Review: Dragon Dad’s Nanny by Amelia Wilson (2020)

Dragon Dads Love Chronicles, Book #4

Heat Factor: I feel like it’s supposed to be hot but…it’s not

Character Chemistry: is secondary to everything else going on

Plot: Sam, a shifter, feels like he’s a bad dad, so he’s initiated a custody review so his shifter hunter ex-wife can have custody of his dragon twin daughters. (Yep. That’s right.) Meanwhile, nanny AnnaLee can’t have children.

Overall: This book makes me want to smash the patriarchy (not in a good way)

Holly found me this book when I was like “OMG I NEED ALL THE DRAGON DAD NANNY SMUT!!!!” and I am annoyed because this book started throwing up flags for me after about 5 paragraphs. COME ON, HOLLY. (Don’t worry, she found me another series about which I am cautiously optimistic.)

I have to wonder who even is the audience for this book?

In some ways, I am totally the target audience:

☑️ Novella length

☑️ Romantic story

☑️ Dragon shifters

☑️ Nanny

☑️ Ridiculous plot

In other ways, what even is this WTFery?

❎ Sam’s a bad dad because he can’t corral his 5yo twins who sometimes don’t like to listen and prefer sugar to healthy food choices (Sam. That is called being a dad.), so he instigates a custody review to give his daughters to their mother who hasn’t seen them since they were born and is sworn to murder all shifters. (I’m just going to go out on a limb and say that that is the being a bad dad aspect of this narrative, Sam.)

❎ AnnaLee’s doctor told her she’s infertile because she has fibroids, so now Sam’s daughters are her daughters!!!! (Seriously, why are all smut obgyns, like, incompetent? Certain kinds of fibroids might contribute to fertility challenges, but OMG just going straight for it with “I CAN’T HAVE KIDS” is maddening.) (Also she has a dream that she has a daughter and the twins are the older sisters so………..)

❎ AnnaLee is friggin’ Mary Poppins because single parent Sam doesn’t have the magic whatever-the-f that makes him able to turn his normal 5yo daughters into little angels. And she does all the grocery shopping and housekeeping because Sam can’t manage to go to the supermarket. (This is what made me want to smash the patriarchy. Like. WTF. The author’s note is all, “Sam and AnnaLee are #parentinggoals!” and I wanted to smash things because WOW CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE ME MORE STORIES ABOUT HOW DADS ARE INCOMPETENT AT LIFE UNTIL THEY HAVE A GOOD WOMAN TO TAKE CARE OF THEM?!?!?!?!?!?!?)

❎ The sex is…not hot. I think it’s supposed to be hot, but it’s too perfunctory to be actually hot, so I’m not clear on what audience is supposed to be enjoying this. It’s probably too explicit/underdeveloped for people who are looking for a really good romantic read and not sexy enough for people looking for a one-handed read. (And by explicit I mean fingers are shoved in orifices, but by not sexy I mean the whole scene is over in about 3 paragraphs, which what?)

Summary: