Though Flight is told in first person, Fletcher's ability to instantly make us aware of the sense and feeling of the book's environment was actually a step-up from that in Dragon's Milk.

The first thing I noticed about Flight is that Fletcher's style and especially her pacing had definitely improved. The story opens ten years later with Kara, now fifteen being summoned by the king of Cragland who has sworn to his second wife to slay a dragon and who believes Kara's ability to mentally call birds down from the sky will also let her command dragons to come to his hunters. Plus despite my apprehension about prequels generally I did find Susan Fletcher's reasons for writing Flight interested me, since she found when writing Dragon’s Milk that a more extensive backstory was needed than for the initial updated fairy tale she planned, and Flight was a chance to share that backstory with her readers.įlight of the Dragon Kyn takes place roughly a generation before Dragon's Milk and is the story of Kara, the Craggish girl mentioned as first having been cured of vermilion fever as a young child by being left in a dragon's cave where she drank its milk.

Ultimately what tipped the balance was the fact that Fletcher had after all written Flight before going on to give Dragon’s Milk a sequel and I didn't want to miss any references that might occur in the third volume.

After all as a general rule prequels don't tend to be as good as their originals and I was tempted to go straight on to the third book, Sign of the Dove which is a direct sequel to Dragon’s Milk. I will admit I was a little apprehensive about Flight of the Dragon Kyn.

A little in love by susan fletcher