**You can see this full review and more at Book Briefs: https://bookbriefs.net**Where Sleeping Dragons Lie by Cristina Rayne is part of the Skeleton Key book series. I really love the set up of this series. It is a group of almost 30 authors, each one writing a book featuring a skeleton key that unlocks a secret world. But all of the books are vastly different. Different themes, different age groups and different sub genres. I just love that idea. So whether you like young adult, new adult or adult, you will be able to find a book for you. If you want to know more information about the series you can check out the website dedicated to the books.

Skeleton Key Book Series
One Skeleton Key. Endless Adventures.
https://skeletonkeybookseries.com

Where Sleeping Dragons Lie is an interesting book in the Skeleton Key series. I liked how different it felt from the other 5 or so books I have read in the series. First of all, this one was very much an action adventure. Second, a lot of the book took place in our world. Whereas, with the other stories, the main character discovers the skeleton key and unlocks the door almost immediately, this one was a bit of a search to find the key and to find out what is going on, and hat she seemingly was roped into.

What I also thought was different (though it didn't end up being too different, and that kind of bummed me out in and of itself.) was that I thought this book was not going to have any romance in it. I know that seems strange for me to say, but the plot was so focused on the adventure that I really didn't see any development of feelings between the main characters. Add that in with the fact that this is a fairly short novella, and my interest was piqued. I thought it was book a cool addition to the series to have a straight action/adventure without a quickly developed romance. So I was really digging it. But then at about 65% into the story, the main characters very suddenly kissed and the romance was all of sudden there. People that very much want to have a romance in their novellas will appreciate this, but I thought it was too rushed. I would have preferred to have simply continued with the adventure aspect of the story. The romance felt like an afterthought, and as a result it was just kind of there for me. I would have preferred it to have been incorporated from the start or not at all.

Overall, this is a good installment to the Skeleton Key series, but it is not my favorite of the ones I have read. It would be good for fans of dragon/witch rivalry books, and fans of fantasy novellas. This would have been a 4 star read easily if it was just focused on the plot and not tried to make a romance happen with the characters.

This review was originally posted on Book Briefs