Sign of the Dove

Dragon Chronicles #3

by Susan Fletcher, Kerem Beyit (Cover Artist)

You must go to the dragon. You must leave tonight.

Before she even hears the words, Kaeldra already knows she must find the mother dragon whose draclings have just hatched and get some of the precious milk in order to save her foster sister’s life. Since Kaeldra can communicate with dragons, she is the only one who can accomplish the task. And so she begins a journey that will entwine her fate with that of three little draclings and one would-be dragonslayer—a journey that will become a struggle for life.

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

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1996

About the author

Susan Fletcher is the award-winning author of fourteen books for young readers, including Dragon’s Milk, Shadow Spinner, and Journey of the Pale Bear. Her novels have been translated into ten languages and have received a Golden Kite Honor from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, as well as acclaim from the American Library Association, the Children’s Book Council, Bookriot.com, Natural History Magazine, Western Writers of America, Women Writing in the West, and many more. Susan taught for many years in the M.F.A. in Writing for Children program at Vermont College.

Although Susan loves to write about the long-ago and the yet-to-come, she can’t bring those worlds to life without grounding them in details from the world in which we live now. To that end, she has explored lava tubes and sea caves; spent the night in a lighthouse; traveled along the Silk Road in Iran; ridden in a glider, on a camel, and on a donkey; and cut up (already dead!) baby chicks and mice for a gyrfalcon’s dinner. To write Sea Change, she immersed herself in the geography and cultural vibe of Galveston, Texas; explored a Gulf of Mexico oil platform; and brought to mind her childhood experiences of skin diving off Catalina Island with her family.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun series about dragons and a bit of magic. I bought this second hand to support a fantasy book from the 90s written by a woman and I was impressed!

[Lauren Kozilski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series is fantastic. I'm only sorry I never read these when I was actually in the age group the author was targeting. As a public librarian, I will happily recommend these to anyone looking for similar reads to Patricia Wrede's Looking for Dragons series. (That's how I discovered these myself, actually).

[David T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan always thinks of creative things. Because of the dragon sculpture she brought for her husband, she wrote books about dragons. This book is connected to the Dragon’s Milk[which i haven’t read yet]. At first, i thought is wasn’t a good book until i read it. It just made me to read more and more.

I kind of starting to like her books because I love dragons. I was reading the book and it was in my mind, like i was in the book. There were many parts where she had choose, who could she trust, because in the story, if you had green eyes, you are a dragon and people killed dragons. You can tell her emotion if she’s like in a hurry or panicking. You can kinda tell if something bad or good was about to happen, but then a new chapter comes up.

I would recommend this book to people that likes fairy tales, but remember to read the Dragon’s Milk so it makes since. This about how people with green eyes can call dragons down from the sky. There is so much detail that I can imagine the story in my mind. If you love dragons, i would strongly recommend the Dragon’s Milk and then Sign Of The Dove. Also I have a feeling that she would live with the dragons.

[cookiemonger · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the whole, this series is incredibly uneven. This is the last instalment that I read, and it will remain so, as I picked up the fourth and found it such a bizarre departure that I lost interest about ten pages in. As is evidenced by my rating, I didn’t particularly care for this one either, but it certainly wasn’t a DNF, and my ratings go by Goodreads’ elaborations. Two stars = It was okay.

Chronologically, Sign of the Dove takes place several years after Dragon’s Milk, and it also takes after the first book in style and intent. Writing-wise, it’s a bit of a mess. Not so bad that I had to force myself to continue, but definitely a let-down after the writing had improved so much in Flight of the Dragon Kyn. Not only did the stilted Ye Olde High Fantasy Speak style of word choice and bad dialogue return, but there was the inclusion of a “harper’s tale” inserted between each chapter.

I was not a fan of the harper. He added next to nothing, his character is an obnoxious cliché, and the style of his chapters is so “Now hear ye, gentle listeners, as I, your amazing yet humble harper elucidate this grand and enchanting mystery.” The pomposity was stupid. If it weren’t for the point at which he exposited what happened to characters who’d been separated from the main character, he would have absolutely no reason to be there at all. Not that we even needed to know what those characters were doing.

There are also a few small but weird contradictions to continuity. This book is the story of Kaeldra’s second-sister Lyf. Like Kara, Lyf was saved from vermilion fever by dragon’s milk. For some reason, this gave her the ability to ken with birds, but when Lyf does it, the kenning is a dangerous thing that removes her self from her body and traps it in the bird. Their other sister is married, but not to the young man she granted her amulet in the first book. Lyf also makes no mention of an amulet of her own, which means that an entire aspect of the story world’s culture is just gone.

When Queen’s men come to the house looking for Kaeldra, who is in hiding, Lyf is determined to be in similar danger and so the grandmother sends Lyf to stay with Kaeldra. Thanks to her hand-wringing mother, Lyf believes herself too weak to do or be responsible for anything. When she arrives, she won’t just be sheltered and coddled. The rest of the dragons are hatching, and Kaeldra works with a kind of underground network that identifies itself by a dove sign to get the draclings out of the world.

Lyf is left on her own to help in this goal. Indeed, she finds herself responsible for more then ten draclings as well as her small nephew. She has to learn to depend on herself and not look to others to take care of her. She is forced to become something of a parent, and is not always successful. Things can get pretty dark, but the end is ultimately a happy one, although it’s a long time in coming.

I loved the theme of growing up. There are a lot of ways for a coming of age story to go, and this one does not shy away from failure, consequences, or just plain ill fortune. Lyf toughens up because she needs to, but she also continues to feel like what she is--a scared young girl--in the way that she keeps wishing for someone to step in and help her. She’s in her over head, and she knows it. She’s a great character, struggling without descending into whinging.

The pacing is good, Lyf’s nephew is actually a good example of a child character who is not a plot moppet or speaking piece of furniture, and the ending feels final in a nice, satisfying way.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is it's its own story with a new set of protagonists. The "series" or "chronicles" are loosely bound tales unified by the fact that they all deal with dragons and the female protagonists share similar powers. The characters are likeable enough, and each has a character arc of sorts. Not a big fan of interspersing chapters recounted by a harper, though it's a clever way to convey information that the protagonist doesn't experience (i.e., a way to provide the larger narrative), but it felt contrived. I also didn't develop a deep care for any of these characters; I had a similar feeling about the first two books as well.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a prequel to the prequel sequel. Haha. This book was about Lyf, the girl that Kaeldra got the dragon's milk for in the first book. Lyf finds and cares for 15 draclings while wandering the wilderness looking for a mother dragon to takeover care of the draclings. Lyf must dodge the king's men and their dragon hunters on her journey. Making this a suspenseful tale. I certainly enjoyed this series, but I don't think it's going to make it on my shelves. Four out of five stars to The Sign of the Dove.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was better than the first because the writing was easier to understand and I could tell what was going on. It was better than the second because it had cute dragons again. Also I liked the narration of the Harper's tale. I still feel like all three of these books have lacked something plot-wise but I do think this one has been the strongest.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has a clear vision of her interpretation of dragon's physical and behavioral characteristics. I appreciated the main character's realistic attitudes about her own behavior as a 'reluctant hero,' and this was an overall well paced, fun read.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

As unlike me as it is, I'm not going to finish this series. It's pretty boring, fairly repetitive, and increasingly annoying. Plus, the constant use of fragments is really getting to me. It isn't worth the time.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this slightly less than its predecessor. There was an odd storytelling structure with the harper interludes which I found completely unnecessary and took me out of the story. As well, the ending felt a bit fast and unsatisfying.

[Dassah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the first major books that I read, and I almost forgot about it until one day I was listing all the books I've ever read. I remember it was a very intriguing series, and I remember enjoying the storyline of a girl bonding with dragons. I need to read this series again!

[Lex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly I forgot how heart-wrenching these books were as a child. Susan Fletcher does not pull punches when it comes to killing off characters for emotional impact, and it still got me over a decade later rereading it.

[Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I’ll call this 3.5 stars? It was very similar to dragons milk and I’m not sure it really added much to the series but I did like the harpers tales in between etc so!

[Denlillebogblog · Rating 5 out of 5]

4½-5 stars.

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

My sister read it to me when I was young and I read A LOT of dragon fantasy back then. I remember it as creative, and enthralling.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solid addition to this series. I just wish the contents of the Harper’s pages weren’t told from that perspective. It felt completely unneeded.

[Luther · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorites.

[Margaret Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feels good to read a book in a day once in a while :) now back to the heavy stuff!

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt a little repetitive for a third book in a series and sometimes the main character was annoying. Buti guess it was a good wrap up in the end.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up this book from a used bookstore and thought it might be a fun read. The night I began reading "Sign of the Dove," I quickly discovered that I could not put it down. In fact, I stayed up a good portion of the night trying to finish the delightful tale. The story took me by surprise. The author is a good writer--witty and creative.

[Tushmit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sign of the Dove is the sequel to Dragon’s Milk , although it is the third entry in the series. I haven’t read the second entry, which is a prequel, so hopefully I didn’t miss much. But I do want to go back and read it sometime.

This sequel follows Kaeldra’s sister Lyf, not Kaeldra herself. But I liked that Kaeldra wasn’t just some background character and she was very much involved with the plot … in a manner of speaking. It is also great to see returning characters Jeorg, Yanil and family, and Lyf’s family – and they also play their roles without detracting from a story by means of unnecessary cameos.

This book didn’t have the excerpts from folktales and books sadly, but it did have a “Harper’s Tale” before each chapter. The “Harper’s Tale” is actually quite clever. The author keeps it very much Lyf’s story by sticking to Lyf’s perspectives in the regular chapters. But she keeps us informed of what the other characters are up to through the “Harper’s Tale”, which is basically a story being narrated by a harper/storyteller to a group of children. It can get annoying sometimes when the Harper responds to the children without any actual dialogue from the children, (“What is that you say? You want me to go back to Lyf?”) but sometimes it can get funny (“No don’t throw that at me!”)

This book is not as gritty as Dragon’s Milk, but just as dark. Again, given the circumstances, we can’t expect to avoid death and destruction. This book also has the responsibility theme as the first one, with the added theme of sacrifice. Lyf is responsible for thirteen draclings in addition to Kaeldra’s three-year old. Add to that the fact that Lyf has been pampered all her life and she is not the responsible older sister type that Kaeldra was. The stakes have been upped. Throughout the novel Lyf explores the question “how much should you do for others for no personal gain?” Throughout the book she has to go to help to a variety of people and each of them responds differently and adds different perspectives to the question.

The writing was much better than in Dragon’s Milk. It was more lucid and more engaging. However, this one does have a bit of a cop-out ending. Lyf’s sacrifice at the end has been built up throughout the novel and given the theme of sacrifice for the good of others, her last act of kindness was all the more meaningful. A bittersweet ending would not have been disappointing here. This was not like Messenger (book three in The Giver series), where the sacrifice came out of the blue.

Final thoughts: Like the first book, not a must read, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. I would be up for checking out the prequel.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heroine and dragons. A good story.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the first 2 books in the series, I was really psyched to read book #3. While not as strong a story as the first 2, I still thought the story was well told.

A few things were done differently in this book that I really liked. First of all, there were 2 stories going on parallel to each other. Fletcher's use of the Harper's Tale to keep one of the plot lines going while not interfering with the other was, in my mind, a stroke of genius. It was fitting and much better than the typical point-of-view-chapter-change. The harpers tale really gave me a feel for the time-period as well. It was so much easier for me to read as if I was listening to someone tell me the story like bards used to.

Also, the romance was extremely subtle and postponed, so i thought for a second that it wouldn't really be there. It was super subtle and I felt there could have been just a tiny bit more (just my preference).

Lyf's character was well-developed and a good change of pace for the series. While the previous heroines were strong and eventually dead-set on saving the dragons, Lyf didn't want to. She wasn't as strong as them physically OR mentally, she kept wanting to pass her troubles onto someone else, but she realized what she had to do in the end. I like that about her and ALL of Fletcher's Dragon Chronicles heroines. They are all well-developed and strong in their own ways. While you could compare Kaeldra to Kara to Lyf, I don't really find a need for it. Each heroine stands on her own regardless of what the others have done.

Overall, a wonderful book with a good story. It took me a little while to get into it, but once I did I was stuck like Lyf in a bird kenning. =)

[Ashley Biggerstaff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the final book of the Dragon Chronicles. In this story we follow Lyf, the very adopted-sister that Kaeldra risked her life to obtain dragon's milk for in the first book, as she deals with her own Dragon-Saying ability.
Their land is ruled by a feared Kragish Queen bent on creating an unbeatable army by killing and consuming Dragon's legendary meat. Kaeldra, now married with children, works along with others to save the Dragons in a secret organization that identifies one another with the symbol of a dove. When Lyf falls into danger with her green eyes and ability to communicate with birds she must go into hiding with Kaeldra.
Lyf is a small, young girl of 12 who is used to being coddled by her mother due to her past ill health, but in this book she is forced to find her own strength when she is separated from Kealdra by a treacherous brother-in-law with a hidden agenda. Lyf finds herself responsible for not only her own life and the life of Kaeldra's young son, but also for the lives of 13 small draclings.
In this novel Lyf undergoes a huge transformation from a "milk-sop" who was never allowed to even attempt to do hard work, to a brave, caring, and responsible young woman who proves that she can do anything.
Overall, I enjoyed this book the most because Lyf goes through the greatest amount of growth of any character portrayed throughout the series. At first she is a bit annoying in the weakness that her mother made her believe she had, but that only served to make her more amazing in the end. She wasn't happy about what she had to do, she complained and she cried, but she did it. That's something I think everyone can relate to.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems Fletcher's writing improved as she went along. This book, the third in a trilogy, is better written than the second, which was better written than the first. The plot was original and well-paced. One of the strengths of the books, which was only evident after having read all three of them, is that Fletcher was able to create three "dragon girls," each with her own distinct character, inclinations, and intneral dialogue. Lyf, the sister Kaeldra went to fetch the dragon's milk to save in the first book, Dragon's Milk, has acquired green eyes and the ability to talk to dragons and birds as a result of drinking the dragon milk as a child. Also as a result, she's been cosseted, and told she's frail and sickly, and so she's grown up to think of herself that way. Her emotional journey, as she realizes she's much stronger than her mother gives her credit for, is as interesting as the physical journey she undergoes as she tries to get the last fourteen draclings to safety.

This was a well-written end to the trilogy. It finished much stronger than it started.

[Kristen (belles_bookshelves) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"If you had never known them, you wouldn’t mourn their loss. But if you had known them… the world would ever have a great, gaping hole in it, where splendor once had dwelt."

This, the third book in the series, is the sequel to Dragon's Milk (as the second book in the series, Flight of the Dragon Kyn is a prequel. We see the effects of consuming dragon's milk on a now grown Lyf - who can now speak to dragons.

Lyf must make the same choices her predecessors have in subsequent books: leave home to protect the dragons. Along the way, Lyf must learn to think for herself, to be brave, to make choices that are not always easy to make; she'll make new friends and meet new creatures.

An excellent end to a trilogy (that over a decade later became a quartet).

[Savvy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bathroom book. We pick a book and set it in the bathroom just to get things moving. that being said it took a while to finish. But it was getting so good that I had to finish it that day.

This book is the 3rd book in the Dragon Chronicles and is from Lyf's point of view and also the Harper's point. It was pretty fun with the Harper and then serious with Lyf. At first I was annoyed with Lyf and her poor weak self, but I told myself to be calm and go through and things did get better.

Would I read it again? No, not really. I would suggest it to people though. My sister could read it. Nothing too bad. Just leaches and poor Alys... (I don't know if I spelled that right.) It was good. the ending was a bit too fast and I was sad when it ended and then realized that the next book is from a different point of view from a very new person. I would say I'm on a book hangover right now.

[Kayleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the first two in the series as a kid, but could never find the third installment. Last week, I stumbled across it on PaperBackSwap, and the completionist in me couldn't resist finishing the trilogy (only to learn that there's a fourth book, which I may or may not bother with). Anyway, my tastes in writing and character development have changed a lot since I read the first two, so my present-day reaction was obviously different than the one my ten-year-old self would have had. That said, I still found the story and setting to be well-crafted and enjoyable, even though Lyf was far less interesting as a character than either Kara or Kaeldra. I had a few issues with the writing--the "Harper's Tale" chapters felt a bit clunky, for example--but nothing that outright ruined the book for me.

[Clearwater Public Library System · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyf was both a somewhat minor character, and the whole driving force behind the first book in this series. In this third book, she takes center stage. Lyf was always cossetted as a child, especially by her mother. Now however, as the last of the dragon eggs are hatching she must leave that leisured life behind and accept a great adventure. Lyf must fight to save the dragons, and show she too has great gifts. I loved to see Lyf develop as a character, she really grew into a remarkable young woman. I also liked that Kaeldra made small apperances, tying all the books together. A fine conclusion to the series.

-Miss Jessica

This title is available from PPLC in print format HERE

[Carol Riggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the sequel to DRAGON'S MILK, whereas FLIGHT OF THE DRAGON KYN is a prequel. This novel is the story of Lyf, the sister whom Kaeldra saved by fetching dragon's milk from the mother dragon in the mountains. Because of that milk, Lyf now also can mind-speak with the dragons and their draclings. With the growing hostility toward dragons, Lyf must see that the dragons reach the final eggs they laid 100 years prior, so that all the dragons can settle in a safe land far from humankind.

A wonderful read! Exciting, tense, and engaging.