The enemies to lovers slow burn age gap romance with dragons you’ve probably never heard of

Curious if anyone has read the Fate Unraveled series by M.A. Frick!! I read the first book {forcing fate by m.a. frick} when it came out in 2023. It’s now a completed series, but one I don’t hear about across ANY apps, despite great reviews.

The short gist of the first book is that dragon riders are chosen, trained, and have the opportunity to pair with a newborn dragon once a year when the eggs hatch. The dragon chooses the rider and off they go. Our heroine has dreamed of nothing else except being a dragon rider and going to the war front to avenge her father’s death (when she was a babe). When she is denied a dragon for the second time, she ultimately ends up joining the army, the only woman (girl, really) to serve, in an effort to get to the front any way she can. She didn’t think it through at. all.

She’s assigned to our love interest, General Rafe, and they haaaaate each other. Shes very young and he is a lot older, but without spoiling anything, a lot of time passes.

The heroine equal parts annoyed me and endeared me. The former because she knowingly put herself into dangerous situations despite being warned not to; the latter because when her dream was stripped away from her, she found a new one, and went after it with all she had (and like violet from fourth wing, her own body was also a barrier to her success).

There were some writing choices that didn’t quite make sense, like how she could spend years training to be a dragon rider for the war but none of that included actual combat training. She was so ill equipped joining the army, it really stood out to me. Despite that, I loved the found family, the way the heroine grew over the course of the book, and of course, meeting the dragons. It’s a completed trilogy too, so definitely check it out (trigger warnings for death, violence, sexual assault, depression, thoughts of suicide, war, some gore, etc).

I saw the author has a book coming out too that’s ‘perfect for lovers of fourth wing and Mariana zapata’. I love MZ so I’m excited to read this!