Book: Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey

Pages/Format: 302/Hardcover

My Thoughts: Dragon’s Keep is about Rosalind, who is a princess destined to fulfill a 600-year-old prophecy from Merlin.  She is born with one dragon’s talon, which her mother desperately tries to get rid of.  When she reveals it to a dragon on the island where she lives, she is taken by the dragon, and learns of her mother’s treachery and her dragon blood.

The story moved pretty slow, but I really wanted to know why Rosalind was born with a dragon’s talon.  It was indicated that Rosalind’s mother (the Queen) did something before/during her pregnancy which resulted in the dragon’s talon.  It turns out that her mother sucked on a dragon egg in order to have Rosalind.

I didn’t particularly care for most of the last third of the book- she’s taken by Lord Faul (a dragon), and raises his children because it was a fair trade for the knights who killed his mate.  She learns dragontongue, but one of the things I found most interesting was the Queen’s role in Rosalind’s dragon talon.  We learned several chapters earlier that Demetra got a dragon egg that the Queen ate, which helped her become pregnant with Rosalind.  The Queen also had a backup plan- her servant Aliss was also pregnant, and if the queen didn’t become pregnant, she’d pretend she was, and take Aliss’s child Kit, who later becomes a friend/servant to Rosalind.

The one thing I thought was odd was that no one questioned why Rosalind wore gloves all the time- even her father didn’t seem to notice.  I get she’s a princess, and for all we know, it could have been a custom for royalty to wear gloves, but at the same time, I still find it slightly odd that no one seems to care that she’s constantly wearing gloves.

I still don’t completely understand the dragon talon thing- it seemed to be a curse for sucking the dragon egg in order to have a child…but did she have some dragon blood in her because of what her mother did, or was it really a curse?  I want to know!

Rating: 3 out of 5.  I loved the premise, but felt it could have used a little more work.  Still, I enjoyed it.