Title: Eye of the Dragon
Series: Wildcatters 02
Author: B.A. Tortuga
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella (142 pages)
ISBN: 978-1-64080-813-3
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (10 May 2019)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: 💖💖💖 2.5 Hearts
Reviewer: Prime
Blurb: Graduate student Cameron is on the trail of an ancient Chinese artifact, a ruby with a history. When he meets adventurer Poe in Mexico, he spills the beans on his quest, and Poe sees dollar signs as well as the hottest professor he’s ever met.
They head off to the salt flats and mountains of Utah, searching for a lost wagon train from the eighteen hundreds. What they find is danger beyond normal comprehension and a stone that drives men to insanity.
Soon Poe’s only concern is saving Cam, but to do that, he’ll need help from some old friends and a few new ones. When it becomes too late to turn away from their quest, Poe and Cam put themselves and their friends in deadly peril. It will take every bit of their talents and courage to make it through and survive the Dragon’s Eye.
Second Edition
First Edition published by Torquere Press, June 2008.
Purchase Link: Dreamspinner | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Review: I kind of knew what I was in for when I started Eye of the Dragon, although I wasn’t entirely happy about it, but I had already read book one in BA Tortuga’s Wildcatters series and silly me cannot handle not finishing a series. In saying that, I certainly had no surprises, so I found it easier to read. Eye of the Dragon is the sequel to Oil and Water, first publish in 2008 by Torquere press and second edition published by Dreamspinner in 2019.
However, the only disappointing thing is that this is in complete contrast to how much I’ve come to love BA Tortuga’s writing over the past year. I had already had the sneaking suspicion that I had tried reading Tortuga’s work about 10 years ago through Torquere Press, but I never got the spark of love which I get now from the author. I have now come to the conclusion that, quite simply, I don’t connect with Tortuga’s earlier work, and so I will leave it at that.
The story is a wild ride with tons of sex. I’m going to put in on front street, if you like a tonne of sex in your romances, this will probably appeal to you more than it does to me. For this reason I don’t feel comfortable going too deep into the plot because there feels like there is more sex than substance. I feel that there was never really any real context to the random sex scenes and it broke up the book too much for me. But the plot is fun, reading the blurb it made me think of a modern day, gay Indiana Jones type of thing. Cameron is a grad student who is out to get some life experience, and he finds it when he meets Poe (we met him briefly in book 1) in Mexico. The adventure is Poe and Cameron trying to find the relic known as the Eye of the Dragon. The guys together make a great couple and there really is a great spark between them, I just felt that it was lost along the way.
This review really pains me because of my recent love for Tortuga’s contemporary cowboy romances, but that’s just how it is.