This was tough to score but I am going to give it a solid 4 stars. Was the story perfect? Well, it was pretty good and while parts were predictable it was still a lot of fun. Legend of the Jade Dragon is book 2 of the Chintz ‘n China series, and with that said I really recommend you read the first book in the series before jumping into this one. This book does reference the events of the first book in the series, so please do yourself a favor and read that one first.
The book starts off with her attempting to do a tarot reading for a man named Daniel but only getting an ominous reading. She decides to not to tell him what the cards say. The man decides to pay her anyway and takes his money out of his pocket and something falls out without him noticing it. As he begins walking across the street Emerald notices that he dropped a little Jade Dragon statue and she attempts to get his attention. He turns to look at her and then gets killed by a speeding truck. Before he dies he is able to say “please….dragon….don’t….keep” or something along those lines….needless to say the cops tell her to hold onto the dragon and that is where the fun begins.
Her store gets robbed, a drunk man attacks her, her house gets robbed, other places get robbed, her son gets a serious cut, and the list goes on and on. Yet, she doesn’t make the connection that everything started to go wrong once she got the little jade dragon. Fast forward a bit and with the help of her one friend she is able to find out that the dragon is extremely old and cursed. I don’t want to give too much away but after this point is when the story really takes off.
*Slight spoilers ahead*
Pros:
- The magic element was wonderful. There are no wands when it comes to this series. The magic is more of a part of Emerald and not something that requires magic spells. Does she use her intuition and did she try to break a hex with magic? Yes, but there was no caldron or magic potions involved.
- Emerald is just such a good mom. She puts her kids first and is the single mom that you really would like to get to know. She is kind but takes no crap.
- The pieces of the story just fall together in a way that is logical and not rushed (except for the portion about her boyfriend Andrew).
- While the person who was robbing everyone was SUPER obvious, the twist behind it was very enjoyable.
Cons:
- As I said above it was little too obvious who was the one stealing from Emerald and others in town, but still I enjoyed the story.
Overall:
The book was very enjoyable and I will definitely read the next one in the series. Hopefully the next book wont go into as much detail able Emerald’s clothing choices. This book was not as good as the first one in the series, but was still a very good read. I also look forward to seeing what happens between her and Joe now that she is finally done with the jerk Andrew.
The Owl's Book Nest 