The Fire Eternal

The Last Dragon Chronicles #4

by Chris d'Lacey

A stirring of new magic at the poles makes a fiery tale for readers in the 4th book in the NY TIMES bestselling Dragons series! Five years have passed since David Rain, now a bestselling author, disappeared mysteriously in the Artic. Slowly the ice is changing; bears are starving; dragons are rising; and the spirit Gaia, goddess of the Earth, is restless, wanting to act upon these changes. But all living things may suffer if she does. As the weather grows wilder and the ice caps melt, all eyes turn from the north to David's daughter, Alexa. She is the key to stopping it. . . . Can one girl save the world from the forces of evil before she disappears like her father?

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Young Adult, Fiction, Middle Grade, Childrens, Magic

429 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2007

About the author

He was born in Valetta, Malta, but as a child moved first to Leicester and then to Bolton. After gaining a degree in biology from the University of York, he returned to Leicester and got a job at the University of Leicester in their Pre-Clinical Sciences department.
Originally his writing was confined to songs and he didn't turn to fiction until he was 32. His first piece of work was a 250,000 word story about polar bears for his wife, Jay, to accompany a stuffed polar bear he had bought her as a Christmas present.
He didn't write another story for seven years, until he heard about a competition to write a story for young children with a prize of £2,000. The resulting book, A Hole at the Pole, also about polar bears, didn't win - but he sent it off to a publisher, who accepted it.
His first children's novel, Fly, Cherokee, Fly, was published in 1998 and subsequently shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. It was inspired by the time he found an injured pigeon in Victoria Park and nursed it back to health at home. It became a family pet and lived for 14 years in a birdbox attached to the back of the house. All of its offspring were given the names of different Native American tribes, which is where the title of the book comes from.)
He has since written over twenty children's books, including Pawnee Warrior (a sequel to Fly, Cherokee, Fly), a collaborative novel with fellow children's author Linda Newbery (From E To You), and the best-selling, award-winning The Last Dragon Chronicles. His books often contain environmental themes, and events based on things that have happened to him.
In July 2002 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leicester for his contributions to children's literature. Although writing is now his main source of income, he still works at the university as the operator of the confocal microscope.
His favourite children's books are the Paddington Bear series and The Hobbit, and his favourite children's authors are Allan Ahlberg and Roald Dahl. Chris D'Lacey has written many books like Ice Fire and Fire Star, but his most famous book was Dark Fire, the fifth book in The Last Dragon Chronicles.

Reviews

[Caitlín K · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was, so far, the weirdest in the series. I will admit that I hadn't read any of the previous books since Fire Star was released, so maybe I lost something that way. Plus this book begins 5 years after the last one ended, so there are a lot of events that happened since that need explaining.
I don't think it was over all bad, but the end was just very weird. It seemed like the author was suddenly trying to come up with more plot lines that he could draw into another book or two or three. Like Liz suddenly and randomly becoming pregnant, a piece of obsidian with pure dark fire in it, and Tam knowing about dragons and stuff.
And I'm not even sure what happened to David. What is he, exactly? Why the heck was he a polar bear? Why couldn't he come back before? There were so many unexplained things that it just wasn't enjoyable to read. Perhaps if I'd slowed down and read more carefully it would have made more sense, but I didn't have much interest in that. I'm not sure whether I'll be reading the rest of the series when it comes out.

[Kit · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been waiting for the new book in this series, but I was already worried when I saw how thick it was. Then I read it, and it reminded me of last season of the X Files. There was no characterization left, even of the awesomely cute dragons who are brimming with personality; there was practically no plot left, if by plot you mean that the characters actually do things and don't just discover vague forebodings. If a character in this book ate toast, it would be Cosmic Toast With Vague Forebodings Of Universal New-Age Import.

I agree with the reviewer who said to stop at the first book in this series and treat it like a good stand-alone, which it really is. Somehow the story has just gotten lost (or too Cosmic) along the way.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, my question here is...

WHAT THE *BLEEP*???

This book was terrible. Actually, it started going downhill with the last book. This one went all sci-fi and 'cosmic'. I mean, Ix:risor??? (Or however it's spelt- honestly, I can't be bothered to go back and check.) Who puts a colon in the middle of a name?

Well, Chris d'Lacey, obviously. I couldn't help but hate this book, including the death and return of the 'new, improved' David Rain.

I read The Fire Within, and it was gorgeous. Icefire was almost as good. Firestar was getting close to the realms of sheer lunacy, and The Fire Eternal was absolutely ridiculous. Even worse than the 'so bad, it's good'.

Chris d'Lacey, if you don't mind me saying so, you are an idiot.

[Laramort · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were so many things about this book that just bugged me.

First off, its so confusing! All the G names are driving me crazy! I can't keep track of who they are talking about! Gwedolen, Guinevere, Gwillana, Gadzooks... so annoying!

And the fain? What? Commingling? What? So confusing. How exactly does that work? A lot of the time half the things he talks about make no sense and I feel like he's really just making stuff up without any thought of it making sense.

Lucy also really bugged me in this book but she was probably supposed to.

And then the whole David thing... yeah. What? And what kind of an ending was that?

Is there going to be another book? I'm not sure if I'm going to read it.

[Lucy Cokes · Rating 3 out of 5]

"It looked very similar to the screwdriver used by the time travelling hero of the dragons' favourite television programme.'

Although this is an incredibly childish seires, there are some real adult elements - death, betrayal, etc. It's been a few years since I read the first three books but this was definitely one of the best...though I would have liked to re-read the others just for clarification - the plot goes all over the place. I found myself wanting to read more about the dragons at Wayward Crescent when the Artic scenes got too much. I like how Lucy is older, and that d'Lacey combines the fantasy element with modern life, for example, one of the dragon's special abilities is 'IT'. I wish that the book apparently written by David was real. Had a good old shocker at the end, serves as a great hook.

A nice and relaxing book to take my mind off university.

[Jessica Yuettner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing. It was shocking when I found out that David was alive, but as a polar bear. He transformed for a polar bear to a human. It was completely shocking and surpised me in all ways. When I found out that Gwillana turned into a bird was buried in an icecube, I wanted to scream. I don't like Gwillana that much because of what she has done. She was always so evil. The good part is that she helped David only because he forced her too. When the giant bird appeared, I thought the nine polar bears that protected the artic was going to die. But they didn't. The ending of this book was amazing because David went back to Lucy, Zanna, Liz, and Gazooks. It made me so happy, but sad when he left them again. Davids new daughter Alexa was excited to see him that she ran and jumped into his arms.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.


This was a lot like a rollercoaster for me. It had parts that I can say I really enjoyed like the previous 3 books in this series, but for the first time, this book also had parts that I felt were hard to follow and therefore became confusing. Near the end I found myself skim reading about a chapter because I just wasn't interested.

Though, saying all that, after reading the last page I am very interested to see what the next book in this series will bring.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fire Eternal
Chris d'Lacey
2007
Genre: fantasy

The main character is David rain. He dies in the fire star and is a story writer. He lives with a little girl named Lucy and her mother Liz Pennywinkle. Lucy believes that David is not dead and tries to find him.
He has a dragon named Gadzooks who helps him right stories. David has to over come many problems and wishes it would all end. The setting of this book is the arctic all the Inuit people have died and polar bears are starving and dragons are rising. The conflict is that David is missing and his daughter has to stop the earth god Gaia from punishing people for these changes.

The theme of this book is that even if someone is gone they can still help and that even someone young can have an impact on the problem at hand. One example is that David’s daughter has to stop Gaia from punishing humans for letting dragons rise and polar bears starve. Another is that David is gone and yet Lucy believes that he is not and tries to find him.

Some extra characters are Gwilliwana who is a sibyl who is evil and wants to catch the fire tear of a dragon to bring them into the world. Gadzooks a writing dragon who helps David write stories. People who like suspense and a fantasy world would like this book because you feel like you are in a fantasy when reading it. I would compare this book to The Hunger Games because in this book you feel like you are in a fantasy world and in the hunger games people are thrown into an arena to fight to the death and to some people it does not seem real.

"Fly ahead of us". "Seek out a path. You are our eyes, sibyl" IT shows the authors writing style of fantasy and suspense. Also it shows how the author can show emotion in the writing such as anger in this quote.

Excellent book over all great character description and wonderful plot. Very suspenseful and really makes you want to keep reading till the end. I could not drop this book and really felt like I was right there with the characters. The only thing I did not like was the main character of the last book was more of a supporting role in this book. It affected me because it made me feel like everyone has a purpose and that if someone dies you should move on and except the fact that it is natural.

[edel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe in rounding up. In essence, this book would rank as 2.5 stars, 50%. I was confused for a good chunk of the book. A lot of the polar bear nonsense was confusing, boring, and seemed to contribute almost nothing to the actual story.

While I do appreciate how Chris D'Lacey is trying to delve deeper into the whole concept of dragons and other folklore, this book seemed like it was just too much.

I was lost for most of the book. Then again, I haven't read the last book in literally years (grade eight or nine, I'm now in grade eleven). I've forgotten a lot of the lore and such, but I expected the characters to still be fresh and charismatic as they were in the previous books. They weren't. A lot of the dragons lost their personalities and the humans became insanely boring and predictable.

And the end. What can I say about the end? For starters, I was still completely lost at that point. The author kept throwing in all these random events near the end and that made me wonder if there would be another book in the series. In my opinion, the series should have ended a long time ago. Maybe around the first or second book.

But I have to say that I won't give up on the series. It holds a lot of sentimental value to me. The first book really inspired me to really have a more serious view about my writing. I was in about grade five or six when I read the first book. It was such a great book. Too bad the series went downhill.

I would only recommend this book to those who are completely loyal to the series and wouldn't mind a whole load of bumps in the reading. Read it slowly, and maybe even reread it if you have to.

[Angus Mcfarlane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure if the continuation of this series was always planned. It it has become increasingly difficult to follow and the cynic in me asks whether the extra books are the result of a compromise of some sort by the author. While I like the attempt to link global problems with interference from cosmic beings, there is much that didn't fit together well and didn't make sense to me. I like the exploration of the dragon myth but along with the few other animals employed (ravens and polar bears) they seem to lack the depth of character that makes them like able or otherwise. The appeal to modern new age mysticism and quantum science also seems to be shallow and failed to impress a sense of coherency onto me. Of course, these books are written for children, so the fact my 10 y.o. Daughter became fairly bored by the end, only wanting to read the bits with certain characters would be my strongest argument for withholding stars!

[Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five years after David Rain's death, Zanna took her daughter Alexa to her shop, the healing touch. There she gave Alexa G'lant, the dragon David gave Zanna when he died.

Meanwhile, in the Arctic, Ingavar (who died with David) with his teller Avril and fighting bear Kailar, are trying to save the north pole. Kailar is sent to find a raven trapped in an ice block, who is actually Gwillana. Meanwhile, Ingavar and Avril get the eye of Gawain from Sedna, the sea goddess.

At the crescent, Lucy and a reporter named Tam Farrell go to Blackburn to find David's parents. But at the address that David used there is no house. Then Lucy and Tam are taken prisoner by the fain.

Did David really die? Will Lucy and Tam be found? Can David and Ingavar save the Arctic ice cap or will they be stopped by the ix? And what part does David's daughter have to play in this?

[Peter Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Rain has dissapeared in the artic and Zanna is heartbroken but she always has Alexa {david and zannas daughter} to cheer her up. But in the artic three bears travel with Ingavar or otherwise know as david rain now revived with the power of Gawain to find the fire eernal. While this is happening Zanna is having her own problems and lexie is drawing strangely accurate drawings of a dragon when she is only six years old! Then the ix show up. The corrupted species of the fain are trying to create their own kind of dragon. One that's not to freindly and is causing problems for both Lucyand Zanna, and David. ill they sove their problems and prevail or wiil they lose their lives to the unknown perails that await them? Find Out in The Fire Eternal. {Epic Name!!!!}

[Giulia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, I didn't even finish this book so maybe I'm biased, but seriously, it was too hard to pick back up. There was just this whole looming Arctic souls and mother earth thing, but the original reason I picked up the books was because of the dragon, and now as they are as sparse as the twists and turns, I decided to drop it. A thumbs up to the reference to global warming though. I'm a huge supporter of the against the human activities that are destroying our earth.

[Kristen Peppercorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Mommy, are you a nutbeast?"
How do you think you got here, kid?
ehhehehhehehehehe

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot express just how disappointed I am by this book. I ve given up on other books before, but never 3/4s of the way through. But I just cant stand it any longer.

I loved the first three books of this series as a kid, and enjoyed them again as an adult. I was so excited to discover that there were 4 more! I loved the lore and the legends of the characters, and even the increasing weirdness and sci fi elements. But The Fire Eternal is just a mess, a complete mess. There are too many things going on, too many plot elements. There is enough exposition in this series as it is, now the baddies are interdimensional aliens, and oh wait, there are multiple types of aliens, and alien/human hybrids? This is all just so far away from the spirit of the first books and what made them so strong, its basically a completely separate story which barely features the original elements at all. I love ambition and originality, but the author has overreached himself here. Surely at some point an editor should have stepped in.
That would be fine if it wasnt such a drag. The real sucker is the sections in the arctic with the bears are actually good, they hark back to what this series is all about, but the parts with Liz, Zanna, and Tam and the devil herself, Lucy, are just awful, lurching from one thing to the next with characters you are at best ambivalent about, and at worse hate. Lucy is just a nightmare and basically kills the book stonedead herself. I know shes meant to be a bratty teenager, but theres 'bratty' and then 'I would leave you in the woods for the wolves'. Just does whatever she wants, stomping over the lives of everyone around her, runs away repeatedly from people trying to stop her getting herself killed because DaViD and PoLaR BeArS, unaware, ungrateful...when she was 11 you could understand it, but at 16? Shes just insufferable. Its hard to root for a character you just can't stand.
Genuinely one of the worst books i ve ever read, doubly disappointed in that i loved the first three, wont bother with the rest of the series.

[Ker Malkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is it just me or was the author trying too hard to create a perfect mash-up of fantasy and realism? The plot's gotten very immense and the more I delved into it, the more confusing it had become. But anyhow, I thought the book was uh... well, sorta bad.

But yeah, after eons of contemplating as to why I should finish the book or not 'cause it bored the hell out of me, I'd finally decided to just go with it. Although I didn't like this as MUCH as I liked the second and third installments of the series, I occasionally find myself enjoying a couple of good moments in it. But the book however, was just all over the place and I'm afraid the characters have somehow lost their essence. Still, the dragons were adorable; they're just the best parts of the series.

The mysticism was still fascinating but rather confusing. Despite d'Lacey's disorderly writing-style, I'm still down with the series. All the way to the end.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fourth book in Chris d'Laceys last dragon seris.It starts out as a polar bear is laying on cracked ice taking his dying breath. As he dies the earth goes with him. This bear is kaliar the son of a figting bear named rangar. Suzzana martindale is the lover of te former teanet of wayward creasent in scrubbly a small town on the outskirts of boston. David rain was the mysterios teanet who disapeared in the artic five years ago. Suzzana or "Zanna" is the mother of davids child alexa and they live in wayward cresent with the landlord liz and her daughter lucy and lizs husband aruther. liz is te desendent of gwendolen a daughter of a human and dragon. you can tell this because of liz and lucys trademark deep red hair color. Lucy is not born like humans she is born through a kiln and infused with dragon dna and the icefire the material that makes dragons come to life. In dragon lore the dragon godlith created the fire eternal which gives life to all creation so the spirt of earth gaia surronded the fire to protect it. now gaia is restless and she will destroy anything that comes in her path and to stop the hunt for the fire. the fain are extrateresterail beings who have mind controlling powers are also looking for the fire to restore peac to their homeworld. David or ingavar is davids polar bear form is traveling with the teller oflore averl as they come across the oil dreneched bear known as kailar. ingavar cleans of kailar with the icefire and kailar is now indeted to ingaqvar they recriut him and continue their trek toward the artic to find the fire.Meanwhile in another dimension the ix a nastier form of the fain are heading to earth to assanate david rain and his daghter alexa. zanna opened the door to lucys room to see her gone with a note saying she went to see a reporter to help them discover davids past.lucy meets the reporter and starts talking about david and then shepulls out a envolope that has a letter from david. they make it to the location then there is a blast of light and lucy is gone then lucy wakes up and hears a voice to make a gargoyle out of a posion stone substnce called obsidian she ethier does this in four minutes or less before the obsidain will kill her.she creates the gargoyle and a monk appeares and is being controled by the ix his pupils are white as his face is. he gives lucy a knife made from obsidain and send her back home.when lucy gets back home she is possesed by the ix and stabs her mother with the posion knife the ix is repeled by the sibyl zanna casts and surronds the ix in flower petals and then the cat namd bonnigton whose being controled by the fain transformes into a panther and rips the ix to pieces. david is still searching for the fire when he feels a sudden pulse in the ground and jammes his paw in he ground and uncover a red glowing vein of light and he sets off a beacon that will attract all bears to that spot and to wayward cresent. liz is laying their helpless as zanna is working magic to help liz she uses ice fire and blood of a dragon to sear the wound and squeeze the posion out. lucy is upstairs in the house crying because she almost killed her mother and zanna was able to save liz and revive her and as she s ding that people began to crowd around way ward cresent. david had found the fire and was about to set it of when he appeared beside liz and told her to tell zanna to go to the libary gardens with alexa and then hes gone. zanna makes her way to the libary gardens and as she walkes alexa shes a squirell and runs after it and as she finds it she see an outline of a man she runs to him and screams daddy and zanna stumbles to her knees and starts crying then thier is a light in the north and the fire eternal is realesed.

[Itskris · Rating 5 out of 5]

*updated version*

Spoilers in review read at own risk

So the end of the last book literally left me in tears. I mean geez! David getting stabbed in the heart and finding out he is about to be a father before he is pushed into the ocean only to be lost forever? Talk about a cliffhanger and a tear jerker.. I was begging for him to come back all throughout this book because I missed him so much.



So in this book it has been a long time since David has been lost to the bowls of the sea. Zanna took it pretty hard and decided to open a new shop where she can make potions and a living. Her and her daughter Alexa move into David's old room within the Pennykettle's house. Lucy reads the letter that Zanna writes to David every year on Valentine's Day and decides to call Tam Farell to prove to the world David is not dead.

So personally though, I really started to fell like Lucy was becoming so argumentative and bossy. I started to hate her and then not to mention she reads one of Zanna's private letters? I was like why would you do that? Why!



From there the book gets very interesting and we learn many mysterious things about David that literally blew my mind. Not to mention that things among the bears are starting to heat up and we learn more and more about their roles as well.

The ending of course I by far one of the most fast paced part and it left me with tears of happiness.

[Keisha Keenleyside · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fire Eternal is Chris d'Lacey's 4th book in the Last Dragon Chronicles.

It's four years after Gwillana kidnapped Lucy and took her to the tooth of Ragnar, four years that David has been presumed dead to all but Lucy and she wants the world to know him as the hero she saw him as. With Zanna being mother to David's strange child Alexa and Elizabeth being in love with Arthur Lucy is left feeling lost and seeks help from a journalist to prove David is alive, but problems occur and soon it seems as though the lovable lodger she once knew had never even existed before college.

Among the drama of the Pennykettle household we are taken to the arctic where Polar bears are coming together and with the help of an old enemy in raven form this part of the novel is what truly kept me gripped.


I loved this series because its difference, this book however is a little heavy reading its all about environmental awareness and global warming affecting the ice caps and its inhabitants. Somewhere in the 200 pages this book turns from a young teen cute dragon fantasy book to a sci-fi war novel, which is quite sad as the dragons made the novels wonderful. The introduction of the Ix and Pre:men is the downfall to this series and the next two books are even heavier going considering their marketing group. I being in my 20's struggle to keep interest when reading of the fain and their enemy the use of the : in certain words becomes really off putting and does eventually drive me crazy.

This book overall was a good read, Gwillana makes the best good/bad guy in the series and with the addition of the polar bears perspective the read is just worth every bit of my time.

[Shane Slagle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fire Eternal is the fourth book of the clay dragon saga. After searching for a while Lucy found out what happened to David but you'll need to read the book to fund out what. Also don't you think it would be cool to have dragons fling around your house that you owned?

The fire Enternal is about manlily finding David. Also the clay dragon Gadzooks is evil. In this book there is a lot of adventuer. The fire eterernal or any of the Chirs D'Lacey clay dragrons books are for anyone who likes to read not just for dragons.

When I read the part that said "You have dragons flying in house," it was just like a move i a saw were the humans let the dragons fly any. Chris d"Lacey likes to have people hang ready for something to happen.

When Lucy finds out that David had died she was sad because they were friends. Also David had a daughter. So what became of her I can't tell.

The dragons in this book are cool and some are not, but I'm sure that wont stop you from reading this book. Lucy and david were teh wons that discovered the clay dragons. They both thuoght it was cool that then dragons could come to life. I don't care to much for dragons but when your reading you got to get a book or series that you would like or enjoy and something you can compare to if you like.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really loved the polar bear part of the story. All the mysticism behind it kept me into it. However, although most of the series is written from different perspectives, this time the multiple perspectives didn't really come together well until the end. Sometimes it was a bit frustrating to figure out where the setting was, whether it was at the Pennykettles' house, in the Artic, in Zanna's shop, and so on. I was highly disappointed at first with the way Zanna reacted to that reporter guy. In fact, I didn't like the reporter guy at all until the end. Reading about Lucy was very annoying. I understand that teenagers are known for being difficult, but I felt like the author completely made Lucy a stereotypical character when he added in all the teenage drama. That's the number one thing I disliked about the book. Overall, I think the relationships between the characters and a few of the characters could some work, but the mysticism of the book is interesting.

[Gunnar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an excellent add to the series especially from where the story was left off from the previous book of Davids unfortunate death and left a happy and addicting place to come back to from the previous book. This book added much more character to all of the dragons which was an absolute amazing thing to bring into the series I love it when they show more character to the dragons. They also brought in more character to Davids daughter which showed time while his daughter grew up adding more personality. I did not enjoy how they would flip between chapters to the Polar bears that seemed boring but found some light in the darkness within that and did enjoy the mythology they brought from that adding to the overall series. This series has a strong myth base and how they added more and did not tumble too much along with David death was a happy idea from the author.

[David Strong · Rating 2 out of 5]

My rating: 2 stars.

For the last two years or so, I haven't written reviews for books, partially because I haven't had the time but primarily because I haven't been able to summon the effort to do so. Maybe I will review books this year, but I suspect this book will be an exception. Put simply, this book has irked me enough that I find myself able to summon the effort for a lengthy rant.

If you're reading this review, you probably already have at least some context for what this series is. However, for those of my friends who are seeing this review (and have no plans to read this series), I will provide some.

Ostensibly, this book series is about dragons. Which confuses most people who read the first book, which features exactly none of them. Unless you count a bunch of clay dragons, which sometimes do things... unless it's actually just characters imagining them doing that? It's often rather ambiguous. For the most part however, it's about a university student (David Rain) who takes up lodgings with a rather odd family - the Pennykettles: Liz (who makes the clay dragons) and her 11-year-old daughter Lucy, who likes squirrels. So, of course, book 1 (The Fire Within) is about David writing Lucy a book about squirrels (inspired by the clay dragon Gadzooks who David imagines giving him inspiration via cryptic notes he writes on his imaginary notepad) which eventually comes true. Confused? We're only getting started. This book is actually the least weird of the lot.

In book 2 (Icefire), David's enigmatic college professor (Bergstrom) sets him an essay on the existence of dragons, with the prize being a research trip to the arctic. David doesn't really make any progress on the dragons bit in this book, since it becomes very clear very quickly that dragons do in fact, exist, and that somehow the clay dragons have got something to do with it. No, no. The important bit, actually, is the arctic. Because dragons have a strong connection with the arctic, naturally. When David makes a wish to find out the secret of "the icefire", a witch (sybil, technically, but eventually you just stop caring about this stuff) comes to the Pennykettle home to get Liz to give birth to a dragon (she doesn't say that at the beginning - either to build narrative tension or because the author seems to realise we readers would not believe that in the slightest). It's implied that Liz learned her dragon knowledge from Gwilanna (the witch), who calls herself Gwyneth among humans. Apparently, long ago dragons ruled the earth as the apex predators, but eventually they died out. Dragons don't die like other creatures; instead, they cry a fire tear which contains their "auma" (life force). When the last dragon, Gawain, was about to die, a human - Guinevere - caught his fire tear and then went and drowned in the ocean. She left a daughter, who apparently wasn't born naturally but was made from "clay, flesh and blood", called Gwendolen, from whom Liz is descended. Yeah, also neither Liz nor Lucy were born naturally either. There's a reason Lucy doesn't have a dad. So anyway, Gwilanna gets Liz to give birth to a dragon by having Zanna - David's college friend, who is descended from Sybils (you can tell because she's a Goth and is into natural healing magic), to come and quicken the egg (yep, that's really how it works). The dragon, Grockle, flies away to the arctic. David has a lot of dreams about polar bears, which links into the snowball the Pennykettles keep in the fridge (it holds part of Gawain's auma and so can bring dragons to life, obviously). Polar bears protect the dragon, and one of them turns out to be Bergstrom, who can turn into a polar bear. He's descended from the polar bear (Thoran) who helped Guinevere when she was swimming (before she drowned). Bergstrom/Thoran help David stop Gwilanna's evil plot by preventing Grockle from getting access to fire, so that he instead turns into stone. Then David learns the secret. The one we've all been waiting for. The secret of the icefire.

Basically, the secret is that when Guinevere was riding Thoran in the ocean, she dropped the fire tear into it, and the fire tear turned into ice. That's actually what the arctic is. It's Gawain's fire tear. Makes sense...?

Book 3 (Fire Star) is where things start to really go off the rails. Bergstrom counted "saving the world from the appearance of terrifying dragons who could destroy it" as "proving the existence of dragons", so David and Zanna win the research trip to the arctic (and start dating). David also has a book deal going for the squirrel story he wrote, but he's also writing a book about bears in the arctic. The arctic is melting, and that's probably something about the earth spirit Gaia.

Sidenote for those wondering whether said book series should be recommended to kids. My vote is hesitant, but not for the reason you'd think. For a book ostenisbly about listening to the scientific warnings about the ice melting, it also seems to be really hardcore about loving earth magic, natural healings, aumas and chakras etc. It has a kind of weird oscillation to it, where it will at times be talking about scientific measurements of climate change and considering cosmology, but at other times be bashing orthodox religions while upholding a whole bunch of total whack nonsense that boils down to a bunch of wish-fulfilment bogus spiritualism. At one point in book 4, Zanna (who is the main culprit for this nonsense) says that she is a "pagan". Honestly, it borders on total irrationalism. I'd at the very least feel some hesitancy letting an impressionable child read these books when the author rather firmly proclaims at multiple points that all religion is nonsense while making no distinction between well-established scientific theories and largely discredited spiritualism that is vague and unsupported at best and fraudulent at worst. I don't think we should be teaching kids that they should be looking into "natural" healings rather than going to the doctor. That's just my two cents, though.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, David is in the arctic with his girlfriend Zanna. Lucy at this point has been kidnapped by Gwilanna and is starting to take on the appearance of her ancestor Gwendolen. David heads home from the arctic when their station is attacked by bears, but when he gets back he discovers that Zanna has been taken by the bears. He is sad, but he can't be sad for too long because we've got more weird plot developments. Like apparently Liz actually was romantically involved with someone at some point, called Arthur. She left him because she didn't want to explain how she had a child that wasn't his. I mean, that's fair. "It's alright, Arthur, this is just my child that I'm hatching from an egg using this dragon snow I have" probably wouldn't go down too well with most people. So David goes to find Arthur, who's now living on a Scottish Island with some monks under the name "Brother Vincent". Apparently, he's been receiving spiritual knowledge from the Fain, which are essentially spiritual beings who helped create dragons on earth, I think? Except, of course, they didn't create the first dragon, Godith, who created the universe using his fire. That fire spread out through the universe, and the parts where the vibrations were the least chaotic materialised the Fain, who then created dragons on earth. Or something. Anyway, the Fain are now split into two factions. The good Fain want to help out. The bad Fain (the Ix) want to recolonise the earth with dragons but in a way that wipes out all the humans first. Arthur (who is a physicist) learnt a lot of this by being kinda possessed and writing down his visions using a dragon claw which kinda freaks the other monks out (it's implied that this shows their evil religious prejudices, but I feel like that's actually a reasonable reaction). Anyway, the dragon Grockle (reborn, somehow) comes to the island, and the monks tie it up and try to kill it. One of the monks (Bernard) tries to stop it, and we get the usual nonsense you get in these books where most of the monks are a bunch of blood-crazed nutters ("We must kill this demonic beast before it destroys our souls!" Really? That's what you think people who chose to live on an island and read books would act like?) and this one monk (Bernard) "sees the truth" - but of course that happens by him essentially believing that he's accessing some higher form of truth than his religion ever has. I quote: "The creature you have bound and treated so badly may be closer to God than you or I or any church ever built." (p. 389 in my copy). Yeah, yeah. I get the feeling the author thinks he's being really subversive by doing this, but the whole "religion doesn't understand God, it's actual this irrational unknowable thing" is honestly getting boring at this point. Especially since at one point in this book the author essentially gives a version of the cosmological argument. The amount of cognitive dissonance you have to go through to read this book gets rather tiring eventually. In the middle of this, Arthur teaches David to use a talisman that Bergstrom had to teleport from place to place so he can finally get on with things and have the showdown in the arctic. The Ix show up, fresh from mind-controlling the monks into some unholy ritual, and stabs David with two icicles. Turns out that's a bad move because the ice has dragon fire in it, remember? So David doesn't really die (even though he kind of does) and gives Zanna a valentine's day gift, which is a dragon you can't see unless you believe in dragons (nope, I'm not making this stuff up).

Onto book 4 (The Fire Eternal), then. This book really just takes all of the nonsense from book 3 and turns it up to eleven. The author has said that he didn't plan the overarching story for these books, and I believe him. Book 4 is just one long fever dream. It's five years later, and everyone's moaning about how David's dead. Zanna has a child (Alexa), who has the annoying YA child trope of being 5 years old but having ridiculous magical powers no-one knows about and also just inexplicably knowing everything about dragons etc. etc. So we get this cycle on repeat:

1. Alexa says "ooh look there are fairies in the garden. I can see them. They talk to me and tell me secrets about dragons that foreshadow a strange part of this book's plot."
2. Zanna/Liz says "That's nice. Go and play outside, will you?"
3. Alexa goes outside and commingles (??????) with spiritual beings from another dimension.
4. The adults talk inside about more pressing issues.

Lucy is now 16 years old, which means she has all the complaining of a teenager and the rest of her dialogue sounds like she's still an 11-year-old. She is sending emails to a journalist (Tam) who believes that hit author, David Rain, who mysteriously disappeared in the arctic five years ago, doesn't actually exist and is a pseudonym. This really annoys Zanna, who curses him with the mark of Oomara when he walks into her natural healings shop one too many times with one too many questions. He forgets everything, but Lucy injects him back with memories (albeit now with memories from her own perspective? No idea how that works) so that he can drive her to see where David lived before he came to lodge with them. Turns out that David's house never existed, the implication being that he materialised into existence at age 20. Sounds plausible. Zanna is really annoyed when she finds Lucy, but Lucy steps into a magic portal which opens up when she chases a squirrel that appears out of her mobile phone and finds herself trapped by the monks from the previous book who have been possessed by the Ix. Tam follows her and is captured too. Lucy is coerced into making a darkling (a dark dragon made out of obsidan instead of clay), although she tricks them and makes the dragon without a heart, keeping the heart as a small lump of rock like a knife.

While all this is happening, two bears on the ice are being led by David Rain, who is alive again and who is a polar bear most of the time. He is letting Gwilanna (who is trapped in raven form) lead them to a place in the ice where they can access the fire eternal, which as far as I can tell is a well that taps into the essence of Gawain's fire tear. They find it, and then David sends back Gwilanna to Liz, telling her to find Zanna. Gwilanna flies to Zanna as a raven, tells Zanna to turn into a raven, so she can beat the traffic (namely, the hordes of people converging on Liz's house because they have read David's book and can feel that dragons are coming back again). They arrive back at Liz's house again, just in time to see a possessed Lucy stab Liz with the obsidian dragon heart. Bonnington (their cat, who was possessed by a good Fain and regularly shapeshifts into other animals now) stops the Ix, and Gwilanna saves Liz. Also Alexa has something to do with saving the world. David comes back and Zanna is like "oh you're actually alive!" Shock.

That's the plot up to book 4. Which should give you some idea as to why I rated this 2 stars.

[Felicity Wishes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy it as much as the last book, but still a solid read. Like last time, I had chunks of texts where my eyes just glazed over and I ended up skim-reading, and as I said in my updates, I found the polar bear chapters really boring.

The Fain and the Ix were very interesting and I like how we got more of them. The most intriguing part for me was probably the theme of David's mysterious past, which is something that has been hinted at from the beginning but is now becoming quite important.

With David MIA it was nice to see the story led by three women, I much prefer this older version of Lucy, and seeing Zanna as a mother has been really interesting, she's probably my favourite character.

I'm taking a bit of a break from this series now, but I'll get back to it in a few weeks.

[Kaleigh Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read these as they came out in middle school, and loved them to pieces.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed it more than the first one.

[Madasyn Booth]

I loved this book because the main character David came back from the dead to save the world.

[Kolden Baehman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal Response:
This book was really good. The author is very good at describing the characters emotions. This author writes a lot of teen books that are very good.

Plot Summary:

The Pennykettles went 5 years without David. Zanna opened a shop, and it is called the Healing Touch. Zanna branded Tam with the mark of Oomara, and erased his memory, so he left Zanna alone. Lucy wanted to find out where David lived, so she teamed up with Tam to figure that out. Lucy ran after a squirrel, while looking for David's old house, and went right into a portal. Lucy is stuck on Farlowe Island and is forced to make a Darkling. Everyone ends up home and Zanna goes to the gardens with Alexa. Alexa runs to a man, and that man is David.

Characterization:
Zanna feels lost without David and also feels alone. She has a daughter, but her boyfriend is gone. Throughout the books she goes through changes and eventually finds what she's looking for. When she does, David comes back.

Recommendation:
I really would recommend this book to people that like fiction. People above the age of 13, because of comprehension. The author did so well wit this book, so I give it a 4 out of 5 stars

[John :) · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first 2 or 3 books were really good but then it becomes a bit creepy like they become part of a cult I didn’t like this book very much but i would still recommend it to people who like creepy 👍🏻

[AaronBrooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think the fire eternal was a great book and I am not going to spoil it for those who want to read it. Well... I will spoil it for those who want to read but won't get the chance. So the main character is David rain who can take the form of whatever he chooses. In this book it becomes a polar bear. That's all I will spoil.