Title:  Bloodrunner Dragon
Series:  Harper’s Mountains #1
Author:  T. S. Joyce
Published:  April 19, 2016
My Rating:  4.5 stars
Source:  Borrowed with Kindle Unlimited
Cover Description:

Harper Keller is a shifter on borrowed time. After failing to find her treasure, her inner dragon is desperate to find anything to connect with. When a plea for help comes through from an old flame, she puts her life on hold to track him down. But when she finds Wyatt, it’s obvious time has changed him. He isn’t the sweet and steady boy she grew up with anymore, but is now a dominant, rip-roaring grizzly shifter with alpha bloodlines and a mountain of secrets. He’s dug himself into a deep hole, and is surrounded by danger from all sides, and now Harper had a big decision to make. Save herself, or spend her final days saving the man who is laying claim to her heart.

Wyatt James is on a mission to save the girl he left behind. He isn’t the man everyone thought he would be, and has been hiding from the people he cares about, including Harper. If she sees him now, she won’t recognize the monster he’s become, but if Wyatt wants a shot at saving her, he has to make his move. Drawing an ailing Bloodrunner Dragon in close will attract the predators though, so he has to be ready for anything. And as the danger that shadows his life grows thicker, he will have to risk everything he’s built to protect the dragon he loves.

Sexy shifters and their feisty mates who aren’t shy about loving each other – so, this is an adult, 18+ reader tale.

We’ve come full circle now.  The cute, adorable children of the couples from the connected series in Damon’s Mountains have grown up and now are living their lives away from the mountains and crews of their homes.  I don’t feel it’s absolutely necessary to have read Saw Bears – Fire Bears – Grey Back Bears – Boarlander Bears (the lightly connecting series that make up Damon’s Mountains) to enjoy this new spin-off.  Yet, having declared that, you would get a better understanding of the events that lead to Harper’s Mountains and the world that shifters now live in… plus they are some really good, entertaining stories.

It’s about twenty years from the last time we saw Harper and Wyatt as children.  Much has happened in their world since their birth.  Shifters have come out to the world with varying results.  They’ve fought crazed, power hungry madmen and our government.  They, and their allies have fought against hatred and fear, finally or eventually earning their own shifter rights to live freely without shackles in the world community.  Unfortunately, what the bear shifters won for themselves and their families, they also won for other shifters who had remained hidden.  Vampires and wolf shifters, to name just two, have also earned rights… and these guys do not play nice, at all.  Yet, they are equally protected as the bear shifters.

Harper and Wyatt not only grew up together under the watchful eyes of their parents and the other members of the crews, they also fell in love and might have planned a future together if youth and other factors had not happened.  The result of tragedy had Wyatt leaving Damon’s Mountains and Harper heartbroken.

Almost a decade later, Wyatt has found himself in the pit of hell – just about literally.  In order to help him raise the money he needs to buy a perfect plot of land in the mountains he has chained himself to a very powerful vampire.  In his madness or desperation he sends out a message to the woman he’s never stopped loving for help or perhaps forgiveness, never expecting either.

Harper’s dragon has never found it’s treasure.  The one thing that dragons defend above all else, the one thing that keeps their focus, their need to protect and themselves alive.  She had thought she’d found her treasure – but that proved untrue.  Now heeding Wyatt’s call for help, she has enlisted the help of some of their other childhood friends to launch a rescue of the man she never could stop loving.

Bloodrunner Dragon has built a wonderful future world for these characters to live in.  Rich with detail, a different type of enemy to fight and the creation of a unique crew to defend and embrace.  Wyatt really messed up.  Not only in the present, but the past as well.  He has never forgotten or forgiven himself for the pain he brought to Harper.  We find an alpha male who has lost himself and appears weak in many respects.  Wyatt has to pull himself together again – and with the help of Harper and his friends that finally seems to be happening.

Harper is a strong woman, not only naturally but from the events she has lived through.  She just might have finally found her treasure, but there are battles to wage and a love to save before she can lay claim to that treasure.  If you’ve read the other series be on the lookout for a clever inclusion of “1010”.

I’m not going into the story for I feel that this is one you should read for yourself.  Expect to find some seriously sexy times, fierce guardians and friends, mistakes being rectified, some cameo visits from old friends and a brand new crew created.  Harper and Wyatt’s love has endured so much, now their future has possibilities.  If you love shifter romance then this spin-off of Damon’s Mountains should be on your reading radar.  It is well worth your time.

(Oh, don’t be fooled by the cover, although she is there if you look for her  – this is very much Harper and her dragon’s story as well as Wyatt’s and his bear.)

Available for the Kindle