Among them is Thymara, an unschooled forest girl of sixteen, and Alise, a wealthy Trader's wife trapped in a loveless marriage, who attaches herself to the expedition as a dragon expert. To ensure their safe passage, the Traders recruit a disparate group of young people to care for the damaged creatures and escort them to their new home. To avert catastrophe, the dragons decree a move even farther up the treacherous river to Kelsingra, their ancient, mythical homeland whose mysterious location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories. The Trader leadership fears that if it stops providing for the young dragons, the hungry and neglected creatures will rampageor die along the river's acidic muddy banks.

The few who survive cannot use their wings earthbound, they are powerless to hunt and vulnerable to human predators willing to kill them for the fabled healing powers of dragon flesh.īut Tintaglia has vanished and the Traders are weary of the labor and expense of tending useless dragons. But too much time has passed, and the newly hatched dragons are damaged and weak, and many die. In return, the Traders promised to help her serpents migrate up the Rain Wild River after a long exile at seato find a safe haven and, Tintaglia hopes, to restore her species. But they could not have staved off invasion without the powerful dragon Tintaglia. In this enthralling new novel, she returns to the territory of her beloved Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies with a story of dragons and humans, return and rebirth, and the search for meaning, belonging, and home.įor years, the Trader cities valiantly battled their enemies, the Chalcedeans. One of the most gifted fantasy authors writing today, New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb has dazzled readers with brilliantly imaginative, emotionally resonant, and compulsively readable tales set in far-flung realms not unlike our own. Mindy Mejia’s gripping debut novel highlights the perils of captivity and the astonishing ways in which animals evolve.Enter the spellbinding world of dragons. And as she fights to save the animal she loves from the consequences of its own miracle, she must learn to accept that in nature, as in life, not everything can be controlled. Faced with this rare phenomenon, Meg must now defend Jata’s hatchlings from the scientific, religious, and media forces that converge on the zoo to claim the miracle as their own.įinally forced to deal with the very people she has avoided for so long, Meg discovers that opening herself up comes with its own complications. Jata has produced viable eggs-without ever having had a mate. Then one day, Meg makes an amazing discovery. Meg has always been better able to relate to reptiles than to people, from her estranged father to her live-in boyfriend to the veterinarian who is more concerned with his career than with the animals’ lives. A species that became endangered soon after being discovered, Komodos have a legacy of independence, something that Meg understands all too well. Jata brings the exotic to Meg’s Minnesotan life: an ancient, predatory history and stories of escaping to freedom.

Meg Yancy knows she may be overly attached to Jata, the Komodo dragon that has been in her care since it arrived at the zoo from Indonesia.

Description A zookeeper fights to save the animal she loves, even as her own life crumbles around her…

A dragon keeper