Dragon's Heart

Pit Dragon Chronicles #4

by Jane Yolen

Austar IV isn't the planet it once was, and when Jakkin and Akki finally return to the dragon nursery, their homecoming arouses mixed emotions. Together they've survived the insurmountable, and now they can weather the brutal conditions of Dark After and communicate with the dragons they love. But with this knowledge comes responsibility. What they've learned about survival could transform the planet--or, if entrusted to the wrong hands, bring about its destruction. Akki's insistence that she return to the Rokk to finish her training and begin new experiments drives a chasm between her and Jakkin. Suddenly she finds herself in the midst of a political battle that could claim her life. Only Jakkin can save her. If only he could reach her. . . .

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Middle Grade

405 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 4, 2009

About the author

Jane Yolen is a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who has written more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lives in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.

Reviews

[Cait · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sequel! A sequel! Look -- it's book four at last!

I reread the first three just before picking up this one; the transition was certainly jarring and I saw a few errors in consistency, but overall this book fits in very well with the older books.

That's good and bad, as it turns out. The main thing that drove me nuts in the earlier books, especially the first two, was people jumping to conclusions instead of talking to each other, and most of the arguments between Akki and Jakkin made me want to reach into the book and slap them both. Yes, they're teenagers, but they're teenagers who've been living together on the run for a year and who can read each others' minds.

Also, this is the book where things with sex -- or the coyness around it -- can only be called weird. Again I say: living together for a year. In a cave. Granted, they had less need than usual to huddle for warmth, but still. These lines from the third book, A Sending of Dragons, remain the sweetest moment between the two of them in the whole series (and they aren't even together) --

When he really became bored with his own company and felt himself slipping back into the half-sleep, he invented imaginary dialogues with Akki. She ended every one of those conversations with a hug. He got so he could feel her arms around him, the softness of her cheek on his.

And the surprise gay secondary characters were...strange. Also the thing -- I'm trying really hard not to give spoilers here -- the thing with Likkarn was far too pat and undermined him a lot.

All of that aside! I really enjoyed this book. A lot of the questions thrown open at the end of A Sending of Dragons were explored here, and I was satisfied with the ending of this story because it didn't have answers. This is the story of Jakkin and Akki, not of Austar IV -- well, mostly the story of Jakkin, although Akki's role is somewhat expanded -- and its central concepts are trust and responsibility. Solving the world's problems (and giving it new ones) can be handwaved in the epilogue if the characters' stories are resolved.

I was pleased with most of Likkarn and amused by the complications poor Doctor Henk(k)y faced, and Sssargon remains ridiculous and cute.

I would love to see more of this world's questions explored, but I don't know if Jakkin's story can give any more than it has; what I'd really like would be other people's stories, more exploration of the consequences of the slavery laws being lifted, some coherent explanation of the mountain cave dwellers (who are bizarrely called "trogs" in this book with no explanation of the source of that name) and their settlements, and for someone to realize that the food economy of Austar is about to be smashed.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, you have to understand that Jakkin Stewart is probably my first "literary character crush." He's handsome, smart, strong, kind . . . AND HAS HIS OWN DRAGON. I read the original trilogy at a young, impressionable age, and determined that a)I must have my own dragon and b)I loved Jakkin. So when I found out that after 25+ years, Yolen had written a sequel, I nearly fainted. First thought: YAY! Second thought: WHAT IF IT'S TERRIBLE?!

Ah, Jane, I knew you wouldn't let me down!

Yolen slips seamlessly back into the world of Austar IV, a former penal colony plagued by indentured servitude, hostile climate, and monstrous beasts. Picking up shortly after A Sending of Dragons leaves off, Jakkin and Akki are dealing with the consequences of being able to speak mind-to-mind with dragons . . . and wrestling with the problem of whether or not to share this skill with the rest of the world. All my fears were quickly dismissed as "my" people (Jakkin, Akki, Likkarn, Golden) all stayed true to, ahem, character. The dialogue, the action, the romance, everything was precisely in keeping with the ealier trilogy, in short: a sheer delight for a fan like me. I loved the book, and the resolution.

So if you, like me, have been wondering what happened to our friends and their brood of dragons, fear not: the author has provided a brilliant final chapter to their story. (Yes, I'm guessing from the epilogue that Yolen is saying goodbye for good to Austar IV. But it's a great goodbye!)

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Look what you did, you revisited a perfectly good complete trilogy after something like 20 years, and now it's got anxiety. Dragons can now do all manner of things they couldn't do before, everyone's OOC, and that's not how you spell that one character's name, how hard is it to just glance back at a previous book to check the spelling...

Anyway. I was happy to revisit Austar IV, but it's not the same Austar IV I remember, and I'm just going to pretend this book didn't really happen.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite liked my return to the Pit Dragon Chronicles in this most recent addition to Yolen's series. I didn't reread the other books before I picked this one up, and didn't find it difficult to remember where I'd left off, even though it had been several years since I read the third in the series.

Jakkin and Akki return from their exile in the mountains completely changed and they find that the world they left behind has changed in their absence as well. They decide to hide their new telepathic abilities gained by sheltering in the egg chamber of Heart's Blood after her death to save themselves from the searing cold of Dark After. But hiding such powers aren't as easy as they hoped. And there are still dark forces at work on Austar and Jakkin and Akki are once again caught up into the heart of them.

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

After their return from hiding in the caves and their evolution into a hybrid species, Akki and Jakkin find themselves forced to deal with a changed world where bonders are now free. Akki does to Rokk to try to find the science behind their evolution and is kidnapped as part of a political battle for a seat in the senate. Jakkin is frantic and uses his dragons to help find and rescue Akki. I liked this fourth story better than the earlier ones.

[Ry Herman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fully three quarters of this book is a great story and an excellent addition to the series, featuring the very much welcome use of Akki as a point of view character, and a propulsive plot. So it's baffling that 100 pages are wasted on Jakkin going on yet another drakk hunt, adding almost nothing to the plot. Essentially, this is a really good 300 page book which for some reason is 400 pages long.

[Scratch · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Bury Your Gays" much?

So this series has been a very small story, for the most part. Jakkin and his girlfriend live on a frozen desert planet where the only real resource is dragons. The dragons are very bird-like, and are used both as a source of meat and as a source of entertainment in pit fighting. We learned at the end of the second book in this miniseries that the dragons can pass on their immunity to cold and their telepathy if people are exposed to a dragon's egg chamber (womb). There has been a subplot about a group of rebels wanting to blow up the government of this planet, but that has always annoyed me. Even from Jakkin and Akki's perspective, the terrorists were only relevant insofar as they convinced Jakkin and Akki to carry a bomb once; the merits of the terrorists' cause is never seriously explored.

Unfortunately, this story returned to the terrorist rebels as an enemy. The book also tried to struggle with the enormous weight of the question as to whether these draconic super powers could be made available to every single resident of the planet. Because this story typically only focuses on Jakkin and Akki to the exclusion of all else, the author decided to keep up with that, and concluded the novel by just ignoring the weighty task of altering the planet's socioeconomic status quo until a mention in an epilogue.

I could forgive that, because it's in keeping with the overall tone of this story. A very microscopic, narrow focus on two main characters (and even at that, mostly focusing on Jakkin), and all the planetary politics are incidental.

What I can't forgive is that the author decided to indulge the "Bury Your Gays" trope, for no particular purpose.

Errikken was introduced in previous novels, and all we really knew about him was that he was a boy at the dragon nursery with Jakkin, and he really enjoyed having Jakkin as his "master," choosing to stay in his bond without any attempt to free himself. We now have more evidence to suggest that the reason for this was because he was in love with Jakkin. However, the author did not make this explicit. She showed him pouting a lot, at least once suggesting that he was upset with Jakkin for choosing Akki over him, and we saw him kiss another boy's hand. Finally, after portraying this quite-possibly-but-not-explicitly-queer boy as whiney and nearly useless for most of the novel, he is then given one dramatic display of usefulness where he fights to protect Jakkin. ... And dies.

Because of course he does.

There was also a lesbian character who did explicitly state she was interested in another female character. Her presence and her crush were never really resolved. Last we saw her she got shot in the head and was in a coma. While as far as we know she might actually have survived this experience (maybe), her presence in the book was more confounding. She was infatuated with a very minor side character. There was no resolution to the infatuation. Therefore, why was she even in this book? She could have been removed and it wouldn't have affected the plot very much. Or any disposable character could have been used to take her place as someone who got shot while standing next to Akki.

Why go to the trouble of naming a character as a lesbian, and then not allowing that character to have a meaningful contribution to the plot?

I started out wanting to give this 4 stars for appealing to me with the dragons and telepathy and inclusion of gay characters. But by the end, where the gays are killed or otherwise relegated to the status of non-entities (and, of course, they aren't allowed to be in happy relationships with anyone), I downgraded this.

[ambyr · Rating 2 out of 5]

The good: for a book written decades after the rest of the series, this actually does a solid job picking up on the characterization and tone of the earlier books. There's a few jarring notes (the introduction of religion, the term "trog"), but mostly it slides in cleanly with its predecessors.

The bad: for a book written decades after the rest of the series, this . . . is a book that still reads as very much a 1980s work. There are explicitly queer people (although frankly not much more explicitly so than in the original trilogy; Errikkin's crush on Jakkin was not subtle), but their stories all end tragically. There's no real attempt to undermine the "some people are just naturally slaves" rhetoric that pervades the entire series, even though this is set in a brave new future when everyone has been freed. And overall, too much of this book feels like a mash-up of the first three books, with only the final pages really moving the story forward.

I'm not sad it was written, I'm not sad to have revisited a favorite world from my youth, but I think I've taken all I can from Austar IV and won't be returning.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

At last, Akki gets a point of view! It is only somewhat illuminating of her reasonings. Why does she trust Golden? Why did she agree to help the rebels as his spy? What does she want for Austar IV? No idea!

The bad guy is a repeat of the one from book 2. He's rather more menacing here, but still cartoonishly evil. It's not clear what he wants, really, even though it's all supposed to be politically motivated. Maybe he just wants to watch the world burn? Who knows!

There's some promising tendrils about what it means that the master/bond relationship has been dissolved, but none of it really gets developed.

Errikkin, who has been irritating for 3 books, dies "heroically" but he's such a jerk it's hard to feel anything about it.

Likkarn is SURPRISE! Jakkin's uncle? What?

The book ends with a postscript that wraps up a bunch of plot lines, in a way that suggests Jane Yolen doesn't want to be nagged to finish the story. Yet for all that, the plotline with the "trogs" remains unresolved. What happens with them? Are they exterminated? Rehabilitated? No idea. Don't particularly care to find out.

[M. Cuthill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh man, I love me some Jane Yolen and I was dying for another installment in one of my favorite YA series of all time, but... this left me cold. I was expecting something bigger, deeper, richer, both more personal and more mythopoeic, at which Yolen excels. What I felt we got was a rather pedestrian retread of the second book - much running about, very little happening of significance to the greater narrative or character development. This isn't the first time I've had this experience reading a new book written for an old series, and I think I've learned my lesson: you can't go home again. I'll skip the belated sequels from now on.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm was this book necessary...probably not.
Did I like seeing these characters again? yes.
Did the mystery hold my attention? not really.
Did I get my questions about the world answered? not really.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's about a girl who cracked a window or a mirror which was a portal to a world with a man and dragons.This girl was in a house.One thing I like about this book is it has dragon's and I like dragons.One thing I dislike about this book is that the dragons.

[lunarlibrarian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wasn't impressed. This ending kind of deflated the entire 4-book series.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first 2 books in the series were great. 3 and 4 were so so, guess that's what happens when they books are written 20+ years apart.

[Kaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun series - a bit too young for me, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

[Pamela Bronson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really glad Jane Yolen wrote this book to complete her pit dragon series, years after the first three. I was delighted to find that it picks up right after the third one ends - I had supposed it would be about the next generation.

I was expecting this book would resolve a problem set up in the previous one, but instead the author set up several new crises, two of them life-and-death. I don't think it's a significant spoiler to say that while a few characters die, our two heroes are ultimately rescued - or rescue themselves. Dragons are involved, of course.

The major ongoing concern is finally resolved, largely in an encyclopedia entry postscript. Yolen has imitated Asimov in opening all the books with such an entry, but this is the only one which ends with one. If it hadn't, she would have had to write another book. Her dedication implies that she was hounded to write this one. I'm so glad she gave in. I am satisfied.

Both main characters continue to grow in courage and resourcefulness and the young man gets a dramatically new perspective on another person who has seemed to be a persecutor and antagonist for most of his life.


I've barely mentioned dragons, but as the title implies, they are the heart and soul of the story. The heroes' ties with dragons are as important as their relationship with each other, and saving the species from a looming threat is their overarching goal. There are no fewer than seven dragon characters in this book.

I think the title also refers to the fortitude displayed by the two humans.

I think this book is suitable for 12 or 14 and up. We are never told whether or not the young couple have or had a sexual relationship, though they briefly kiss at the end of the first book and declare their love in the second or third. Did they consider themselves "pair-bonded" which seems to be this planet's equivalent of marriage? They were alone together, albeit with dragons, for almost a year, because it didn't seem safe for them to return to their friends. But they don't complain when they return and are assigned separate rooms in men's and women's quarters.


An unrequited same-sex love comes up briefly, not involving either of the two protagonists, and we are told that same-sex pair-bonds occur. I suspect that the author felt that since this, unlike the others, is a 21st century book, she had to include something like that to show where she stands.

[Sandy Lender · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the end of the trilogy, Senator Golden brought Jakkin, Akki, Auricle (breeding dragon), and the tiny hatchling back to the nursery where now we see the master/bonder society has changed...for the better. Senator Golden also wishes to remain a senator, so we have a plot point in this book that involves politics and a debate stage, which, surprisingly, does NOT bog down the story. It's written cleverly enough to include humor and not get bogged down in too much political mumbo jumbo. There's a hint of suspense, which I won't give away, that gets you turning the pages pretty quickly through there...

We have character deaths to remind us Austar IV is an inhospitable planet. We have duplicitous characters to remind us to trust no one. We have self-centered dragons to remind us these large creatures have minds/needs of their own. (I enjoyed the dragons sending their emotions, colors, visuals back and forth.) And we have a motherly cook in the character named Kkarina, who, for some reason, we are constantly, throughout the book, reminded, is heavy-set.

I saw two themes in the book:
from page 37: "And anyone, he warned himself, no matter how careful, can trip himself up over a lie."
from page 52: "Jakkin wondered if his own unease had more to do with the fact that he'd had to win his own freedom with hard work. Bonders used to say, 'I fill my bag myself.' Did they anymore? Why would they, if somehow the hard work of filling a bag no longer mattered?"

I was disappointed in our two main characters, Jakkin and Akki, quite often in this book. While I recognize they're only 16 and 17, respectively, (and I had to find that in the text to remember their ages) they don't always act like young adults. Akki often acts like a much older, much more mature young woman who wants to return to her medical training; Jakkin often acts like a younger boy with knee-jerk reactions to events. Don't get me wrong, his reactions propel the plot/action and keep the reader reading along, but I often found myself rolling my eyes and thinking a lad who had survived a year in the wilds/mountains should be making better decisions.

In the end, the dragons kept me happy. I read this as part of my Dragon Reading Challenge for my booktube channel. A more robust review of the Pit Dragon Trilogy is posted from about a year ago. Now this one is ready, too!

[Scot Eaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a far better conclusion to Jakkin and Akki's story than "A Sending of Dragons", and it's crazy that fans of this had to wait 20 years, as compared to 1 day for me.

That being said, this book has a lot of problems. Characters like Kkarina and Erikkin have become Flanderized, Likkarn pulls a not-convincing Snape on the readers (he was a sweetheart all along!), and there are some troubling plot points. Jakkin and Akki both get captured by various parties on the same night, and both end up with concussions, but Jakkin escapes on his own while Akki has to wait to be rescued. Akki as a character is capable of so much more, but it felt like Yolen went the easy route just to be done with the series.

All in all, this series had one legitimately great book (Heart's Blood) and 3 fairly average entries. I'm glad I read them, but I won't be treasuring my copies.

[Miles Bergeson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I didn’t feel like this book was as strong as the first two books in the series, but I thought it was still a good conclusion to the series and I enjoyed reading it overall. There was one choice made by a main character in this book that just… it was a bad decision, and I know they’re still just 18 years old or so, but it even then it still seemed like an unbelievably bad decision. I kept reading anyway, and I was glad I did because some other interesting things happen, but it did really mar my enjoyment of this book. I think I’d rate this one 3.5/4, but I’ll round up because I enjoyed it overall.

Overall, I really enjoyed this world and this setting. I’m glad to have read all four books. The author has some insightful things to say through the fiction, and some really lovely turns of phrases and descriptions across all four books.

[Courtney Cantrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book, I had to remind myself multiple times that Jakkin and Akki are teenagers with adult responsibilities; I kept getting frustrated with both of them for their communication issues, which verges into territory of "the author didn't write this the way I wanted." But Yolen works it out in the end, although I'm left wanting more "on-screen" wrap-up in place of the encyclopedic summary at the end.

All of that said, I enjoyed J's & A's adventure and the discoveries, and I recommend the series to dragon lovers and readers of YA fantasy.

[Kate H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy Jane Yolen's books; I think she really knows how to craft a story and characters. The Pit Dragon Chronicles is one of my favorite series of hers and it definitely holds up over time. I do think the first couple books are the strongest and then it does tail off a bit after that. There are many dragon stories but this does not feel repetitive or similar to others.

[Tina Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This series just didn't work for me. I liked the first book in the series but not the following three. The story moved away from the dragons and more into the world and its politics and I didn't enjoy the world or its politics. Plus the creep factor from the Throgs made it an uncomfortable read for me.

[Myssi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still like the first one best, but I can’t get upset that a junior/teen book written in the 80’s doesn’t have the depth of character or more complex plot lines that books I normally read have. Still fun and happy I finally found this series.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story started well, but got really sluggish in the middle. The main characters are a lot bland; they seem to revert to their mindsets from the first book. But the dragons are enjoyable. The ending seemed rushed.

[Angela Thornburg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

A good series that moves fast. Book two is a bit gross, but overall very enjoyable. A nice new author for me.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the long gap between the first three novels and this one, this feels very much in-line with the previous ones. I have all the same fondnesses and issues with it as I do the first three.

[Juanita Trujillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading this book and hope for more to come

A great book to read. I hope more will come with this book to continue with the series . The best book ever

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like a different series than the first 3. Not surprising since it was written so many years later but still kind of disappointing.

[Image Object]

remembered this series from my childhood

[Noelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5