Rating: 
Summary: Another Great Adventure
Review: Dragons continues the story of Melina vs. Firekeeper, but as with all the Firekeeper novels, it's more than just "good vs. evil." It's also about levels and layers of political intrigue - and this time, not just between the assorted human kingdoms. The wise wolves that raised Firekeeper have kingdoms of their own, and now their council is getting into the act. Once again, the plot twists and turns unexpectedly, with the fates of individual characters and whole kingdoms in doubt up to the last breathlessly turned page.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Adventure
Review: Dragons continues the story of Melina vs. Firekeeper, but as with all the Firekeeper novels, it's more than just "good vs. evil." It's also about levels and layers of political intrigue - and this time, not just between the assorted human kingdoms. The wise wolves that raised Firekeeper have kingdoms of their own, and now their council is getting into the act. Once again, the plot twists and turns unexpectedly, with the fates of individual characters and whole kingdoms in doubt up to the last breathlessly turned page.
Rating: 
Summary: Still got it!
Review: First a word about this series. It is not a trilogy as such, because there's no overall story arc that binds these volumes together. This could be best called The Adventures of Firekeeper and her Friends, with each new volume being a complete story within itself. However while these are fairly standalone, they do assume character and world knowledge from previous volumes, and so should be read in order. Evidently a book 4 is in the planning also.I have to admit I expected something more from this book. I really liked the first two books in this series, because I enjoyed watching the characters grow as Lindskold presented us with interesting political situations and other problems inherent to her world. However in this book not only did the characters not really grow much, they seemed to be at odds with themselves. Derian, who had been growing into a self-assured counselor for the king, is mostly relegated to the role of lackey. Doc is there just to heal everyone and on rare occasion look wistfully at Elise. Firekeeper spends half the book doing stupid cub things that she seemed to have grown out of in previous books, getting the group into trouble which just extended the plot (which really didn't need it). And why has her speaking regressed? You'd think a year of immersion would give her some improvement since she was able to reach her current point in a matter of weeks. Even Blind Seer loses his playful charm. The plot revolves around Melina, Citrine, various people within New Kelvin's political structure, and Grateful Peace, and frankly I didn't care about them. I thought the plot fairly dreadful. Melina marries the mostly powerless ruler of New Kelvin and binds everyone in sight with her power, and searches for ways to extend her power, while some of them search for ways to dump her. King Tedric finds the most useless way he can fight this threat: sending our intrepid team from the second novel back to the scene. So did I like anything? I liked the ruler of New Kelvin, who shows an interesting POV. I liked Edlin's character growth. There was a small subsection of the book regarding settlers moving into the area west of the mountains and the problems this causes among the animal kingdom. That would have been a terrific novel, but it only takes up a small part of this one. That's about all. I honestly recommend that readers of the series wait for this in paperback if they're going to get it at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: First a word about this series. It is not a trilogy as such, because there's no overall story arc that binds these volumes together. This could be best called The Adventures of Firekeeper and her Friends, with each new volume being a complete story within itself. However while these are fairly standalone, they do assume character and world knowledge from previous volumes, and so should be read in order. Evidently a book 4 is in the planning also. I have to admit I expected something more from this book. I really liked the first two books in this series, because I enjoyed watching the characters grow as Lindskold presented us with interesting political situations and other problems inherent to her world. However in this book not only did the characters not really grow much, they seemed to be at odds with themselves. Derian, who had been growing into a self-assured counselor for the king, is mostly relegated to the role of lackey. Doc is there just to heal everyone and on rare occasion look wistfully at Elise. Firekeeper spends half the book doing stupid cub things that she seemed to have grown out of in previous books, getting the group into trouble which just extended the plot (which really didn't need it). And why has her speaking regressed? You'd think a year of immersion would give her some improvement since she was able to reach her current point in a matter of weeks. Even Blind Seer loses his playful charm. The plot revolves around Melina, Citrine, various people within New Kelvin's political structure, and Grateful Peace, and frankly I didn't care about them. I thought the plot fairly dreadful. Melina marries the mostly powerless ruler of New Kelvin and binds everyone in sight with her power, and searches for ways to extend her power, while some of them search for ways to dump her. King Tedric finds the most useless way he can fight this threat: sending our intrepid team from the second novel back to the scene. So did I like anything? I liked the ruler of New Kelvin, who shows an interesting POV. I liked Edlin's character growth. There was a small subsection of the book regarding settlers moving into the area west of the mountains and the problems this causes among the animal kingdom. That would have been a terrific novel, but it only takes up a small part of this one. That's about all. I honestly recommend that readers of the series wait for this in paperback if they're going to get it at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't even get it out of the library!
Review: I really liked the first book in this series. There were plenty of interesting characters/ideas and I waited expectantly for the second book to see how they went on. Well, not much! Second book kind of petered out in any character
development. This book - forget the idea of ANY development except for some
regression. I had bought the first and really regretted buying the second after reading it, so got this one out of the library - and the only good that came out
of that was perhaps some weight-bearing exercises. Lindskold is not that good a writer that you would read her for her prose so there has to be something more for one to get wrapped up in and the story didn't draw me in because the characters are so forgettable since they don't really progress/develop/ripen.
I don't care about any of them anymore, even the wolf. (and that's really sad)
Hurry up, George R.R. Martin, with your next book and keep writing, Robin Hobb! Those are two writers who can really develop a story and a hero/ine.
Rating:
Summary: Going down
Review: I waited an entire year for this book to come out---and maybe that's why I was so disappointed. I found the first novel in the series very charming and full of delicious political intrigue. The characters were fun and real, the plot was thick but not mucky, and the action was on-going. Firekeeper was (and still is, I admit) an engaging main character. The second novel, I confess, is kind of a blur. I can't really remember what happened. The action was not so great this time, although the characters were still interesting. The romance b/w Elise and Doc was "sort of" interesting, although since Lindskold didn't pay too much attention to it, I couldn't really connect with it and really enjoy it. I was hoping the third novel would swing around and resemble the first---but no. In fact, it's almost a complete replica of the rather dull action-less second novel (they even venture into the same land and combat the same enemy). Interesting characters like Princess Saphire and King Tedric are barely mentioned---Saphire has even had some spunk taken from her and made PREGNANT. That leaves us with: Grateful Peace---the boring New Kelvinese guy with one arm. You remember him, right? Yeah, didn't think so. Citrine Shield---Sapphire's little sister. Or you could have just given us Sapphire again, thanks. Wendee Jay---I mean, seriously. Who is she, and why do I care?? Elise---Okay, she's still interesting. Hasn't changed a bit, though. Sir Jared (Doc)---The character who's always there but does nothing. That is, he speaks and moves, but we don't care. Derian---Raise your hand if you've been waiting for THREE books now for him to fall in love with Firekeeper. Okay, now put your hand down and keep waiting. And of course there's Firekeeper and Blind Seer. Remember the cool falcon, Elation? Gone. Why? I don't know. Really, I don't. As if to solidify the lack of romance b/w Derian and Firekeeper, Lindskold has Derian "flirting" with a random, nameless New Kelvinese girl whom he hopes to see more of. Wow, I think I'm getting teary-eyed already. Not. As this review is starting to sound peevish, I'd better stop. But hey, I just had to say SOMEthing. Because I honestly was a fan, I really was. Now? I'm not so sure. I can only take so much, you know.
Rating:
Summary: Going down
Review: I waited an entire year for this book to come out---and maybe that's why I was so disappointed. I found the first novel in the series very charming and full of delicious political intrigue. The characters were fun and real, the plot was thick but not mucky, and the action was on-going. Firekeeper was (and still is, I admit) an engaging main character. The second novel, I confess, is kind of a blur. I can't really remember what happened. The action was not so great this time, although the characters were still interesting. The romance b/w Elise and Doc was "sort of" interesting, although since Lindskold didn't pay too much attention to it, I couldn't really connect with it and really enjoy it. I was hoping the third novel would swing around and resemble the first---but no. In fact, it's almost a complete replica of the rather dull action-less second novel (they even venture into the same land and combat the same enemy). Interesting characters like Princess Saphire and King Tedric are barely mentioned---Saphire has even had some spunk taken from her and made PREGNANT. That leaves us with: Grateful Peace---the boring New Kelvinese guy with one arm. You remember him, right? Yeah, didn't think so. Citrine Shield---Sapphire's little sister. Or you could have just given us Sapphire again, thanks. Wendee Jay---I mean, seriously. Who is she, and why do I care?? Elise---Okay, she's still interesting. Hasn't changed a bit, though. Sir Jared (Doc)---The character who's always there but does nothing. That is, he speaks and moves, but we don't care. Derian---Raise your hand if you've been waiting for THREE books now for him to fall in love with Firekeeper. Okay, now put your hand down and keep waiting. And of course there's Firekeeper and Blind Seer. Remember the cool falcon, Elation? Gone. Why? I don't know. Really, I don't. As if to solidify the lack of romance b/w Derian and Firekeeper, Lindskold has Derian "flirting" with a random, nameless New Kelvinese girl whom he hopes to see more of. Wow, I think I'm getting teary-eyed already. Not. As this review is starting to sound peevish, I'd better stop. But hey, I just had to say SOMEthing. Because I honestly was a fan, I really was. Now? I'm not so sure. I can only take so much, you know.
Rating:
Summary: Keep on Reading. . .
Review: I'm having a hard time deciding whether I liked the first book in this series or this one, but so far all the books are wonderful.
Part of the conflict in this book revolves around the villain, Melina Shield, who has just been wedded to the monarch of New Kelvin. The other major conflict that progresses the plot is the madness of Citrine, which presumalby will be cured if she can confront her mother, who caused her to be traumatized to the point of insanity. All of the main characters from the first two books are there to contribute (on varying levels; Sir Jared and Elise hardly do anything).
There have been complaints that there is little character deleopment in this book. This isn't entirely true. Firekeeper has some very complicated mental issues to deal with, Edlin matures a lot, and Citrine learns how she can fit herself into the world.
Overall, this is a true page-turner, with all the riveting plot twists and wonderful prose you can expect from Jane Lindskold. If another one of these books comes out, I'd definetly read it!
Rating:
Summary: A LOT OF WORDS WITH LITTLE CONTENT
Review: It would seem that Ms. Lindskold is following in the footsteps of Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind. This is not a complement by the way. Nobody can take a decent story and stretch it out longer than those two, stretch it until it is little more than a shade of its former self. Hopefully Ms. Lindskold won't do the same but with THE DRAGON OF DESPAIR she is getting a really good start in that direction. For those of you who enjoyed THROUGH WOLF'S EYES and WOLF'S HEAD, WOLF'S HEART stand by to be disappointed. In the ongoing saga of Firestarter, the wolf-girl, this book is little more than a dead-end, a bypass, and not a very scenic one at that. Character development; none here, although one begins to wonder just what in the hell Derian Carter's place in all this is, he seems to be about as useless as one human being could be. But then the others are almost as bad. Where is all this going? Who knows? Other than a vague foreshadowing of possible war between the beasts and humans the rest is pretty much null space. The bottom line is don't bother with this one. It's a waste of six hundred and some odd pages. If you have to read it for some reason for gods sake don't buy it, check it out of your local library. Maybe the next one will put a fitting end to this story, but I'm getting the feeling it won't. Regardless, by not reading this one you couldn't possibly miss anything for the next one. We can only hope the next installment will bring us back to the original story line and hopefully to it's conclusion. Needless to say this one is NOT RECOMMENDED, pass it by there are better ones out there.
Rating:
Summary: A LOT OF WORDS WITH LITTLE CONTENT
Review: It would seem that Ms. Lindskold is following in the footsteps of Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind. This is not a complement by the way. Nobody can take a decent story and stretch it out longer than those two, stretch it until it is little more than a shade of its former self. Hopefully Ms. Lindskold won't do the same but with THE DRAGON OF DESPAIR she is getting a really good start in that direction. For those of you who enjoyed THROUGH WOLF'S EYES and WOLF'S HEAD, WOLF'S HEART stand by to be disappointed. In the ongoing saga of Firestarter, the wolf-girl, this book is little more than a dead-end, a bypass, and not a very scenic one at that. Character development; none here, although one begins to wonder just what in the hell Derian Carter's place in all this is, he seems to be about as useless as one human being could be. But then the others are almost as bad. Where is all this going? Who knows? Other than a vague foreshadowing of possible war between the beasts and humans the rest is pretty much null space. The bottom line is don't bother with this one. It's a waste of six hundred and some odd pages. If you have to read it for some reason for gods sake don't buy it, check it out of your local library. Maybe the next one will put a fitting end to this story, but I'm getting the feeling it won't. Regardless, by not reading this one you couldn't possibly miss anything for the next one. We can only hope the next installment will bring us back to the original story line and hopefully to it's conclusion. Needless to say this one is NOT RECOMMENDED, pass it by there are better ones out there.
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