The Boy Who Learned to Dream

Tales from the Chocolate Heart #2.5

by Stephanie Burgis

Silke’s cautious older brother gets an unexpected secret mission of his own!

An MG fantasy short story set in-between The Girl with the Dragon Heart and ​​​The Princess who Flew with Dragons. This story will not work for any readers who haven't yet read The Girl with the Dragon Heart.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories

15 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 2, 2019

About the author

I grew up in America, but now I live in Wales with my husband, fellow writer Patrick Samphire, our two sons, and our sweet (and extremely vocal) tabby cat, Pebbles. I write fantasy rom-coms for adults (most recently Claws and Contrivances and Good Neighbors) and fun MG fantasy adventure novels, too (most recently The Raven Crown duology). My next series will be the adult romantasy trilogy The Queens of Villainy, published by Tor Bramble, starting in 2025 with Wooing the Witch Queen.

To get early sneak peeks at new stories and novels, sign up for my newsletter here: stephanieburgis.com/newsletter.

To join my Dragons' Book Club and get early copies of every ebook that I put out myself (so, all of my novellas, short story ebooks, etc!), check out my Patreon page, where I also published a series of fantasy rom-coms (Good Neighbors) across 2020-2021.

I only rate and review the books that I like, which is why all of my ratings are 4 or 5 stars.

Reviews

[Stephanie]

Just a quick note to say that this story (set in-between The Girl with the Dragon Heart and The Princess who Flew with Dragons) is finally available as an ebook! This one stars Dieter, Silke's cautious older brother, who finally gets a secret mission of his own...but it REALLY won't make sense if you haven't read The Girl with the Dragon Heart first! It wouldn't stand alone at all.

If you have read TGwtDH, though, I hope you'll enjoy it!

[Sirah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deiter finally has everything he wanted, but after spending so much time being the man of the family, can he really give up his sense of responsibility and let others take care of him?

An interesting perspective and thoughtful tale. It's not the best of the Chocolate Heart short stories, but I honestly like Deiter, and I'm glad we get to know him a little better.

[kaka H · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really interesting (and a bit heartbreaking) to read from Silke's brother's pov. I'm so invested in the Chocolate Heart universe now I'm hoping there's Tales from the Chocolate Heart #4 and #5 and so on.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like an epilogue for book 2, and I am glad that I read it immediately afterwards. On its own, it isn't really that great, but in connection with book 2 it adds new information that could segue into book 3.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too short! I wanted more!

[L Y N N]

Cute between-the-numbers short story revealing what Sofia began, with Dieter's help!