even trust each other. But one of these siblings, Amelia, seems to be trustworthy, even taking Marcy under her wing. Amelia is a powerful mage and has a lot to teach Marcy about their craft and the feline familiar called Ghost that’s been hanging around.

Thus we learn a lot about magic in One Good Dragon Deserves Another and we also learn more of the history of the Heartstriker clan as well as the other dragon clans that arrived on Earth after they destroyed their own planet. It appears that Julius’ brother Bob, a seer, and Stella, one of the ice dragons’ enemies, also a seer, are both trying to manipulate people and events to come out in their own favor, though it’s not clear to what end. It’ll be up to Julius and Marcy, with a lot of help from their allies, to stop the greedy dragons (of whom Bethesda is the worst) from destroying another planet. Can Julius do that while still being nice?

One Good Dragon Deserves Another is another satisfying installment in this entertaining series. It’s bursting with action, the characters are charming, it’s often funny, and, as I mentioned in my review of the first book, the intricate plotting is impressive. The story ends on a surprising note that suggests an unexpected direction for the third novel, No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished.