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Fern Capel #2
Drakendwinger
Sinds de traumatische gebeurtenissen uit De kinderen van Prospero zijn er twaalf jaren verstreken. Fern Capel lijkt er bijna in geslaagd de herinnering aan die magische, angstaanjagende zomer van zich af te zetten, waarin ze streed tegen een heks, verliefd werd en een pact sloot met een demon. Sterker nog, ze heeft de oeroude erfenis van haar Gave schenkt weggedrukt uit haar gedachten en haar herinneringen.
Maar het verleden is bezig haar in te halen. Fern staat op het punt te trouwen met de bekende wetenschapper Marcus Grieg - die zo'n twintig jaar ouder is dan zij - en hij heeft bedacht dat het leuk zou zijn de bruiloft te vieren in het zomerhuis van de Capels in Yorkshire. Als Fern met haar beste vriendin Gaynor naar het huis terugkeert, merkt ze dat ze wederom heen en weer wordt geslingerd tussen de liefde en het lot.
Want haar aankomst wekt niet alleen de hernieuwde belangstelling van Azmordis, de Oudste Geest, maar brengt haar ook onder de aandacht van een wezen dat nog gevaarlijker is dan hij. Gevangen in een tijd buiten de tijd, onder een kolossale Boom die beladen is met vreemde vruchten, wacht iemand die al millennialang naar Fern op zoek is en die haar zinnen heeft gezet op de Gave die haar ban zal verbreken.
Wanneer haar achtervolgers steeds dichterbij komen, moet Fern een keus maken: ofwel ze trouwt met Marcus en gaat een leven zonder magie en wonderen tegemoet, ofwel ze koestert haar Gave, waardoor ze belandt in een bovennatuurlijk conflict waarbij de levens van degenen die haar dierbaar zijn op het spel worden gezet. Als de tijd dringt, is de dodelijke, hypnotische en legendarische drakendwinger haar enige hoop.
Drakendwinger zet de lyrische, rijke sfeer en de betoverende vertelling van De kinderen van Prospero voort. Het biedt fascinerende beschrijvingen van bekende en onbekende plaatsen, en van karakters die zowel magisch als sinister zijn. Een voorbeeld van klassieke Engelse fantasy op zijn best.
Maar het verleden is bezig haar in te halen. Fern staat op het punt te trouwen met de bekende wetenschapper Marcus Grieg - die zo'n twintig jaar ouder is dan zij - en hij heeft bedacht dat het leuk zou zijn de bruiloft te vieren in het zomerhuis van de Capels in Yorkshire. Als Fern met haar beste vriendin Gaynor naar het huis terugkeert, merkt ze dat ze wederom heen en weer wordt geslingerd tussen de liefde en het lot.
Want haar aankomst wekt niet alleen de hernieuwde belangstelling van Azmordis, de Oudste Geest, maar brengt haar ook onder de aandacht van een wezen dat nog gevaarlijker is dan hij. Gevangen in een tijd buiten de tijd, onder een kolossale Boom die beladen is met vreemde vruchten, wacht iemand die al millennialang naar Fern op zoek is en die haar zinnen heeft gezet op de Gave die haar ban zal verbreken.
Wanneer haar achtervolgers steeds dichterbij komen, moet Fern een keus maken: ofwel ze trouwt met Marcus en gaat een leven zonder magie en wonderen tegemoet, ofwel ze koestert haar Gave, waardoor ze belandt in een bovennatuurlijk conflict waarbij de levens van degenen die haar dierbaar zijn op het spel worden gezet. Als de tijd dringt, is de dodelijke, hypnotische en legendarische drakendwinger haar enige hoop.
Drakendwinger zet de lyrische, rijke sfeer en de betoverende vertelling van De kinderen van Prospero voort. Het biedt fascinerende beschrijvingen van bekende en onbekende plaatsen, en van karakters die zowel magisch als sinister zijn. Een voorbeeld van klassieke Engelse fantasy op zijn best.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
17 people are currently reading
407 people want to read
About the author
Jan Siegel
14 books69 followersJan Siegel is a pseudonym of Amanda Hemingway. She is a British author of fantasy novels, best known for her Fern Capel and Sangreal trilogies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
July 1, 2023
Great second book of a wonderful fantasy trilogy by Jan Siegel. Characters from Prospero's children are grown now....Fernanda, Fern, is 28 and on the eve of getting married when the supernatural world she tried to shun intrudes very unkindly into her life again. Such great evil characters in this...the witches and their world are fantastic, and again a perfectly written tale that makes you see the things Fern sees so well.
August 27, 2025
The series continues on from the last book but 12 years in the future. Fern returns to the house to be married. Not only does she have old enemies, but new ones have come on the scene.
Like the first book, this one is split in two halves and each has a very different vibe.
Looking forward to finishing off the series.
Like the first book, this one is split in two halves and each has a very different vibe.
Looking forward to finishing off the series.
April 27, 2023
3.5 stars
July 26, 2020
It’d been an odd experience re-reading Prospero’s Children years after I first came to it, and I was quite nervous about coming back to the Dragon Charmer, which I’d remembered enjoying less. And yes, it’s a very different read.
Like PC, TDC is verbose – Siegel’s style seems to be very verbose and flowery, with many places where it’s just unnecessarily florid. That said, TDC does move along faster in the first half of the book – Fern’s getting married, Will’s back, and we meet Gaynor, Fern’s best friend. There’s goings-on at the house, Fern shouldn’t really be getting married, and then all hell breaks loose.
It’s intriguing, and I did really like the cast of characters.
The second half is more troublesome. It takes place in a shadowy half-realm, that for all Siegel’s enthusiasm for waxing lyrical, isn’t tremendously well described for quite a while. It’s not really clear what’s happened, or where the characters are. Perhaps this is part of the magic, but I just found the endless tooing and froing in limbo a bit unsatisfying.
It does all wrap up in a satisfactory way, but I couldn’t help but feel that reading this was a bit of a chore. A chore with likeable characters and an intriguing plot, but a chore nonetheless.
Like PC, TDC is verbose – Siegel’s style seems to be very verbose and flowery, with many places where it’s just unnecessarily florid. That said, TDC does move along faster in the first half of the book – Fern’s getting married, Will’s back, and we meet Gaynor, Fern’s best friend. There’s goings-on at the house, Fern shouldn’t really be getting married, and then all hell breaks loose.
It’s intriguing, and I did really like the cast of characters.
The second half is more troublesome. It takes place in a shadowy half-realm, that for all Siegel’s enthusiasm for waxing lyrical, isn’t tremendously well described for quite a while. It’s not really clear what’s happened, or where the characters are. Perhaps this is part of the magic, but I just found the endless tooing and froing in limbo a bit unsatisfying.
It does all wrap up in a satisfactory way, but I couldn’t help but feel that reading this was a bit of a chore. A chore with likeable characters and an intriguing plot, but a chore nonetheless.
September 22, 2019
Fern Capel has grown up and been to college, is on the point of getting married to someone she thinks she can live with, and tried to forget about the events of Prospero's Children. But there are plenty of otherworldly realms besides the ones you already know about from that book, and not everyone in those realms is interested in leaving her alone. One of the ones we see most two is an eerie reimagining of the world-tree theme from mythology. The setting continues to get richer and the style stays just as compelling. I do have to mention that this book has one of the most pointless sexual violence episodes I've ever read, whose only function that I can see is to put a suggestion of homophobia into a novel that could otherwise have been free from it.
April 28, 2021
Once again I am extremely happy with the magical experience I had with this book. Highly recommend for anyone who just wants to get lost in a world of fantasy. There were a few parts that I thought were a little too weird and I would defiantly say it's 16+. And also the writing - though amazing - could be hard to follow sometimes.
If you liked the first book, you'll like this too. 100% worth the read.
If you liked the first book, you'll like this too. 100% worth the read.
October 18, 2017
Something about the way these books were written make them very unique. She definitely doesn't dummy down the material, she has an intellectual prose style that makes the book unique.
October 29, 2018
Really liked some parts of this, others were a bit slow and not in my style of writing. Will finish off the series though. I want to see what happens with everyone.
April 24, 2020
A dozen years after their adventures in PROSPERO'S CHILDREN, Fern and Will must battle the Ancient One once more.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
January 31, 2023
Such a wonderfully written book and very descriptive! The plot was a little predictable but still overall really good!
November 27, 2012
I found this novel to be very fast reading, fun, moody, sometimes verging on horror (it was definitely dark fantasy), and an improvement over the first installment in this series. Some of the problems I had with the first volume in the series – a dull second act, or at least one in which nothing seemed to happen, and a lack of time spent on what exactly Fern’s witchcraft powers are and how she develops them – are much, much better handled this time around.
My only real complaint about the book is that took a little while before I got hooked on the story. Some or most of that may come from the fact that so much time has passed since the first installment in the trilogy. In _Prospero’s Children_, Fern was 16, living with her brother Will and her father Robin. In the opening of _The Dragon Charmer_ twelve years have passed, with both Fern and Will out on their own, Robin even less of a figure of importance in the story, and Fern is about to get married (indeed, has returned to the house that was the center of events in the first book to have her wedding). We are also introduced to two new (human) characters, ones that for various reasons are major either in terms of driving the story or major actors within the story itself. One is Fern’s fiancé, a rather colorless man that just does not become a memorable figure, and another is one that becomes a major character, Fern’s best friend, and later a good friend (or more?) of Will’s, Gaynor Mobberley.
That is really it though in terms of complaints; the rest of the book is quite solid and I really enjoyed it. There are lots of positive things I really enjoyed in this second volume of the trilogy. At first I thought Gaynor was a plot device to avoid having Fern’s point of view in certain key scenes, but later I decided she was a good character in her own right.
As I mentioned earlier, the pacing was much better in this book, with nothing at all like the dull middle part of _Prospero’s Children_. If anything the book just got faster and faster in pacing, making me stay up later and later.
I liked some of the magical concepts explored in the book. One of my favorites is the importance of free will. Though free will as such wasn’t much discussed, it seemed to underlay much of the magical rules in the series. An ancient evil spirit for instance may want to very much possess your body, but it has to be knowingly invited in by you. You may come to great doom if you turn around in the Underworld (never turn around!) but you still have to make that choice yourself. Horrible monsters may want to enter your home and do Bad Things, but they still have to be invited in by the home’s owner. An ancient evil may be seeking vengeance upon you, but unless you somehow invite it(which can be as simple as saying its name) it will likely leave you alone.
The other magical concept that I liked was the idea of being outside of Time (always capitalized). Whole magical realms exist away from our world of Time, and while events do occur there they don’t flow the same way they do in the mortal world. What’s more, creatures from there have a different view of not only the actual comings and goings of mortals (and what current events and fashion is), but how things are viewed by those who live in Time as concepts in themselves. I won’t go into it more but to me I think the author was really on to something about why fantasy realms seem stuck in a quasi-medieval setting all the time, particularly jarring when these realms have some sort of connection with the modern real world of the 20th or 21st centuries.
Other things I liked include the fact we get two new villains, two evil hag-like witches, Morgus, the Witch Queen, along with her ally Sysselore, along with the continuing (and more fleshed out) evil of Azmordis from the first book. The Gift and what it can and can’t do is much better explained, and Fern is actually shown training in its use. I love the various Otherworld settings, including the creepy and well-described Underworld and the very vividly and well done environs of the Tree (with is macabre fruit), the former setting relying heavily on Greek mythological backgrounds, the latter one on Norse, but both blending together I thought quite well. I loved, loved, love the House-goblin concept and in particular the House-goblin character Bradachin. He was a great character and I loved his very thick Scottish dialect, sometimes so thick even the other characters had to more or less puzzle through what he was saying but always fun to read and see what he would do next. Oh, and we do get a dragon and a dragon charmer and both are quite engaging as well.
My only real complaint about the book is that took a little while before I got hooked on the story. Some or most of that may come from the fact that so much time has passed since the first installment in the trilogy. In _Prospero’s Children_, Fern was 16, living with her brother Will and her father Robin. In the opening of _The Dragon Charmer_ twelve years have passed, with both Fern and Will out on their own, Robin even less of a figure of importance in the story, and Fern is about to get married (indeed, has returned to the house that was the center of events in the first book to have her wedding). We are also introduced to two new (human) characters, ones that for various reasons are major either in terms of driving the story or major actors within the story itself. One is Fern’s fiancé, a rather colorless man that just does not become a memorable figure, and another is one that becomes a major character, Fern’s best friend, and later a good friend (or more?) of Will’s, Gaynor Mobberley.
That is really it though in terms of complaints; the rest of the book is quite solid and I really enjoyed it. There are lots of positive things I really enjoyed in this second volume of the trilogy. At first I thought Gaynor was a plot device to avoid having Fern’s point of view in certain key scenes, but later I decided she was a good character in her own right.
As I mentioned earlier, the pacing was much better in this book, with nothing at all like the dull middle part of _Prospero’s Children_. If anything the book just got faster and faster in pacing, making me stay up later and later.
I liked some of the magical concepts explored in the book. One of my favorites is the importance of free will. Though free will as such wasn’t much discussed, it seemed to underlay much of the magical rules in the series. An ancient evil spirit for instance may want to very much possess your body, but it has to be knowingly invited in by you. You may come to great doom if you turn around in the Underworld (never turn around!) but you still have to make that choice yourself. Horrible monsters may want to enter your home and do Bad Things, but they still have to be invited in by the home’s owner. An ancient evil may be seeking vengeance upon you, but unless you somehow invite it(which can be as simple as saying its name) it will likely leave you alone.
The other magical concept that I liked was the idea of being outside of Time (always capitalized). Whole magical realms exist away from our world of Time, and while events do occur there they don’t flow the same way they do in the mortal world. What’s more, creatures from there have a different view of not only the actual comings and goings of mortals (and what current events and fashion is), but how things are viewed by those who live in Time as concepts in themselves. I won’t go into it more but to me I think the author was really on to something about why fantasy realms seem stuck in a quasi-medieval setting all the time, particularly jarring when these realms have some sort of connection with the modern real world of the 20th or 21st centuries.
Other things I liked include the fact we get two new villains, two evil hag-like witches, Morgus, the Witch Queen, along with her ally Sysselore, along with the continuing (and more fleshed out) evil of Azmordis from the first book. The Gift and what it can and can’t do is much better explained, and Fern is actually shown training in its use. I love the various Otherworld settings, including the creepy and well-described Underworld and the very vividly and well done environs of the Tree (with is macabre fruit), the former setting relying heavily on Greek mythological backgrounds, the latter one on Norse, but both blending together I thought quite well. I loved, loved, love the House-goblin concept and in particular the House-goblin character Bradachin. He was a great character and I loved his very thick Scottish dialect, sometimes so thick even the other characters had to more or less puzzle through what he was saying but always fun to read and see what he would do next. Oh, and we do get a dragon and a dragon charmer and both are quite engaging as well.
May 12, 2018
This story starts twelve years after the events of Prospero's Children. Fern has blocked out her abilities and tries to live a normal life in London. She has a wonderful job, good friends and is even engaged to be married. As everyone knows though, once you open a door you cannot simply forget that it is there. The same can be said of Fern's abilities. The day before Fern's wedding evil forces return to the Capel's summer home and Fern is tired of running. She reclaims her Gift and tries to beat the evil once again. Unfortunately Fern succumbs to a coma and is transported to a realm beyond Time itself. Her family is unsure of how to bring her back and must have faith that Fern is able to return to them if they have any hopes of beating the evil once and for all.
This is the second in the Fern Capel trilogy. This book is just as good as the first and I really sped right through it. This book has more of an Arthur and the round table feel unlike the first book that centered around the Atlantis theme. Jan Siegel has masterfully written the books to have a great flow with such different mythos behind them. It doesn't seem like I'm reading two separate books but more like The Lord of the Rings where a story is just broken up into three different parts. I really recommend this book for all the fantasy readers out there and can't wait to put my review of the third book here for you.
This is the second in the Fern Capel trilogy. This book is just as good as the first and I really sped right through it. This book has more of an Arthur and the round table feel unlike the first book that centered around the Atlantis theme. Jan Siegel has masterfully written the books to have a great flow with such different mythos behind them. It doesn't seem like I'm reading two separate books but more like The Lord of the Rings where a story is just broken up into three different parts. I really recommend this book for all the fantasy readers out there and can't wait to put my review of the third book here for you.
September 15, 2016
This book is very slow. It isn't boring or anticlimactic, but it takes so long to get to various plot points. After reading book one, I was wanting this book to start out at at least 30 mph instead of 0. I was ready for things to move along and Siegel kept the book almost as a whole to a just-faster-than-plodding pace. The plot of this book was less interesting than the first and it really just feels like a connector novel between books one and three. By that, I don't mean that it was just filler. Fern grew as she needed to.
I think Fern may be seen as an empty character to some people. I don't think she's empty; I think she's an archetype. She doesn't have much of a personality. She just "does". She knows information just from intuition and just figures things out. She feels like as much of a legend as the gods and witches she deals with. To me, the series feels like a detailed, semi-characterized legend, a fact that makes Fern's lack of real personality acceptable.
This is my second time reading this novel. My first time was at least ten years ago. I was really surprised that I remembered so little about it. Back then, I probably got really upset at the slow pace and basically skipped and skimmed through it. I remember details from books one and three but barely anything from book two.
I think Fern may be seen as an empty character to some people. I don't think she's empty; I think she's an archetype. She doesn't have much of a personality. She just "does". She knows information just from intuition and just figures things out. She feels like as much of a legend as the gods and witches she deals with. To me, the series feels like a detailed, semi-characterized legend, a fact that makes Fern's lack of real personality acceptable.
This is my second time reading this novel. My first time was at least ten years ago. I was really surprised that I remembered so little about it. Back then, I probably got really upset at the slow pace and basically skipped and skimmed through it. I remember details from books one and three but barely anything from book two.
May 7, 2014
I happened across this book at a Rotary book sale fundraiser in Alexandra, NZ. The title first drew my attention, then I considered buying it just for the cover art (what can I say, I have a thing for dragons ;) ). Then I opened it and found out it's a signed copy! $2 win! So I bought the other two books in the trilogy and, lucky for me, they're really good. The author has a very descriptive style, which I enjoy but some readers might find a bit tedious. I particularly like the variety of mythology and legend she weaves into her tales -- the stories feel very fresh and novel. A few bits of the plots do seem rushed, or slightly forced (I mean, the protagonist doesn't *have* to fall madly in love to complete a tale) but overall I very much enjoyed this trilogy.
December 3, 2012
Like the first book in this series Prospero's Children, I found this story very difficult to warm to. While the storyline is intrinsically interesting and the plots well-developed, there was something about the main character Fern that I found difficult to like. I just couldn't feel positive about her. Perhaps she was too much like various teenagers of my acquaintance back in the days when I was teaching high school. The sort of kids I was constrained as a professional to be polite to in real life but whom I can't stand in fiction.
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July 28, 2011It's funny, because I was slightly bored throughout this book, but it was very easy to fly through, which is backwards from usual for me. If that makes any sense. All in all, it was a good book, but I felt like I kept waiting for something to happen. I'm looking forward to the next book, which I have already started.
January 11, 2015
The Dragon Charmer, follow-up to *Prospero's Children*, was just as fantastic as the first one. I really admire Siegel's prose, which is contemporary yet dense and gives off the feel of a style from the 1970s. Very atmospheric and a nice development of the plot from the first novel. I look forward to the third.
January 31, 2017
Finished this quite a while ago actually but forgot to post about it. Solid follow up. The begging is sort of weaker than the last book but it makes up for it for having a stronger second and third act. The pace is still slow and the book still has that weird quality about it but that seems to a staple of the series at this point.
May 10, 2008
It's the #2 of three. Each one being an improvement over the previous. (The first reads almost as a teen book; almost didn't finish it.)
Nice treatment of "witchcraft" in the modern world. Fun stuff. Reflections on the state of our collective consciousness are good as well.
Nice treatment of "witchcraft" in the modern world. Fun stuff. Reflections on the state of our collective consciousness are good as well.
January 28, 2012
Ugh, over descriptive boring. No, not a drafty house in the English countryside. Zzzz. The tales of Narnia are more exciting than this story. Don't recommend this one. It was coherent and no typos but zzz....
August 10, 2016
Goed tweede deel met sommige delen die erg spannend waren en sommige delen die wat langdradig waren. Het derde deel ligt dan ook al klaar in het zicht, maar ik ga er nog niet gelijk in beginnen. Een paar andere boeken hebben voorrang.
November 28, 2008
Not as good as the first, but I still enjoyed it.
January 22, 2013
As I read this novel, I could not help but feel that it felt like a rush to read. Overral, it is a fantastic book to read.
May 22, 2013
much loved.
August 27, 2024
a bit flat compared to the first. i still enjoy the first book. i think the ending of the first book doesnt require a sequel. it ended just nice
August 26, 2014
This follow up to Prospero's Children is completely awesome! The characterisation of Fernanda and her growing to adulthood is well done, as is that of Will.
October 24, 2015
Like re-living my childhood - no not literally (sadly) - just that it was the kind of book I would've loved back then.
Still enjoyable but mainly for the nostalgia effect
Still enjoyable but mainly for the nostalgia effect
October 4, 2022
The romance in this second book is oddly charming and real. The main character is an actual adult with a realistic body type to boot.
And that is what stays with me after all these years.
And that is what stays with me after all these years.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews