'Dragon Charmer' by Jan Siegel

Reviewed by: Alex McLintock (Wyrmtongue, Nov. 2000)

This is a sequel to Jan's first book, 'Prospero's Children', but thankfully that book was written to stand alone. I didn't realise she had written a sequel until I got this second novel in the post. I have to say that this book held little interest for me. The writing is adequate, if a little overdone. There are too many characters for my liking. Many of them are not fully formed in the second book, and are slipped in here with either no explanation, or an infodump explanation of that character's history in the previous novel.

I suppose if you like fantasy and want to read fantasy set in the modern world then you might like this. I found the pacing of the story to be so poor that I did not look forward to reading the next chapter. Like 'Prosperos Children' the tale is split up into two worlds. The first half of the novel takes place in modern day England and the second half in a fantasy world. This granularity is more than I could bear. A more skilled author might have tried to interleave these two half stories and told them simultaneously. As it is I am left disappointed after the first half not knowing whether it is worth persevering with the second.

As this review is written we don't have any of Jan Siegel's books in the library, but that may change in the future - check the database for details.