Born of Air

Michael’s hot and heavy fourth Dragon Soul erotic romance (after Bound by Thorns), set in a sparsely rendered Halifax, N.S., intersperses lengthy sex scenes with smatterings of plot. Mark Beteferoce, a SWAT cop who’s secretly a dragon shape-shifter, discovers that baker Quincy O’Brien may be the reincarnation of his long-lost soul mate. An instant attraction leads the two men into bed, where they discover just how compatible they are. Numerous, increasingly kinky sexual encounters barely take the edge off their insatiable mutual lust. Quincy takes it rather well when Mark bluntly informs him, “I’m that dragon and you’re my soul mate,” but the true test comes when it’s time for Quincy to meet Mark’s family. Sadly, despite an entertaining premise, the story never develops beyond what Mark pithily describes as “the drive for sex, sustenance, and sleep.” The erotic scenes are intense and well-described, but they don’t make up for a lack of external conflict or character development, and Mark spends almost no time actually being a cop. The story is vastly overshadowed by sex, to the detriment of everything else. (June)