In DARK FIRE, the fifth book in the New York Times bestselling fantasy series Last Dragon Chronicles, author Chris d’Lacey simultaneously explains and deepens the mysteries surrounding dragons and the dark fire, a malevolent force that has the potential to overturn the harmony of the planet.

Dragons, the spiritual guardians of the Earth, have been persecuted into dormancy and extinction. When the last dragon on Earth, a powerful male named Gawain, lay down to die, it shed a last tear known as a fire tear that contained its spirit or auma. That tear was meant to seep into the Earth, but was instead preserved in ice by a woman who loved dragons. Her descendents, Liz Pennykettle and her teenage daughter Lucy, have inherited some of the gifts of dragons. In particular, Liz can create miniature clay dragons and give them the spark of life.

DARK FIRE takes up the story at the moment that David Rain, bestselling author and Liz’s erstwhile tenant, has come back to the Pennykettle home after five years in the Arctic, during which he had been given up for dead. Upon his return, he meets his estranged wife Zanna --- a sibyl or wise woman who is still discovering her talents --- and their young daughter Alexa, who bears gifts beyond anyone’s imagining, not the least of which is that she can communicate telepathically and foretell the future.

David and Zanna’s struggles to reestablish a relationship are complicated by the mysteries now surrounding David and the time he spent with angelic beings known as the Fain. What does David know about the mist that has abruptly risen over the Arctic and what it may be hiding? Since David shook up her world with his sudden disappearance years ago, Zanna is no longer sure how much she trusts him with her wounded heart. The sibyl is also much warier of him since she has learned that David isn’t quite human --- he was created by the Fain to bring the dragons back to Earth.

David has also returned from the Arctic with a crazy assertion --- that their five-year-old daughter Alexa holds the key to destroying the evil posed by Ix, the enemy of the Fain and of dragons. Zanna fears for her daughter’s fate, since she knows the extent of the evil that the Ix can unleash; after all, it is the Ix who were responsible for blinding Liz’s partner, Arthur. They had even possessed young Lucy at one time and nearly driven her to kill her mother and the baby Liz carried in her womb.

When Arthur, Liz and Lucy receive tantalizing hints that they must go to Scuffenbury near Glissington Tor, the supposed site where a buried dragon lies with a horse or horse-like creature guarding it, they are faced with a difficult decision. Things are tense at home. Gwillana, a crazy and dangerous sibyl, has been causing mischief again, and this time she may be aided by darklings, twisted creatures of the dark forces that seek to rule the Universe. The group splits up so that some of them can stay behind at Wayward Crescent, while others seek out the mysteries at Scuffenbury.

In the midst of all this turmoil, Liz unexpectedly suffers an injury that threatens her life and that of her unborn son, Joseph Henry, who it appears is not without big secrets of his own. Could it really be that the baby has been communicating with and perhaps controlling the Pennykettle dragons, all while still in his mother’s womb? But it remains unclear if Joseph Henry’s powers will turn out to be for the good or for the evil, and where his eventual fate lies. The outcome of the battles that all the characters are forced to wage, both at Scuffenbury and at home in Wayward Crescent, will determine the fate of all of them and indeed the Earth itself.

Fans of the Last Dragon Chronicles will not be disappointed by this latest volume. DARK FIRE has plenty of suspenseful twists and complicated storylines to keep  readers engaged for the 500+ pages that make this the longest and most complex book of the series. Readers familiar with these novels will be glad to find all their old favorites back in DARK FIRE --- from David, Zanna, Liz, Lucy and Tam Farrell, to the natural dragons like Grockle, and clay dragons like Gwillan, Gadzooks, Gwendolen and Grace.

A complete list of characters at the start of the book would have greatly aided a newcomer to the series. Keeping their names straight in one’s head, especially when it comes to the many dragons that populate the book (all of which have names that begin with the letter G), becomes challenging on occasion. This is especially true of the Pennykettle and other clay dragons, all of which have confusingly similar names but very different magical abilities that play important roles in moving the plot forward at various times. In spite of this minor drawback, both fans and newcomers will find themselves drawn into a complex and engaging world in which dragons and unicorns coexist with humans, angelic beings and creatures of the dark.