Dance With the Dragon

Review of Dance with the Dragon (The Dragon and the Vermillion Book 1) by Chelle Phakwin | My rating: 3.5 out of 5 Goodreads | Amazon

Dance with the Dragon is a romantic romp through the rich and famous lives of Thailand’s elite: Sai and Tan are the upper echelon of Thai society that one might see in a Thai BL. Indeed, this book could be fabulously adapted to the screen as a Thai BL series. The adventures of Sai and Tan as they navigate their way to true love wind themselves from first meet-cutes in bathrooms, to exotic locales in Egypt and Laos, to traumatic pasts that come back to haunt them later in life. Dance with the Dragon really has a lot going on in it.

I liked this story. Parts of it got muddied in detail but it offers readers something unique in the romance genre.

Importantly Not GoT

One should note that this book is not to be confused with the book of a similar sounding title by the acclaimed GRRM A Dance with Dragons…

A Major Issue

Before I get any further into my review I have to mention the one major problem I had with this novel: The over (over) use of epithets. This gives the story SUCH a fanfiction vibe that should have been caught by the editor. I despise the use of things like “the older” or “the younger”. Like actively, with hate, despise. Maybe as characters are getting to know one another, but not as a way to differentiate between characters who are in a relationship. Please, please don’t. It gives the story a a sophomoric and amateur feel that I am sure the author is not going for. I mean, even in Fanfiction this is something to avoid.

Dance with the Dragon is Unique

Dance with the Dragon is unique in its setting in Thailand. I will say that if readers are unfamiliar with Thai, the main characters’ proper names might trip them up. Thai names are long, many syllables. But using a second name is also a part of Thai culture, so you can just think of the characters as Sai and Tan for the most part. If readers have ever watched Thai BLs or Thai dramas they will have a better understanding of their names. Other plot aspects of the story are also reminiscent of BL dramas. Because they’re less common in western LGBTQ+ romance genres readers will find this story different. A good different, for the most part. While there are elements that don’t work as well, I still recommend this story because it’s a different take on the genre.

Length

Dance with the Dragon is super long for a romance novel. I struggled with the length of the novel and think it should have either been firmly edited to not be as long or broken up into multiple novels.

It’s so long that it’s almost as if it was written as an episodic serial and then compiled together into a novel. If that’s the case, it would make more sense to read a chapter at a time and wait a week or so until the next chapter.

However, trying to read it as a cohesive novel made the length daunting, and further it made the level of detail unnecessary. A thorough, strict editing could help to make the central story stand out and not leave readers lost in the weeds trying to sort through details that could have been omitted from the story.

Storytelling “Rules”

I tend to want a book to approach details according to the “rules” of modern, western storytelling. Every single thing that the reader or viewer sees should play a part into the overall story. If a character notices something on the tv, a snip of dialogue, that bit of dialogue should come back to be important later in the story.

However, my desire for a story to exclude things that aren’t central to the story speaks to a cultural difference between story-telling devices that I find easiest to identify when watching a tv series from a country that has a markedly different culture from my own.

What’s Common Here is Not Common Everywhere

In tv series, especially Asian dramas, it’s very common to for lots of additional things to happen aside from the main plotline. Side stories, plots that spend time twisting and turning before the reader/viewer makes sense of anything, stories that feature secondary locations and extra characters are all common aspects of Asian dramas. I say Asian because the most familiarity I personally have with Asian dramas are with K-dramas. I’ve only watched one Thai drama (Kinn-Porche), but I noticed similarities between the story-telling elements present in that shows and K-Dramas that I am more familiar with. I like watching K-dramas and I’m sure I would enjoy more Thai dramas. And funny enough, I’ve found that sometimes the additional characters and plots are better than the main plot. (I’m thinking of What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, for sure)

However, in a novel, one that’s been presented as a MM Romance, it might stray too far from expected norms. Readers might download the book from Kindle Unlimited expecting the regular format and find the format and density of additional information difficult to get on board with. I hope that’s not the case for everyone because I do think this novel is worth reading. It’s got so many elements that I enjoyed that unfortunately got a bit weighed down by secondary things that felt unneeded.

If it were a typical MM romance, that is. As it is, I think Dance with the Dragon is best described as a hybrid between a BL Serial and a MM Romance. And that might be an important thing for readers to know before they make the decision to read it.

Secondary Character POV in Dance with the Dragon

As a romance novel, Dance with the Dragon needs to be paired down to be centered around the main love interests. One way to do that would be to have the Point of View be narrated from just the two main love interests. Force the story to be told through only their eyes. Everyone else in the story is then perceived from their POV.

I found the move from being in close 3rd with Sai or Tan to close 3rd of a secondary character quite surprising and ultimately jarring. Within the romance genre this is not a common literary device use at all. And maybe it’s unique and fresh, but I found it added to the overall muddiness of the plot.

For example, I found it jarring to jump into the minds of the secretary, the bodyguards, and other secondary characters. I like Preethi. And honestly I’d read a story from her POV, if she gets her own love interest. But in the MM genre I think the author should leave Preethi’s feelings and thoughts to herself and focus on the main characters for POV. As a reader of Dance with the Dragon, about Sai and Tan, I didn’t need to know about how the secretary felt about Sai. I wanted to stay in Sai’s close 3rd POV to learn what made him who he is.

Sai

I had trouble understanding who Sai was at the beginning of the novel. The first chapter from Tan’s perspective shows Sai to be a suave and collected professional. So, that was the archetype I assigned to him. But then we jump into his head and woah. Sai’s first chapter reveals him to be much more chaotic and uncertain in character. His personality jumps around in business and personal dealings. I thought he’d be completely confident but chapters from his point of view reveal a different sort of character. I actually liked this, but found one aspect of Sai and the way the author handles his presentation to the reader somewhat problematic.

Sai is a clearly neurodivergent character who I suspect has autism. Those terms are never mentioned, however nearly everything about him is written as neurodivergent. It’s never explored as the reason he’s so idiosyncratic about literally everything in his life. But I wish it had been. He’s a confident businessman but he’s insecure in personal dealings, something that is very true in neurodivergent people in real life.

Tan

I feel like Tan could have been more developed, which surprises me to say considering the length of this novel. But he remained underdeveloped. I wanted to understand him more beyond his life as an actor. He’s more than someone who’s being swept away by the glamorous life that Sai lays out for him.

Love and Spice

The spice was good. I didn’t like how after their first sexual encounter Sai was hung up on the idea that they didn’t finish having sex.. The perspective that penetrative sex is the only real sex surprised me. That’s not generally the way people in the LGBTQ+ community think about sex. Sai spends half a chapter worried they “didn’t finish” when they clearly both did. I was so confused about whether I had read the scenes correctly that I went back to reread. It turns out I had read it correctly. To me, that plot point doesn’t make sense with gay characters. Some gay people never have penetrative sex. It’s okay. Getting each other off is sex, nothing more is needed to make it “real”.

After I got through that difficulty, I liked the way their relationship progressed. The spice level was good throughout the novel. I enjoyed their intimate scenes and how they were free to be playful and free with one another from the start. They enjoyed variety in their sex life, from toys to handcuffs. And I liked that a lot. They were playful and sweet with one another from the start. Most importantly, what stands out to me the most is how Tan was able to understand Sai’s unique (neurodivergent) perspectives and make them work for him. Tan could tell Sai when he was being too business-like and rigid in his expectations for a relationship. He was quick to tell Sai that he needed to modify his expectations and behavior. Tan helps Sai into a relationship that was mutually beneficial not juts physically but emotionally.

I love Sai and Tan together. As it should be, their story was the best part, the sweetest part, the part of the story I wanted to stay in. However…

SO Much Going On!

In true Thai Drama fashion, there is so much that happens over the course of the book that I struggled to get through it all. As one novel, it became a case of ‘good lord what’s happening now‘. Not the reaction to a new plot angle an author wants to elicit in a reader.

What Could Possibly Happen Next?

There’s family being backstabbing and generally horrible, common in Asian dramas. Kidnapping. Characters coming back from childhood who have held a grudge for so long and are finally enacting their revenge. There is a lot of slides into secondary character POV to add side thoughts and information.

For me, it just got to be too much after a while. It once again reminds me how K-dramas and the Thai dramas I have watched play out. So much happening works better episodically but as one novel, it’s overload.

It makes me think again that perhaps Dance with the Dragon started out as a serial that was published chapter by chapter. The flow of the novel would read differently reading it like that. Sometimes the shift in medium from web serial to novel requires pairing down and eliminating plot points. Or, it might call for dividing the serial into multiple books to avoid the overload of action. Unfortunately, I feel that forcing it all into one novel could all lead to reader burnout.

Speaking more on that, the -TBC- at the end of every chapter furthers my suspicions that this was a serial publication prior to being a novel. In my opinion those -TBC-‘s at the end of each chapter should be removed. Those make sense at the end of every chapter in a serial publication but not in a novel.

If I Ruled the World…

If I were editing Dance with the Dragon I would divide it into maybe three books. I would pace it so there is a clear story arc, eliminate the extra side-stories. I’d focus on what the culminating drama and villain arc is early in the story. This would start foreshadowing Sai’s past. And importantly, how it will come back to haunt him with the big bad villain of the story. The trauma someone would endure from a childhood kidnapping would mark them as a person. It would have made more sense to introduce Sai’s past earlier in the story. By introducing that as central to Sai’s character would help the reader understand him quicker. Most importantly it wouldn’t detract from the budding relationship between Sai and Tan.

Not that how I would do things is at all important. I am neither the editor nor the author of this story. That being said, I liked the story. Everything happening in one novel dilutes the effect of all that happened. After I finished reading, my mind went to town thinking of ways it could work better.

So my grand plan for a three book story arc:

Book 1

The first book would reflect the beginning and the introduction of the storylines. Introduce Sai’s traumatic past and the main villain character so the foreshadowing starts from the very beginning. That was, as readers are are introduced to Tan the idea that all the characters might all be connected could be subtly planted in the reader’s brain.

Book 2

The main villain and drama would be expanded in this book. That developing drama would lead to a strengthening of Sai and Tan’s growing feelings for one another by them going through some struggles together.

Book 3

The third and final book in the arc would be the culmination of the drama. And end with Sai and Tan living happily every after.

Too Picky?

Obviously, that’s just me rambling and nitpicking at this point. I liked the novel. I want other people to like this novel, because there is a lot about it that is different. Sometimes the romance genre in general can be extremely formulaic. Dance with the Dragon diverges from those expected formulas in a unique way that I liked. But I still think that a general MM romance reader might get lost in the grass because of some of that uniqueness. And I have to wonder if there might be a middle ground where the book could be edited to be a bit closer to standard to be more accessible to the general mm romance reading population.

MAYBE I’m talking out my ass. I’m not trying to be pedantic. I promise. This comes from a place of wanting this novel to be read. So I hope that my review is not received negatively.

Go read Dance with the Dragon. Give this book a chance. It’s a diamond in the rough, and as a debut novel, something I want to support.