The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps: The BRAND NEW cozy romantasy enemies-to-lovers read set in a world with dragons from Elizabeth Hrib for 2026

The Ember Ridge Series #1

by Elizabeth Hrib, Norma Butikofer (Narrator), Laurel Lefkow (Narrator)

When a burn nurse with a fear of dragon fire meets a gorgeous but reckless dragon wrangler, things burn hot enough to light their small mountain town on fire.

Burn nurse Eden has accepted a job from her old mentor at the Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps, hoping for peace and quiet in Ember Ridge — a charming mountain town famous for singed tourists and reckless dragon riders. Instead, she arrives to find the infirmary in chaos.

Her mentor is stranded out of town, wild dragons are causing havoc and Eden is left running the infirmary on her first day. Worse, she keeps crossing paths with Vaela, the town’s dragon wrangler, whose talent for surviving impossible situations is matched only by a talent for getting under Eden’s skin.

Vaela is everything Eden brooding, reckless and arrogant.

But when local dragons begin acting strangely and the kingsguard descends on Ember Ridge, whispers spread of the Wretch — the most feared dragon in the realm. Eden and Vaela are forced into an uneasy partnership to save the town, but every argument between them sparks into something hotter and far more dangerous than they expected.

Because falling for a dragon wrangler was never part of Eden’s plan. But neither is watching Ember Ridge — and her guarded heart — go up in flames.

Filled with cozy taverns, chaotic dragons and a fiercely lovable found family, this cozy romantasy is the perfect escape for readers who like their fantasy warm, whimsical and fiery.



Enemies-to-lovers

Small town

Grumpy x sunshine

Slow burn

Found family

Praise for Elizabeth

‘I devoured this story! The perfect recipe of a gripping plot, witty banter, and spice.’

‘Adored everything about this book!’

‘Perfect for anyone seeking a fun and steamy escape with a happily ever after.’

‘I loved it from start to finish.’

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Lesbian, LGBT, Dragons, Cozy

Audible Audio

Published August 28, 2026

About the author

Elizabeth Hrib was born and raised in London, Ontario. She studied nursing in university but fell in love with storytelling and dreaming up happily-ever-afters, so she decided to make it her day job. Some of her previous romance titles include Meet Me in a Mile, The Best Christmas Choir Ever, and The Cafe of Inescapable Human Destiny. Her new cozy fantasy series kicks off with THE INFIRMARY FOR DRAGON BURNS AND MIDAIR MISHAPS. When she’s not writing, she can be found bingeing reality TV, swooning over her favorite books online, or buying too many houseplants. To connect, you can usually find her hanging out on Instagram.

Reviews

[Emily Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

**Review of free advanced copy received from publisher.** 3.6 ⭐️ I’m picky with cozy reads, but this one I really enjoyed.

In all honesty, I see cozy as a label and I tend to worry. For me, a lot of cozy novels are too slow and lack the plot lines to keep my attention. However I love dragons, and the premise of this sounded solid, and I’m so glad I gave it a chance.

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps was fast paced, and included both a fantasy realm plot and romance one that I was drawn in by. It’s a cozy, vivid world that isn’t short of things to overcome and boasted some wonderful characters.

I will be looking to see if Hrib has written any other sapphic stories, and I would recommend this.


Rep// Sapphic Woman MC Who Uses a Leg Prosthesis, Sapphic Woman MC (24). Central romance is WLW/Sapphic.

TW// themes of burns, fire, and injury as well as medical settings.

[Aila Krisse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun cozy-ish sapphic romantasy about a burn nurse who is deathly afraid of fire and a dragon wrangler falling for each other. It was a nice, fun read, but I could never fully get into it.

The main characters on their own are nice, and I really enjoyed the cast of villagers and infirmary personnel around them. But the relationship between Eden and Vaela - which was the main reason I picked this book up - felt very ‘inorganic’, or forced, to me. Their relationship also features a bit of insta-love/love-at-first-sight, which is already not my favourite. By the end I was much more invested in the relationship between Vaela and her dragon Min, than in the main romance.

Still, if you want a cozy-ish (because there are multiple near-deaths and a lot of fire) sapphic fantasy with dragons and a bit of found family, this is a nice, quick read.

Tropes and such:
- sapphic cozy-ish romantasy
- burn nurse x dragon wrangler
- set in a small town
- in a kingdom where magic is illegal
- queernormative world
- an absolutely adorable dragon
- dead parents trauma
- first in a series
-----
Thank you to Boldwood Books for the ARC

[VickydpBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

🐉🔥❤️ The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps was exactly the cosy romantasy escape I needed!

If you love The Baby Dragon Cafe, Legends & Lattes or How to Train Your Dragon, you absolutely need this magical, fiery adventure on your TBR! ✨

Eden is a burn nurse who has a serious fear of dragon fire, so accepting a job at the Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps probably wasn’t the most logical career move! 😂

She arrives in the charming mountain town of Ember Ridge hoping for some peace and quiet, only to find the infirmary in complete chaos. Her mentor is away, wild dragons are causing havoc and Eden is suddenly left in charge.

Then there’s Vaela.

The town’s gorgeous dragon wrangler is everything Eden claims to hate — brooding, reckless, arrogant and incredibly good at getting under her skin. 👀❤️‍🔥

But when the dragons begin behaving strangely and the Kingsguard arrives in town, Eden and Vaela are forced to work together to uncover what’s really happening.

And while they’re busy trying to save Ember Ridge, their enemies-to-lovers chemistry starts getting hotter than dragon fire. 🔥🐉

I absolutely adored this book! It’s cosy, funny, magical and packed with heart. The dragons were such a highlight, and I loved the combination of adventure, romance and that wonderfully warm found-family feeling.

Eden and Vaela’s slow-burn romance had me completely invested, and their grumpy x sunshine dynamic was everything! ❤️‍🔥

Plus, the cosy taverns, chaotic dragons and lovable characters made this such a comforting read while still giving me plenty of adventure and mystery.

✨ Sapphic romance
✨ Enemies-to-lovers
✨ Grumpy x sunshine
✨ Small-town setting
✨ Slow burn
✨ Found family
✨ Dragons! 🐉
✨ Cosy fantasy
✨ Adventure & mystery

Warm, whimsical, funny and wonderfully fiery — I completely fell in love with Ember Ridge and its chaotic dragons. 🐉🔥❤️

Perfect for anyone looking for a cosy romantasy with plenty of heart, humour, magic and a romance that burns slowly before bursting into flames! 📚✨

[Nikola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for a copy of this ARC.

My favorite character was absolutely Min. The is everything I would want if I had a dragon. She is playful, lovable, and smart. I loved her relationship with Vaela and how Vaela absolutely loves and cares for Min. I also love Eden and when her perspective came. She is a burn healer and just a ray of sunshine but with a past that at times may seem to bring her down but she really works on overcoming it. Even though she is a ray of sunshine, she fights for her patients and is headstrong with knowing what is best for them. On the other hand, Vaela is a bit aggressive and grumpy and serious. This juxtaposition of Eden and Vaela personality made me love them all the more as their connection grows throughout the story. Overall this was a cute and cozy romance novel.

[Doloreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC via NetGalley.

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps follows Eden, a burn nurse new to town with a tragic past involving dragon fire that took away her childhood, and Vaela, a thorny dragon wrangler and her bonded dragon, Min, in this cozy world of magic and dragons. The start was a little slow, but I was hooked into the world about a quarter of the way in. There’s plenty of banter and slow-burn chemistry between the main characters, as well as side characters and plots that add depth to the world. I would love to read more set in this fun and cozy universe.

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love, Dragon Spit, and Other Forms of Preventive Medicine
In “The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps,” Elizabeth Hrib turns a burn nurse, a reckless wrangler, an aging dragon, and some extremely unglamorous materials science into a warm, uneven romance about making dangerous lives more livable.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | August 11th, 2026

Dragon stories tend to admire the rider in the air. Elizabeth Hrib’s “The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps” begins lower down, with the person waiting to clean the burn. Eden arrives in Ember Ridge hoping for a calmer posting after years at a dragon-riding academy, only to find a dragon on the infirmary roof, her mentor missing on a house call and Vaela Frixsar carrying a man blistered by dragon fire through the door. The title has made its joke before the first chapter has settled in. The more interesting joke is logistical: somebody has to deal with what adventure leaves on the exam table.

Eden is primed to notice the aftermath because dragon flight has already taken a father from her. He died in a firestorm; afterward, her mother collapsed into grief and eventually disappeared. Nursing at the academy has supplied professional evidence for a fear that began at home. Eden has treated burns caused not by inscrutable fate but by inadequate equipment, lax precautions and a culture inclined to call injury part of the profession. Vaela, Ember Ridge’s dragon wrangler, has a different tolerance for that phrase. She rides Min, a silver Starshot whose breathtaking speed comes from a heart that will fail too young, and she rides with a below-knee prosthesis and the confidence of someone long practiced at making danger look ordinary.

Medical noncompliance becomes Eden and Vaela’s first comic language. Eden tells Vaela to wear her gloves; Vaela reappears with a puncture wound. Eden cleans and stitches it; Vaela complains about her bedside manner. Attraction is already warming the antiseptic. Yet their quarrel has stakes beyond the familiar pleasures of enemies-to-lovers friction. Vaela knows that wrangling cannot be made harmless. Eden knows how quickly “dangerous work” becomes an excuse for never making work safer. One woman goes toward dragons when they become a problem. The other receives the skin, blood and shock afterward. Their disagreement is persuasive because both women are seeing something true and, at first, only half of it.

Ember Ridge softens those edges with pubs, pastries, cottages and an infirmary crew remarkably cheerful about being singed. Children find wyrms. Tourists wander too close to wild dragons with the serene confidence of people who regard warning signs as regional decoration. Kites become aviation hazards. Roofs suffer. The town feels safe for a better reason than low stakes: when something goes wrong, Matty clears an exam table, Nisse mixes medicine, Seraphine finds a bed and Eden starts issuing instructions. Hrib’s cozy fantasy is most convincing when coziness means not insulation from calamity but practiced response to it. Someone knows what comes next.

Triage turns out to be the novel’s real source of comfort. Burns still blister. Dragon venom nearly kills Vaela. Min’s failing heart cannot be sweet-talked into youth. Hrib simply keeps pain in company. That places “The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps” near S. A. MacLean’s “The Phoenix Keeper,” another queer fantasy in which magical creatures are understood through daily care rather than distant myth, though Hrib is more interested in the instant husbandry becomes emergency medicine. Here, cozy is not a promise that the roof will stay attached. It is confidence that somebody has already found the ladder, and probably somebody else is complaining about the state of the shingles.

Rubbing each other the wrong way gets Eden and Vaela only so far; the romance sharpens when they have to make themselves useful to each other. Vaela watches Eden command an emergency. Eden watches Vaela read a dragon’s posture, speed and temper with the fluency of another medical language. Then Eden reveals the project she has kept hidden for years: armor made from shed dragon scales, designed because she is tired of dressing burns that better protection might have prevented. Vaela supplies a rider’s knowledge of weight, balance and flame. Eden brings metalwork, nursing and stubbornness. Eventually Min contributes the least glamorous research material, saliva, which proves useful in the protective coating. Their flirtation becomes fabrication, which for these two is nearly indecently efficient.

Illicit scale-work lets Eden intervene one beat earlier than nursing normally allows. Nursing begins after the burn; the armor asks what might happen before it. Dragon scales already resist fire, yet the crown controls their use while riders continue wearing protection Eden has watched fail. The contradiction does not need grand political machinery to register. A material that could spare skin exists. Authority has decided where it may go. Eden’s rebellion is less against danger itself than against the prestige granted to preventable danger once an institution has grown accustomed to paying for it with other people’s bodies. The person applying salve afterward has a less romantic view of professional toughness.

Plainspoken prose keeps the book moving, then sometimes keeps talking after the scene has made its point. Hrib’s first-person narration is quick, colloquial and generously legible. Dialogue moves. Action rarely muddies. Her language sharpens around work: scorched cloth, swollen skin, leather straps, yarrow, wire, scales, smoke. These nouns have jobs. Feeling receives more supervision. Eden and Vaela often arrive at an insight, state it clearly and later circle back as if meaning might have wandered out of the room while nobody was looking. The accessibility suits the book’s pace, but it also places a ceiling on scenes whose images could have carried more of their own interpretive weight.

Across the romance, the recurrent terms are safety, fear, freedom, running, holding on and letting go. They are the right terms, which is partly why their repetition becomes audible. Eden fears that loving a rider will expose her to the kind of loss that consumed her mother. Vaela fears a life arranged so thoroughly around survival that it becomes a smaller life. Their behavior often carries that conflict perfectly well: Eden retreats when intimacy begins to feel dangerous; Vaela bristles whenever caution sounds too much like the paternal pity she has spent years resisting. When the narration explains the lesson immediately afterward, the effect is rather like checking the pulse of a patient who has just answered you in a full sentence.

Paired first-person chapters nevertheless earn their place because Eden and Vaela become partial diagnosticians of each other. Eden sees Vaela ignore precautions before she understands how fiercely Vaela has resisted other people’s definitions of what an amputee should dare. Vaela notices Eden’s instinct to manage every variable before she learns what fire took from her family. Neither woman is wholly mistaken. Each spots a symptom and mistakes it for the whole patient. The alternating perspective quietly improves the romance by giving the reader information the women do not yet possess, so attraction develops alongside a series of revised diagnoses rather than a simple revelation that one of them was wrong all along.

Accommodation enters the story most cleanly through Vaela’s prosthesis. The device slips under the particular strain of dragon riding. Eden studies the problem and modifies it so the leg can secure more effectively against dragon scales. There is no cure scene and no insistence that Vaela’s body should be redesigned until the world becomes comfortable with it. The leg is what it is. The equipment can improve. That adjustment says something Hrib’s more explanatory passages sometimes take several paragraphs to say: care can mean paying enough attention to alter the thing that does not fit rather than asking the person to become easier to accommodate.

During the Wretch rescue, that adjustment stops being a thematic example and becomes useful hardware. Vaela climbs onto the captured dragon to cut the chains still fouling its wings; Eden’s modification catches against a scale, and when the prosthesis eventually detaches, Vaela uses it as an improvised hook to keep herself from falling. What began as daily equipment, then became a shared project, is suddenly part of the mechanics of survival. Hrib does not ask us to admire Vaela for transcending her body. She lets better equipment become part of what her body can do. It is one of the book’s shrewdest choices because the symbolism never quite swallows the object.

If a brace can be altered, Min presents the harder kind of problem. Starshots fly with extraordinary speed because their hearts beat furiously, and the same physiology shortens their lives. Vaela knows long before the climax that Min is nearing the end of her flying years, which is why she keeps sneaking the dragon into a hostile farmer’s lake. Swimming lets Min move without asking her heart to lift her into thinner air. Their scenes are frequently funny – Min has opinions, appetites and little respect for property law – but the comedy sits beside a daily calculation: how much exertion can pleasure still afford? Grief enters before the loss itself, disguised as scheduling.

Min cannot be engineered back into the sky. Flight is Vaela’s great proof that losing a leg did not consign her to the diminished life her father imagined. For Min, flight is simpler: instinct, pleasure, sky. Neither devotion nor stubbornness can make a failing heart negotiate. Hrib gives the dragon no magical reprieve, which keeps this subplot from turning adaptation into wish fulfillment. The lake is loving, useful and necessary. It is also not the sky. That small remainder matters because otherwise the novel’s governing idea – that changed lives can be redesigned rather than restored – would become too consoling to be true.

In refusing Min an easy restoration, Hrib briefly approaches the question at the center of Becky Chambers’s “A Psalm for the Wild-Built”: what makes a life worth inhabiting when vocation, usefulness or capability stops meaning what it once did? The resemblance ends quickly. Hrib arrives by way of dragon saliva, sex, burns, prosthetic metal and a monarchy with regrettable ideas about animal management. Still, both books understand that a different future need not be a counterfeit one. Hrib’s version is less contemplative and considerably more combustible, but its best insight is similarly practical: the loss of one form of life does not automatically settle the value of whatever follows.

The Wretch forces Eden and Vaela to act against the habits with which they entered the story. The kingsguard capture the legendary dragon alive because the crown hopes to control it, despite everything Hrib has established about meaningful dragon bonds depending on choice. Royal strategy soon becomes an enormous furious animal chained beside a populated town, which has the administrative elegance one might expect. The Wretch escapes. Ember Ridge burns. Vaela leaps onto its back to cut away the chains still trapping its wings. Eden, who once froze at dragon fire and organized much of her life around avoiding riderly risk, climbs onto Min and follows.

Riding the Wretch too high, Vaela discovers that survival has acquired details. She has spent years accepting the possibility of death as part of what freedom costs, but now she can picture ordinary years with Eden and, almost to her own annoyance, discovers that she wants them. Not immortality. Years. Breakfasts. Work. An old age she had never bothered to imagine. She decides that wrangling can no longer be the only proof that her life is large. Eden, meanwhile, has left the safety of the ground altogether. When Min comes close enough, Vaela must do the thing every muscle has been trained against. She lets go.

Once she does, the scene scarcely needs interpretation. Eden catches Vaela through the prosthetic apparatus they redesigned together, bringing nursing, fabrication, disability, dragon riding and trust into one physical connection. Hrib nevertheless has Vaela think explicitly through the idea of letting go before she performs it. The metaphor therefore arrives with more assistance than it needs. This is the novel’s recurring stylistic problem in miniature: its architecture has already done the work, but the narration is reluctant to clock out. The symbolism has roughly the discretion of a church bell. It rings anyway.

Past the rescue comes the more difficult question of what Vaela’s decision costs. She chooses to stop wrangling; Eden does not demand retirement as the admission price to their relationship. That distinction keeps the ending from becoming a simple lesson in domesticating the dangerous woman, but it does not eliminate the tension. Wrangling is Vaela’s livelihood, pleasure, bond with Min, rebellion against paternal pity and the work through which she learned to trust her altered body. Hrib gives the decision conviction but surprisingly little mourning. One can know a choice is right and still miss the self who wanted the opposite thing. The novel would be richer if it allowed that grief a little more room before converting retirement into peace.

Ownership is where the armor subplot turns political. The crown claims dragon scales while riders absorb burns those scales might help prevent; it cages the Wretch as a prospective weapon while meaningful dragon bonds elsewhere depend upon consent. Eden and Vaela recognize both contradictions, but their answer remains deliberately local: illegal armor, a hidden workshop, useful friends, a mentor willing to take an extraordinary risk for them. Hrib keeps the solution downstairs rather than taking it to the palace. That suits the intimate scale of the romance, though it also leaves a sharper question unresolved: if the system can decide which bodies deserve protection and which creatures deserve autonomy, ingenuity can work around power without actually changing who holds it.

Underneath the spectacle, Hrib keeps returning to the practical aftermath of irreversible change. Eden moves from dressing burns toward preventing them and teaching others. The ruined infirmary returns larger rather than identical. Min’s future shifts from altitude to water. Dalton, after failing to make the expected dragon bond, is offered the possibility that the right bond may arrive by another route. These solutions do not erase what preceded them, and Hrib is most persuasive when she simply places the altered object or life in front of us. Brace, armor, infirmary, lake: adjustment becomes less a declared philosophy than a habit of making room.

Love does not make those substitutions equivalent. A lake is not the sky; retirement is not wrangling; safer armor is not safety. The book could linger longer in that remainder, especially with Vaela, because loss does not become trivial merely because the alternative is good. Even so, its found family becomes convincing through what people actually do with one another’s vulnerability. Someone modifies the brace. Someone tests the scale. Someone helps move an exhausted dragon toward water. Someone catches the falling woman. Affection accumulates as labor before anyone needs to give it a name, and the novel is at its warmest when it trusts those actions more than its declarations.

Objects carry more of Hrib’s intelligence than her most explanatory passages do: bandage leads to armor, brace becomes hook, Min’s failing heart makes water necessary, and romantic friction eventually produces things that work. That fit between object, action and emotional consequence is why my final assessment remains 81/100, or 4/5 stars. The prose is more serviceable than singular, the interior narration repeats insights the structure has already made legible, the institutional critique stops where a more ambitious novel might begin, and Vaela’s vocational loss deserves a messier residue. But the book’s practical imagination repeatedly lifts familiar romantasy machinery into something more coherent, more humane and more particular than its trope list promises.

So the image worth keeping is quieter than the Wretch above a burning town. Min can no longer fly, and Eden, Vaela and their friends eventually pool the first year’s armor proceeds toward buying the lake where swimming lets her aging heart keep moving. A nurse who spent years repairing what dragon flight did to people has helped make armor that may spare future skin; that work, in turn, helps secure water for a dragon whose body can no longer bear the sky. Nothing has been put back. The loss is still there, cool and bright beneath the surface. Min simply has somewhere else to go.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC received from NetGalley and Boldwood Books in exchange for honest review.

⚡BLURB⚡
When burn nurse Eden who has a fear of dragon fire meets Vaela, a gorgeous but reckless dragon wrangler, things burn hot enough to light their small mountain town on fire.❤️‍🔥
Burn nurse Eden has accepted a job from her old mentor at the Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps, hoping for peace and quiet in Ember Ridge — a charming mountain town famous for singed tourists and reckless dragon riders. Instead, she arrives to find the infirmary in chaos.
Her mentor is stranded out of town, wild dragons are causing havoc and Eden is left running the infirmary on her first day. Worse, she keeps crossing paths with Vaela, the town’s dragon wrangler, whose talent for surviving impossible situations is matched only by a talent for getting under Eden’s skin.
Vaela is everything Eden hates: brooding, reckless and arrogant.
But when local dragons begin acting strangely and the kingsguard descends on Ember Ridge, whispers spread of the Wretch — the most feared dragon in the realm. Eden and Vaela are forced into an uneasy partnership to save the town, but every argument between them sparks into something hotter and far more dangerous than they expected.
Because falling for a dragon wrangler was never part of Eden’s plan. But neither is watching Ember Ridge — and her guarded heart — go up in flames.

⚡REVIEW⚡
I don't think I've ever read something deemed a "cosy Romantasy" before, but I was itching to get stuck into it and see what it was like. And The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps is definitely cosy, but probably not quite my definition of the Romantasy genre. Nonetheless, I found it very enjoyable, gentle and sweet with enough peril and will-they-won't-they to keep it from being sickly.

When Eden arrives in Ember Ridge, she is set on two things - she will never fall in love with a Dragon Wrangler, and that she will continue her the work she's doing in secret without ever blowing her cover. So of course, the universe has other plans. Eden has been invited to Ember Ridge by her mentor, Gunther, who hasn't made it back in time to meet her. So she's thrown straight in at the deep end, especially when Migration season is underway. Whilst juggling that, and the secret she is working on, she meets Vaela, who instantly gets under her skin. But her devastating history means she has sworn off Dragon Wranglers, fearing she will be left without the love of her life before her time. That history has also led to the secret project - one that could see her executed should she be caught by the Kingsguard. When Vaela discovers that secret, she wants to help, and Eden can't help growing closer to her. The arrival of the Kingsguard, determined to capture the legendary wild dragon called the Wretch, mean the work is even more high stakes. As the fight to capture the Wretch causes carnage in Ember Ridge, Eden is forced to confront her fears and embrace bravery, strength and love. There is a moment at the end that will have your heart hurting - you'll know once you've read it - but that story arc is left open for book two, which I'm excited about! Eden is a character who is sure of herself without ever coming across as arrogant, who is methodical and caring in her profession, commands the respect of those around her as she does it (without any menace), and cares deeply for those in her inner circle - but her two big fears are hard for her to overcome.

Vaela Frixsar is the total opposite to gentle, quiet Eden. When she sweeps into the Infirmary just after Eden has arrived, she is brash, bossy and more than a little obnoxious as she demands Gunther is called. But as Eden not only efficiently treats the man Vaela brings in, but also bluntly ticks her off after noticing a wound on her hand too, Vaela can't help but be intrigued by the new woman in town. Vaela became a Dragon Wrangler to show her father she was capable of big things after an accident as a child left her with a life changing injury - and a lack of care from him. Other than her dragon, Min, the only other person that Vaela has a true bond with is her brother, and he serves in the Kingsguard. Vaela's crabby demeanour is explained a lot by the health of Min, and her fears for her, but also by the stress of her job in Migration season. As she gets to know Eden, she softens considerably for her, and at the point she discovers her secret, she's already gone for her. Convincing Eden of that is more of a challenge than she expects, but she refuses to let it go. The third act dramatic sequence sees Eden really step up for both Vaela and Min - and the consequences lead Vaela to make some life changing decisions. As the story progresses you see her character shift from abrasive and harsh to loving and warm, someone who is still proving they are capable of big things - just in different ways.

For me, a Romantasy novel is something that sees deeper fantasy elements - magic, mythical creatures, kingdoms or realms, and sees them in conflict and peril, with a lot of hidden powers and politics at play, blended with earth shattering romance. And there was some of this in this book - but it felt like a Romantasy-lite. It was so gentle, even in the action sequence towards the end, that it reminded me very much of the Hobbits in the Shire at the beginning of LOTR. It was warm and fuzzy, the peril felt mild, the intrigue in the rumours from the Kingsguard caught my attention but didn't feel like emphasis was based on the importance of them. And I am not saying this was a bad thing, not at all - I thoroughly enjoyed this warm escape from reality - but I didn't feel like it was Romantasy like I know and love. It almost needs a new label.

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps is a delightful escape into a Shire-esque world where dragons roam freely, and range from whoppers to tiny Wyrms, keeping burn healers in regular business. Magic is banned by the King (but does it actually exist? I'm not sure!), who seems determined to prove himself as a big man. And one healer is determined to change the fates of many across the realm by creating something prohibited, whilst simultaneously falling in love, which requires overcoming her greatest fear. This will be a great autumn read, with a mug of warm drink and fuzzy socks on your feet.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this book!

[Get Your Tinsel in a Tangle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eden is terrified of dragon fire and voluntarily takes a job at an infirmary specifically for people injured by dragons. Girl, were there no openings at the NOT DRAGON hospital?

She arrives in Ember Ridge expecting her old mentor to ease her into the new job, show her where everything is, maybe explain which ointment goes on “lightly toasted by dragon” versus “fell out of the sky because I thought I could ride one.” Except her mentor is stranded out of town and Eden walks into an infirmary already operating at the medical equivalent of somebody screaming from another room. Wild dragons are acting weird. Injured people keep showing up. Nobody appears particularly alarmed by any of this because apparently in Ember Ridge, “dragon-related incident” is less an emergency and more a Tuesday.

And then Eden meets Vaela. VAELA. Vaela is the town dragon wrangler, which is already an insane occupation. Your entire job is approaching the enormous flying fire lizards everyone else has agreed to avoid. And Vaela does this with the casual confidence of a woman who has apparently decided death would need an appointment. Eden takes one look at her and immediately recognizes every personality trait she hates: reckless, arrogant, broody, impossible. Unfortunately, Vaela is also hot. This is devastating news for everyone involved.

Their relationship starts with Eden basically saying, “Could you PLEASE stop doing things that require emergency medical attention?” and Vaela responding, spiritually, “No ❤️.” Eden is a burn nurse. She knows exactly what dragon fire does to a human body. She is professionally qualified to explain why Vaela’s choices are terrible. Vaela hears those explanations and then goes directly back outside to do something that will probably require stitches. If I were Eden, I would start charging this woman a personal inconvenience fee.

Except Vaela keeps being annoyingly competent. That is the problem. Eden would LOVE for her to just be some reckless idiot with cheekbones, but Vaela actually understands dragons. She reads them. She knows how to handle them. When something goes wrong, she is immediately putting herself between danger and everyone else. Eden is standing there thinking, “I hate everything about the way you do this,” while also having to acknowledge, “Unfortunately, you are very good at it and your arms are upsetting me.”

Then the dragons start acting wrong.

Not regular Ember Ridge wrong, where somebody ignored obvious safety instructions and is now arriving at the infirmary lightly on fire. WRONG wrong. Wild dragons are causing havoc. The kingsguard rolls into town. Everybody starts whispering about the Wretch, the most feared dragon in the realm, in that deeply reassuring way people whisper about something they definitely believe is real but would prefer not to summon through conversational volume. Eden came here looking for peace. She is now running an understaffed dragon trauma center while the local wildlife appears to be organizing.

Naturally, Eden and Vaela have to work together, which is excellent news for everyone except Eden and Vaela, who remain committed to pretending their constant fixation on each other is irritation. Every conversation has the energy of an argument that has somehow wandered within kissing distance. Eden thinks Vaela is infuriating. Vaela seems delighted that Eden thinks Vaela is infuriating. They keep getting shoved into dangerous situations together, and at some point “I cannot stand this woman” starts sounding suspiciously like “I have spent the last six hours thinking exclusively about this woman.”

And I loved the infirmary crew because these people have apparently accepted that their community will NEVER develop a healthy respect for dragons. They patch somebody up, send them home, and probably see them again three days later because the patient thought, “I know Eden said not to do this, but the dragon seemed friendly.” Ember Ridge is cozy and charming and absolutely filled with people who should have their dragon privileges revoked. The found-family energy worked because Eden arrives expecting a job and slowly realizes she has accidentally acquired people. Annoying, caring, chaotic people who are becoming hers whether she planned for that or not.

But Eden’s fear is what made her work for me. She knows fire. She knows burns. She knows what dragons can take from somebody, and she has built this entire life around being close enough to help with the aftermath while still trying to keep herself safely away from the thing that scares her. Then here comes Vaela, who responds to danger by walking directly toward it like self-preservation is an optional setting. They are opposites, but not in the cute “one likes coffee and one likes tea” way. Eden controls fear by preparing for everything. Vaela controls fear by pretending it does not get a vote. They can see straight through each other, and neither woman enjoys the experience.

And once the Wretch situation starts getting serious, Eden’s carefully constructed little plan for her life goes directly out the window. The infirmary needs her. Ember Ridge needs her. Vaela needs her, although I would sooner expect one of the dragons to file taxes than Vaela comfortably admit that. Eden has to decide how much fear gets to choose for her, while Vaela has to confront the possibility that repeatedly throwing herself into danger is not actually the same thing as being fearless. That little emotional piece got me. Moving on before the dragon book makes me sincere.

I’m at 3.5 stars for The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps. I had a good time in Ember Ridge, I wanted even more of the infirmary chaos and dragon danger, and Eden and Vaela absolutely have the kind of chemistry where somebody in HR should quietly close the door and pretend they saw nothing. Eden needed a vacation. Vaela needed protective equipment and a healthy fear of consequences. The entire town needed a mandatory seminar titled “Please Stop Approaching the Dragons.” Nobody was going to attend.

Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the ARC, and for introducing me to a medical facility where the intake form presumably begins with “Dragon, gravity, or Vaela?” and then skips directly to “On a scale of one to ten, how attached were you to those eyebrows?”

[Unpopmary · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps follows Eden, a burn nurse looking for a quieter life in the small town of Ember Ridge, where she crosses paths with Vaela, a dragon wrangler who isn't exactly thrilled to meet her. What starts off as an dislike-to-lovers romance slowly turns into something much sweeter, all while dragons, found family, and plenty of cozy vibes fill the pages.

One of my favorite things about this book was, unsurprisingly, the dragons. While I do wish the fantasy side of the world had been explored a little further, I still had so much fun learning about the different dragons and what life as a dragon wrangler looks like, especially Vaela's dragon, Min.

I absolutely adored Min.

She was basically a giant puppy disguised as a dragon. Playful, affectionate, a little curious at times, and completely lovable. Her relationship with Vaela honestly stole my heart. Every scene between them reminded me just how much they cared about each other, and by the end they easily became one of my favorite parts of the story.

I also enjoyed following Eden's perspective throughout the story. She's the sunshine of the relationship, but underneath that kindness is someone who's still carrying the weight of her past. I really appreciated seeing how her childhood shaped her dream of making dragon wranglers' lives safer. Even though she knew her actions came with serious consequences, she never let fear stop her from trying to make a difference, and I couldn't help but admire that determination.

I loved the found family at the infirmary as well. The staff felt like one big chaotic family, and I really enjoyed watching them welcome Eden so quickly. I only wish we'd gotten more scenes between her and Gunther. The story constantly tells us how important he is to her and how he's more like a father figure than a mentor, but we don't actually get many moments that let us experience that relationship ourselves.

Vaela ended up surprising me the most. She first comes across as grumpy, rude, and a little intimidating, but it doesn't take long to see how caring she really is. Whether she's with Min, her brother Trystan, or mentoring Dalton, her softer side slowly shines through. Underneath all those walls is someone who's willing to risk everything to protect the people she loves, and it became very easy to understand why Eden fell for her.

As for the romance... it was just sweet.

I really enjoyed how the annoyance-to-lovers dynamic played out, and the banter between Eden and Vaela made me smile more than once. I also appreciated that the story took its time letting them build an emotional connection before focusing on anything physical. Their relationship never felt rushed, which made it easy to believe they genuinely cared about one another. Even though the central conflict surrounding Eden's fears felt fairly foreseeable, I liked that it didn't drag on for too long and that Vaela became the one reminding her that love was worth taking a chance on.

That said, while I enjoyed watching them together, I never found myself completely emotionally invested in their romance. Their reactions toward the end felt a little predictable, and I think part of that comes down to their individual character arcs feeling somewhat limited. Aside from Eden confronting her fears and Vaela making an important life decision, I wanted just a little more personal growth from both of them. Because of that, I finished the book feeling satisfied, but not completely wowed.

Overall, if you're looking for a cozy romantasy with lovable dragons, a grumpy x sunshine romance, found family, wholesome banter, and the kind of story that feels perfect to read with a warm drink on a rainy afternoon, this one is certainly worth picking up.

So grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this one ahead of time. Thank you!

[Carissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 ⭐️In the country of Cai’amar dragons run wild, which can lead to many a dragon-related accidents, especially during the yearly Great Dragon Migration. Within the migration route lies Ember Ridge, a whimsical small town that is home to The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps. During this busy time of year the infirmary hires Eden, a burn nurse who is still in recovery from a traumatic childhood incident involving dragon fire and someone who was dear to her. Eden is welcomed to the infirmary with open arms by her new colleagues, but she can’t say the same about the grumpy local dragon wrangler, Vaela. Dragon wrangling is a high-risk job, and when Eden starts to find Vaela more irresistible than irritating, she becomes determined to guard her heart from the potential pain of loving and losing again. 

I sped through this book, and while I’m sad it’s over, I’m glad Hrib chose to write a shorter book instead of one laden with nonsense filler (a crime romantasy writers are often guilty of). The story had a cozy lightness to it while not shying away from exploring tough issues. This was my first sapphic romantasy and probably my favorite sapphic romance I’ve read to date! I am saying this only having read a handful of sapphic romances (something I need to remedy—it just feels like good ones are few and far between). I liked the concept of a burn and healing center dedicated to dragon-related injuries as well as the small-town vibe of Ember Ridge. The cast of characters who worked at the burn center were an affable group even if they were not the most well-developed characters. 

The actual romance was so adorable! It was pretty heavy-handed from the beginning how much Eden and Vaela were drawn to one another, but because they actually had good chemistry, it didn’t bother me too much. They also had a few honest and open conversations with one another about their pasts, which made their quick bond even more believable. The banter was fun, and ugh some of the romantic things they said to one another were swoon-worthy! While not the best PG-13 spicy scene I’ve read, it was sweet, although I wish the context in which they engaged in amorous activities was different. They had just witnessed someone being burned by a dragon, and right down the road from where they lay together, the rest of the infirmary employees were busy tending to the urgent care of the burn victim. While not as uncomfortable as Feyre and Rhysand boning at a war camp in A Court of Wings and Ruin, it still felt a tad inappropriate to me.

Obviously no book is perfect, and I read with an especially critical eye, but there were a couple of rather large plot points that didn’t quite make sense to me:

1) How has Eden been a successful healer / burn nurse for several years while her job involved being around situations that frequently triggered her childhood trauma? I honestly feel like a dick criticizing a plot point around a character’s very valid trauma! I'm just confused as to how she was able to successfully be healer at a dragon rider academy and then a burn nurse when she froze up in almost every situation involving fire and dragons.

2) Why was the kingsguard after the Wrench and not dragon wranglers? The pompous king sent his kingsguard to capture the most ferocious wild dragon for his own benefit. The kingsguard, who had little to no formal training with dragons, instead of dragon riders/wranglers, who had to endure vigorous training to master the abilities required for their jobs. I think capturing the Wrench would have gone a lot better if he actually had enlisted trained professionals for the job.

I'm so glad I finally found a good sapphic romance, and I'm planning on buying a paperback copy once it is released. And while likely not a queer romance, I’m looking forward to the enviable sequel starring Vaela’s charismatic brother Trystan.

[ashywitchling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review of an Advanced Reader Copy.
Thank you to Boldwood Books and Elizabeth Hrib for the opportunity to discover this story in exchange for my honest review !

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps follows Eden, a young and talented burn nurse looking for a bit of peace and quiet. When her mentor invites her to work alongside him in a small town's infirmary, it feels like the perfect change of scenery ! However, maybe Eden underestimated the surprises that come with settling down right in the path of the dragon migration and their all-consuming fires. Ember Ridge happens to be extremely peaceful... until you run into a few too many dragons and a particularly grating dragon wrangler...

RATING : 2/5.

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps is a very quick read following the standard cozy fantasy recipe : a cozy setting, a dash of found family, a few drops of dragon cuteness and a spoonful of romance. Yet, I find myself very disappointed with this read. So, why is that ?

First of all, the romance is overambitious.
I think the book is under 300 pages ? In that page span and without any substantial time jumps - I'm not sure about the whole timeline, but it felt like maybe 7 to 10 days - you just cannot go for epic burning romance. It gives heavy insta-love vibes (which I hate), and I completely stopped being able to indulge it around the 60% mark. My last straw was the first kiss without consent scene, followed by one of the MCs implying that - during a crisis, mind you - spending time with a girl she barely knows is more important to her than being with her very loyal bonded dragon.
The whole relationship this book is trying to build upon is rushed and lacks any kind of substance. To me, this is the big difference between a good Cozy Fantasy and one that needs more work. Yes, cozy and cute are staples of the genre. Still, it doesn't mean you can just throw away coherence, character growth and/or relationship building.
Beyond the romance, none of the other characters managed to quite interest me, and that includes both MCs. Not only were there too many characters introduced from the get-go for me to grasp onto any of them, but the more interesting ones barely had any page time (hi, Gunther). I believe found family was the intended goal. It's missed, completely. You just get a bunch of people living through the same events, at the same time, sometimes working together, and I'm expected to care. I do not.

On top of that, I'm supposed to believe in the beauty and uniqueness of human x dragon bonds. Yet, Vaela only seems to care about Min when it offers potential for an emotional scene. Min was probably my favorite part of the book. Considering the way this book is marketed, it severely underexploit its dragon lore. I wish Min was not the only dragon we actually got to meet. I also wish her place in the story was more prominent. Min was treated like a character you whip out for comedic relief or emotional intensity, then discard until the next time they are needed. A shame, since she had way more MC energy than Eden and Vaela combined.

Lastly, and even if I am not able to go into details to avoid spoilers, the lack of overall coherence in the story and plot finished ruining this book for me.

So, what's my conclusion ? I personally would not recommend this book. I can't find anything that would make it worth it given its many flaws and the better alternatives this genre has to offer. As I write this review, I seem to be the only one so far with such a harsh opinion on it. As always, I encourage you to remember that no review can replace your own reading experience, and the most meaningful opinion you can form is the one you build for yourself !

[Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley, Boldwood Books & Elizabeth Hrib for this ARC! I’m happy to share my review!

I was captivated by this book's title and couldn't stop wondering how a book about dragons could make for a compelling sapphic romance. Well, it was pretty awesome! The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps was such a great fantasy sapphic romance full of delightful loveable dragons and a sweet love story. This book was a joy to read and was just the type of fantastical and magical romance that I was in the mood for.

In Ember Ridge, dragons are plentiful and dragon riders are as well. So cute! Eden is looking to work at the infirmary in hopes of a quieter and more peaceful life. Of course, things don't go to plan and she is thrust into the position of running the infirmary and keeping it running smoothly. Fearful of dragon fire but working in the infirmary to care for the casualties of dragon mishaps is a lovely little thing that made me like Eden even more. She is kind and caring and genuine. Enter Vaela, the sexy dragon wrangler full of confidence, stubbornness and the seemingly unique quality of driving Eden crazy. Ha I loved them and their interaction right away. It was obvious they were most certainly attracted to each other and they just sort of challenged each other at every turn. Somewhere along the line and relatively quickly, the arguments become filtration and then so much more.

Even though I loved the fun fantasy and adventure aspects of the story, I appreciated that the romance was truly the center. Eden and Vaela have a little of the oil and water thing going but they do seem to get over it fairly quickly. They eventually get over their abstinence and indulge their growing feelings for one another. Their chemistry is electric and watching them fall for one another was just wonderful. I couldn't help but smile with their every interaction and was so happy as they learned to trust each other. I appreciated the bit of spice and thought that it added a bit of depth to their relationship. They are just adorable together and I was thrilled for them.

Elizabeth Hrib does a wonderful job creating this incredible world that I genuinely wish I could live in! Ember Ridge is full of charismatic dragons and is a delightful little village full of charm. I could envision the cozy little taverns and just this crazy place with incredible people living alongside lovable dragons. I was sold and that is a huge nod to Hrib’s imaginative writing. The writing is light and easy to read. Hrib’s voice is genuine and the book is infused with lightheadedness and humor throughout. The dragons were done to perfection and won my heart! Eden and Vaela were both such likeable characters with so much depth. They were women that I’d genuinely want to be friends with and might simultaneously have a massive crush on. I loved their dynamic and the dialogue was so much fun. I felt that their teasing and sarcasm was hilarious and couldn't get enough of their particular banter. Even as things deepen with our ladies, there remains a sort of playfulness that I found so endearing.

Overall, you get a bit of everything in this book and I was very happily entertained. I loved the adventure and fantasy but couldn't have imagined how dragons could manage to steal my heart almost as much as the love story. If you are a fan of fun and funny sapphic romances full of delightful dragons, whimsy and a lovely magical setting, look no further!

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am 100% sure this is the coziest warmiest book I have read in TIME. It gives a mix of Julie Leong and Summer N England vibes and those are TOP tier to me. It is so crazy how something so serious could be happening- incredibly dangerous dragons migrating, and yet the book is so cozy and chill? The danger is obvious too though because the book is half told through perspective of burn nurse Eden who has to deal with injuries caused by these dragons, and half told through perspective of dragon wrangler Vaela who has to try and calm down the situations before major injuries occur. Actually while I’m on that, I love how majority of the time the fault is actually humans, most dragons aren’t violent without reason, it’s the humans winding them up or aggravating them that makes them angry. And I mean yeah if some rando tried to climb me in the middle of the street I think I’d be pretty angry too.
I also loved how at the beginning of the book Eden was the new girl in a town she didn’t know, but really she was never a new girl at all, the infirmary staff took her in immediately, loved her as their own immediately, maybe they were kind of forced to because of a burn emergency but still, I saw the love. Eden also stood up for herself basically immediately too, she literally slotted right in and I LOVED that, it’s the new girls dream situation.
The romance in this book is also BEAUTIFUL, I didn’t call it a romantasy because I truly think the book still had a solid plot without the romance, but I’d say it was maybe on the line or very close to romantasy because the romance was a huge part of the story. There was like one maybe two hot scenes with Eden and Vaela, they were so beautiful and just so perfect, also just how Vaela spoke about Eden, that’s what every girl should aim for- no less. Their relationship was CUTE, perfect for the story, I also tried to put ‘‘Internally Forbidden Romance’ in my trope list but I couldn’t figure out if people would understand what I meant- what I meant (and loved) is that because of a Previous Experience Eden has been through she doesn’t want to love any dragon rider because she thinks it always ends in death, shes Trying to save herself emotionally which I 100% understand, but at the same time Vaela is a dragon wrangler which means she rides a (beautiful) dragon. DO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT MINS PLOT LINE I REFUSE I WILL CRY ITS TOO ADORABLE AND SAD AND. So by Eden’s logic Vaela is off limits, but that sucks because both of them are OBVIOUSLY super mega attracted to each other, so that takes a bit of time to resolve itself, which is also good because it wasn’t instantly resolved, Eden’s experience was handled respectfully and not just forgotten.
Clearly I adored this book very much and I am so grateful, Thank you very much!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps
by Elizabeth Hrib
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My fave cozy fantasy!!! Right up there with baby dragons. 🐉💛

I am genuinely obsessed with how warm and comforting this book is. It has that rare kind of magic where even with dangerous dragons, injuries, and high-stakes situations happening, the overall feeling is still cozy. It’s like being wrapped in a blanket while someone tells you a fantasy story by the fireplace.

The biggest star of this book is obviously Min. I would like to personally request my own dragon immediately. She’s playful, clever, adorable, and the bond between her and Vaela absolutely melted my heart. The way Vaela loves and protects her? I cannot handle it. 😭

Eden was such a joy to follow too. She’s a healer, a sunshine character, and someone who genuinely wants to help people. I loved that she wasn’t just “sweet”—she’s also stubborn, passionate, and willing to fight for what she believes is right. Vaela is her complete opposite: grumpy, serious, and guarded. Their dynamic worked so well because watching those two slowly open up to each other was everything.

I also really appreciated the way dragons were handled in this story. They aren’t just dangerous creatures causing chaos; they have their own reasons and personalities. A lot of the conflict comes from humans provoking them, and honestly... if someone randomly tried to climb on me, I’d probably react the same way. 😂

The romance was absolutely beautiful. Eden and Vaela’s relationship had the perfect amount of tension, yearning, and emotional buildup. I loved that Eden’s fears weren’t instantly fixed and that her past was treated with care. Their connection felt earned, and every little moment between them had me smiling.

This book gave me the cozy fantasy vibes I love, with the heart of found family, healing, and learning to trust again. Also, can we talk about the infirmary staff immediately taking Eden in? The “new girl becomes family” trope will always get me.

Overall, The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps is a warm, charming, dragon-filled comfort read that completely stole my heart. If you love cozy fantasy, adorable creatures, slow-burn romance, and characters who feel like home, you need this one. 🐉✨

Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

[Pink · Rating 2 out of 5]

ARC Review

I picked this up on NetGalley because the title and cover charmed me. I was expecting a cozy fantasy, and I walked straight into a romance. That's entirely on me for not reading the blurb, but I do think the cover fails to communicate what the book actually is. The romance is front and centre, the plot follows the beats of a romance arc.

That said, my issues with the book went beyond mismatched expectations.

For starters, this is a dual POV book written in first person, which is an unnecessarily confusing choice. Multiple times I found myself mid-chapter, unsure whose perspective I was even in. First person dual POV is a difficult thing to pull off, and this doesn't pull it off.

The worldbuilding also left a lot to be desired. By the ten percent mark I still had no clear sense of what kind of world I was in. It feels simultaneously modern and vaguely historical, without committing to either. The fantasy elements, including the curses, felt a little too on the nose and, at times, outright silly. There's a mention of the Kingsguard dealing with troublesome dragons, which raises an immediate question: aren't they the *king's* guard? The first chapter from the dragon rider's POV was heavy on telling and very light on showing, and the exposition throughout is a persistent problem. The book insists on explaining things to the reader before the reader has any reason to care about them. As someone who genuinely loves descriptive writing, it says a lot that I was tempted to skip straight to the next dialogue tag.

The book also feels underedited. There are plotting mistakes throughout that a good editorial pass would have caught, which surprised me given that the author apparently has quite a few titles to their name. Interestingly, the vocabulary is strong, but the craft around it, the plotting, the pacing, the exposition, doesn't match that level. It makes me wonder if AI was somewhat involved in the writing of this book.

I was so preoccupied by the writing itself that I couldn't care about the romance, which is a shame given that's what the book is about.

[The Sapphic Nerd · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** ARC provided by NetGalley ***

This sets the main characters up to be enemies-to-lovers, but really, it's just a not-the-best first impression that's too quickly dissolved by their attraction to each other and no real chemistry. The author tells us they're attracted to each other, but I don't feel it. Aside from the physical attraction (which, again, I'm told but don't feel), I don't understand why these characters are into each other. Their bond grows far too fast without appropriate reasoning. The moments between them don't warrant such strong emotional attachment. That makes Eden's reaction to Vaela's accident feel inauthentic and not earned.

Eden (who's supposed to have a ton of experience dealing with the worst dragon-inflicted injuries) gets so emotional while healing Vaela after her accident. Why? They've known each other for, what, a few days? Their time together hasn't been intense in a way that accelerates bonding. They've both just been going about their lives doing their normal daily routines. Sure, maybe they have little crushes on each other, but nothing deep yet. I'd think Eden would have learned how to compartmentalize better by now. Get the job done first and cry about it later. Instead, she's crying and losing her place in front of the patient, and the others have to prompt her to action or answer questions.

Also, I'm not a fan of people who don't have established implied consent kissing people while they're sleeping. It'd be one thing if they were already dating, but the way it's handled here made me grimace.

This is an easy read that's forgettable among the array of cozy fantasy sapphic romances. Romantasy junk food, if you will, which has its place. I do enjoy a shallow, mindless read every now and then, but I wish I liked this more. I wanted to at least enjoy the chemistry and romance. It's frustrating because it feels like the author is forcing the characters to progress in their relationship prematurely and doing far more telling than showing, which strips all the emotion out of it. At least this book doesn't make me angry, I guess? It's just bland.

[Emma Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

💜 Blurb -
Burn nurse Eden has accepted a job from her old mentor at the Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps, hoping for peace and quiet in Ember Ridge — a charming mountain town famous for singed tourists and reckless dragon riders. Instead, she arrives to find the infirmary in chaos.
Her mentor is stranded out of town, wild dragons are causing havoc and Eden is left running the infirmary on her first day. Worse, she keeps crossing paths with Vaela, the town’s dragon wrangler, whose talent for surviving impossible situations is matched only by a talent for getting under Eden’s skin.
Vaela is everything Eden hates: brooding, reckless and arrogant.
But when local dragons begin acting strangely and the kingsguard descends on Ember Ridge, whispers spread of the Wretch — the most feared dragon in the realm. Eden and Vaela are forced into an uneasy partnership to save the town, but every argument between them sparks into something hotter and far more dangerous than they expected.
Because falling for a dragon wrangler was never part of Eden’s plan. But neither is watching Ember Ridge — and her guarded heart — go up in flames.
💚 Review -
Fans of enemies to lovers, cosy Romantasy novels will love this. From the very first chapter the author's writing had me hooked and I kept reading until the end as I wanted to know what happened. I loved everything about this novel and how the author draws you into the dragon world. The author's writing is so good that sometimes I forgot that I was reading and I felt like I was in the story with the characters. I loved the small town place setting in the story and there was a great cast of characters. Overall a brilliant novel that I highly recommend to other readers. I look forward to reading more by the author.
💝 Thank you to Boldwood Books, the author Elizabeth Hrib and Netgalley for my arc ebook copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, thank you to NetGalley, Elizabeth Hrib, and Boldwood Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps! I love a cozy fantasy romance, and adding dragons to the mix was basically a guaranteed way to get me interested.
The story follows Eden, a burn nurse who moves to the small mountain town of Ember Ridge to work at an infirmary that treats people injured by dragons. Instead of the quiet life she was hoping for, she finds herself thrown into chaos almost immediately. Then there's Vaela, the town's dragon wrangler, who is basically the complete opposite of Eden and gets on her nerves from the start. Their relationship was such a fun part of the story, especially watching all that initial annoyance turn into something more.
And obviously, the dragons! I loved getting to see the different dragons and learning more about what it actually means to be a dragon wrangler. Min was definitely a standout for me and completely stole some of the scenes she was in.
I also really enjoyed the small-town setting and the found-family aspect. The world-building was easy to follow without feeling like I was being hit with pages and pages of information, which I really appreciated in a cozy fantasy. There was enough going on with the strange dragon behavior, the King's Guard, and the mystery surrounding the Wretch to keep the story moving, while still keeping that overall cozy feeling.
Overall, this was just a really cute and easy read. It has dragons, a sapphic romance, grumpy x sunshine, found family, a small town, and plenty of cozy moments. If you're looking for something low-stakes and fun that you can curl up with when you need a break from heavier fantasy, I definitely recommend giving this one a try.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars! This was exactly the kind of cozy romantasy I was in the mood for, and I would happily spend more time in Ember Ridge.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, I thought this was a fun, cozy, easy read that I enjoyed. I liked the concept of the dragons just being a normal part of the world, and I thought the setting of the infirmary was interesting. I also liked the characters, especially Vaela, and I absolutely loved Min even if she never said a word.

I just wish we had gotten a little more.

I don’t feel like I truly got to know the characters. Yes, we learned of their traumas and stuff, and I did like the characters, but I felt like it focused on their trauma a little too much to the point that I felt like that’s almost all I knew about them, especially with Eden. This focus also made things feel a little redundant at times. This is partly why I wasn’t quite as invested in the romance as I should have been. The other part is because things moved a little too quickly for me.

I would have liked maybe a little more conflict between Eden and Vaela in the beginning or at least a few more scenes together. They very quickly went from annoyed to infatuated with each other, and I wish we had gotten more interactions with them while there was still some of that tension and they were still being snarky with each other. Because this says it’s an enemies to lovers book (which is a trope I love), but I don’t really consider this one. At best, they’re annoyed with each other for a brief time. As it was, the romance was just too rushed and insta-lovey.

As I said in the beginning, I did enjoy this book. I just think with some tweaks that it could have been even better. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Thank you NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

[✧ Gemma ✧ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3⭐️

A cosy mountain-town romantasy where the dragons are wild, the ale is worth paying extra for, and the burn is slow but worth it.

I adored the setting from page one. Ember Ridge sits right on the migration route of wild dragons, and everything about it felt lived-in and warm - sticky buns for breakfast, good ale, a town that just gets on with life alongside these massive creatures passing through. It's cosy fantasy at its best.

Vaela is exactly my type of fmc: tough on the outside, squishy on the inside. She's brave, funny, caring, and notices everything - the twitch of a lip, the placement of a finger. With Eden she never held back. It was always her, fully.

Eden's arc is the one that really got me though. Her softness on the outside hides real strength underneath, and her first scene sets that up perfectly - she freezes when a burn patient comes in, has her moment, then her instincts kick in anyway. That same beat repeats a few times through the book, sometimes with Vaela nearby, sometimes right there with her, and each time the freeze gets shorter. Her backstory is sad, but it explains so much - where her reservations come from, but also her spirit and her bravery. By the end she's confident, comfortable and happy.

The plot threads left me with a lot of hope for book two. But so many of the smaller hopes throughout the book get tidied up nicely too.

Overall a good, comforting read - I'd recommend it to anyone who loves cosy romantasy.

You'll love this book if you're a fan of:
- Cosy mountain-town settings
- Wild dragons
- Found family
- Slow burn
- Tough-outside-soft-inside heroines
- Sad backstories with a hopeful payoff

Thank you to Elizabeth, Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC.

[Ashley Sawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Elizabeth Hrib and Boldwood Books for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps was such a fun and cozy read! It has everything I love in a fantasy: dragons, a whimsical atmosphere, and characters that feel layered and authentic.

Eden is a burn nurse determined to find a permanent way to protect dragon riders from devastating dragon fire after a traumatic event from her past. Vaela, a devoted dragon wrangler, would do anything to keep her dragon, Min, safe. I loved watching their relationship develop as repeated visits to the infirmary bring them together and they begin working side by side to investigate new methods of protection against dragon fire.

The characters were easily my favorite part of the story. They each had their own motivations, fears, and emotional depth, making it easy to become invested in both their individual journeys and their growing romance. Min was also an absolute highlight and completely stole my heart.

As the threat of the king’s obsession with capturing an impossible dragon grows, the stakes rise, and Eden and Vaela are forced to race against time to complete their protective solution. The blend of cozy, whimsical moments with higher-stakes fantasy kept me hooked from beginning to end.

If you’re looking for a sapphic fantasy filled with dragons and whimsy, I’d definitely recommend picking this one up!

[Scott Cutlip · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps, Eden is a burn nurse (dragon burns being very prevalent, at least part of the time) who has taken a job with her mentor. Unfortunately, he is running a task at the moment (and you get the feeling it might last a bit more than a moment). Almost immediately she runs into Vaela, the area’s dragon wrangler. Their interactions are immediately antagonistic.

Vaela’s attitude at the beginning are sort of at odds with how she is as a character later. She is never what I would call a ball of sunshine, but I do feel like the aggressiveness and disdain she displays at the beginning are more of an anomaly, and yet no one seems to comment on it.

There is enough chemistry and banter between the two that it’s easy to look past this initial bump (and I find it likely it may not stick out to many). The blurb suggests this is a cozy fantasy in the manner of Legends and Lattes (and others, but that was the one I read), and I could see that. There are stakes in the book, but you never feel like there is a possibility that it won’t turn out well. And that’s what a cozy fantasy promises.

The final chapter (and the fact it is listed as book 1) indicates there will be at least a sequel, if not several, but it’s debatable whether it will be the same main characters. At the very least, I am all in on reading the next one, based on this.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novel about Eden, a burn nurse, who’s trying to find a more peaceful environment, and finds herself helping in an infirmary that tends to dragon “mishaps”. Here she meets the reckless dragon Wrangler, Vaela, who she insists needs to be more cautious. And this along with some other small adventures lead to a sweet romance and a cosy read.

This was a really sweet and cosy fantasy sapphic romance. We can always do with more sapphic romances being published.

I really liked the world were put into with this one. It just seems lively (though that could be just the side characters being exuberant and standout).

As soon as I saw dragons and riders, I knew I would thoroughly enjoy this book. Which I did. I liked both the POVs though I feel like we didn’t get a lot of truly in depth knowledge on either MC. Everything was a bit surface level. I loved the side characters, especially Min, she was just a wee delight the whole time.

It felt short, and I do feel like it could’ve went on a bit more and prolonged some of the situations that arose. I also feel like the romance was a bit ‘blink and you’ll miss it’. They were a cute couple, but there didn’t seem to be much interaction or crush like tendencies before they were “in love”

Overall, this was a very enjoyable read and I would recommend it to anyone who doesn’t want a high stakes book but still have the fantasy vibes we love in this genre.

- Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC

[trawlings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of advance copy received from NetGalley

Rating: 4 stars ⭐️

🐉 dragons! Lots of dragons!
🏡 small village vibes
🩺 infirmary/ medical
❤️ sapphic romance (mild spice)
🥰 found family

Review:

This was such an easy and pleasant book to read. The pacing was good, it flowed really well and I liked the writing. I liked the characters - there was depth to the main characters and I loved how Eden opened up over the course of the story.

I do wish it had a bit more world building and explanation around how people feel about the dragons. Dragon wranglers seem to bond with their dragons and the relationship between Vaela and Min was beautiful and adorable. However, the dragons also seem to be a nuisance generally to most of the villagers, although it’s not clear whether it’s only because of the migration.

I loved the 2 epilogues/ final chapters! I’ll be picking up the next book which seems like it is going to follow Eden’s brother. I’m hoping that one of the plot points in this story about a disease developing in border towns is expanded upon in the next book.

It had some elements of a cosy fantasy but I’d say there were mild stakes involved, so I think those who like a bit of action and some stakes will enjoy this, as will any enjoyers of cosy fantasy generally.

Thank you to Elizabeth Hrib, Boldwood Books and NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Nikki Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about learning to love yourself and your flaws, seeing past differences and learning to be brave and make yourself vulnerable around others.

Eden grew up helping to treat the burns on various soldiers in the Kings Guard, where her father served. But after tragedy struck she's now fearful of fire - not something a Burn Nurse should be. However, the chance to work with her mentor again leads Eden to a fresh start in hi small infirmary and she finds herself falling in love with the town, her new found friends and the irritating Vaela!

Vaela has always felt 2nd best to her brother. She was the wild child who wouldn't listen and managed to lost a partial limb. Now she's a dragon wrangler, and with Min, a silver Starshot who bonded with her, she does her best to guide the migrating dragons away from misadventure.

Eden and Vaela are so caught up in the bickering between them that they're kind of last to see what everyone else does - these two like each other. But before the romance can really take off they have to deal with misbehaving dragons, wyrms, a missing mentor and family dysfunction!

The little family that forms includes Matty, Nisse, Seraphine and they are soon up to their elbows in dragon scales and committing a bit of treason!

Magical mishaps, burgeoning romance, bickering found family - this has something for everyone. And who doesn't love a book dripping in dragons!

[rebeccareads · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps is a super sweet, easily digestible, cozy fantasy with a lovely sapphic romance and some pulse-pounding action.

I loved the cute-little-town-plus-dragons setting, and was rather fascinated by the work of burn healer FMC Eden. Wrangler FMC Vaela's dragon scenes are genuinely entertaining, and even a bit thrilling, with the action a cut above what's usually found in cozy fantasies. And once we get the enemies bit of enemies-to-lovers out of the way, I really enjoyed the romance between Eden and Vaela. It's definitely not anywhere close to actual enemies-to-lovers, more like a-bit-rude-to-each-other-to-force-a-trope-to-lovers. But luckily that mess is over quickly, and their romance is sweet, with a very nice ending. The side characters are also substantial and interesting enough that I was glad to see that some of them will be getting their own story in book 2. It seems like it's going in an MF direction, so I'll likely skip it, but I enjoyed this one even more than I expected.

Fans of FF, cozy, and dragon-oriented fantasies absolutely shouldn't miss The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

[Shoe Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps. Going in, I was hoping for a steamy, high-stakes dragon romantasy with the same vibe as Havemercy. Unfortunately, despite a promising premise, this book left me grounded and wanting.

The core issue lies in the central romance. The connection between Eden, the burn nurse, and Vaela, the reckless dragon wrangler, feels unearned. The narrative attempts a "grumpy vs. sunshine" dynamic, but Vaela’s standoffishness dissolves far too quickly into devotion without the necessary buildup. One moment they are clashing, and the next, they are in love; the emotional arc feels rushed rather than earned, robbing the "slow burn" tag of any real heat.

World-building inconsistencies also hindered my immersion. The dragons themselves felt undefined; their scale shifts confusingly from massive beasts to horse-sized companions depending on the scene, making it difficult to visualize their place in the world. Besideso Vaela’s stablehand, the supporting cast felt like background noise. They lacked depth and investment in the plot, serving more as props than fully developed characters.

While Elizabeth Hrib’s writing style is competent and the setting of Ember Ridge has potential, the execution falls flat. It was an okay read, but given my high expectations, I ultimately felt letdown.

[MontyTheReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a cozy, heartwarming read that completely swept me into its charming world. The small-town setting and magical world-building felt wonderfully immersive, and it was the kind of story that was incredibly easy to sink into.

The characters were the real highlight for me! They were hilarious, heartfelt, and so easy to root for. I especially appreciated the queer and disability representation, which felt thoughtfully woven into the story and added even more depth to an already lovable cast.

As someone from Ontario, Canada, I was also delighted to discover that the author is from Ontario too! It always catches me off guard in the best way, and it made me feel especially proud to be reading such a lovely story from a fellow Ontarian.

Overall, this was a warm, imaginative, and comforting fantasy that left me smiling. If you’re looking for a cosy, dragon, sapphic read- this book is for you!

I'm already looking forward to seeing where the story goes in book 2!

This book will be out August 28, 2026 - run to your nearest bookshop.

[Abbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ebook ARC from the publisher via Netgalley.

This is a really sweet cozy fantasy with a sapphic romance at the heart of it. Eden and Vaela were great character, and the will they/won't they was very well done. Hrib wove in each of their backgrounds throughout the story so that we could better understand their motivation and connection, so when they did get their happy ever after, it was that much sweeter.

I actually loved that this was a dragon book where the focus was on the infirmary and fixing all the wounds from dragon fire and other problems. I also think Hrib did a great job with the subtle worldbuilding outside of Ember's Ridge by bringing in the Vaela's brother with the king's guard and introducing the rumors and information about a potentially problematic neighboring kingdom - it sets it up well as she continues the series.

And while the focus is, of course, on Eden and Vaela, I appreciated that Hrib didn't stint on developing the secondary characters like Nisse, Seraphine, Matty, Rae, and Poppy. They were a chaotic and fun crew that got serious when someone was hurt, jumping into action. I'm really looking forward to what comes next as we follow the next story!

[Taylor-Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sapphic romance, dragons and grumpy x sunshine? I’m in!

Wow, I devoured this book! It was cosy, charming and magical. This was such a lovely read and left me wanting a whole series!💜

Eden, a burn nurse who is terrified of dragon fire, meets grumpy Vaela, the town’s fierce dragon wrangler. Eden was expecting a calm, easy time at the infirmary but instead finds it in complete chaos, with arrogant, grumpy (and let’s face it, hot) Vaela getting under her skin. But when the kingsguard arrive in small town Ember Ridge, word spreads that they are on the hunt for the most dangerous dragon and Vaela and Eden are pulled into saving the town. As the partnership work together, dragon fire is not the only sparks flying.🔥

This book was BRILLIANT. I love the grumpy x sunshine trope and this did not disappoint. I have never read a book like this, and I am so happy I got the chance to. I love the different relationship dynamics, with Eden and her father like figure Gunther, and how Vaela’s hard exterior morphs into sibling childish humour when she is around her brother. And I so wish I could have Min as my own dragon. 🐉

It was honestly everything I could have hoped for in a cosy sapphic romantasy.

Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books and Elizabeth Hrib for letting me read this ARC✨