In the enchanting novel Prospero's Children, Jan Siegel introduced an extraordinary heroine and the lushly evocative world of wonders and terrors that quickly enveloped her normal adolescent life. Now Siegel summons us back to the magic with the continuing story of Fern Capel--and the remarkable power of her extraordinary Gift . . . After surviving an amazing, terrifying summer twelve years ago, Fern makes a fateful decision: to deny the mystical powers that pulse through her family's past. Yearning for a simple, quiet life, she decides to marry a man twenty years her senior, a man who insists they wed at the Capels' summer house in Yarrowdale, a place swelling with mood, marvel, and magic. For when Fern returns there with her best friend, Gaynor, ancient, sinister forces reawaken. Yet Fern has had enough: Enough of running from her fate, enough of hiding from her Gift. As she turns to face her destiny, the real world falls away, and Fern is once again swept into another land, removed from Time, void of comfort. It will take all her skill and daring to fight her way back to the present and save the people she loves from the ever-growing danger that threatens to destroy them. And to her utmost surprise, the key to survival is a dragon with the capacity to rule the world . . . but who will relinquish it all to one man. Jan Siegel has created an intense, fascinating world. To surrender yourself under her captivating spell is to remember how remarkably powerful a literary voyage can be. Since the traumatic events in Prospero's Children (2000), Fern has rejected her extraordinary gift. But when she returns to the family's remote Yorkshire house to wed an older man she likes but doesn't love, the ancient evil forces that want to control the gift awaken. Drawn from her body by Morgus, Fern's spirit is taken outside of time and within the roots of the Tree of Life. As her brother, Will, her best friend, Gaynor, and the hoary Ragginbone search for her, she craftily learns as much as possible from Morgus. Finally, with the help of Morgus' misshapen son, Kaliban, she plucks the head of the last dragon charmer from where it hangs on the Tree of Life, hoping that it can charm the last dragon and help her save the world from the evil Azmordis. Siegel draws on ancient Scottish lore, Arthurian legend, and the myth of Atlantis in another enigmatic, preternatural narrative that ambles in and outside of time, between past and present, dream and reality, and world and underworld. Sally Estes Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Jan Siegel's writing is lively, erudite, and often poetic." --Starburst nting novel Prospero's Children, Jan Siegel introduced an extraordinary heroine and the lushly evocative world of wonders and terrors that quickly enveloped her normal adolescent life. Now Siegel summons us back to the magic with the continuing story of Fern Capel--and the remarkable power of her extraordinary Gift . . . After surviving an amazing, terrifying summer twelve years ago, Fern makes a fateful decision: to deny the mystical powers that pulse through her family's past. Yearning for a simple, quiet life, she decides to marry a man twenty years her senior, a man who insists they wed at the Capels' summer house in Yarrowdale, a place swelling with mood, marvel, and magic. For when Fern returns there with her best friend, Gaynor, ancient, sinister forces reawaken. Yet Fern has had enough: Enough of running from her fate, enough of hiding from her Gift. As she turns to face her destiny, the real world falls away, and Fern is once again swept into another land, removed fr Jan Siegel is also the author of Prospero's Children. She has already lived through one lifetime--during which she traveled the world and supported herself through a variety of professions, including that of actress, barmaid, garage hand, laboratory assistant, journalist, and model. Her new life is devoted to her writing, but she also finds time to ride, ski, and attend the opera. FIF have known many battles, many defeats. I have been a fugitive, hiding in the hollow hills, spinning the blood-magic only in the dark. The children of the north ruled my kingdom, and the Oldest Spirit hunted me with the Hounds of Arawn, and I fled from them riding on a giant owl, over the edge of being, out of the world, out of Time, to this place that was in the very beginning. Only the great birds come here, and a few other strays who crossed the boundary in the days when the barrier between worlds was thinner, and have never returned. But the witchkind may find the way, in desperation or need, and then there is no going back, and no going forward. So I dwell here, in the cave beneath the Tree, I and another who eluded persecution or senility, beyond the reach of the past. Awaiting a new future. This is the Ancient of Trees, older than history, older than memory—the Tree of Life, whose branches uphold Middle-Earth and whose roots reach down i