The Girl with the Dragon Heart by Stephanie Burgis

Silke may not feel at home in the city of Drachenburg, but she does have a place there. She has a friend who is also a dragon, and she helps in a magical chocolate shop. She tells stories and writes handbills. But then the fairies who stole her parents away arrive and Silke has to confront her past and spy on them if she wants to stop their plots.

I loved the first book in this series, The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart, and I was really curious to see how the shift in perspective would translate. Also, I like Stephanie Burgis a lot as a writer and a person.

Silke has really had some traumatic things happen and the story doesn’t shy away from showing that. Her family has been lost and her place in Drachenburg feels tenuous, always under threat from the established citizens who might turn on her community at any moment. But there are moments of warmth and companionship as well. It felt more serious tonally than we sometimes get in middle grade, without being grim.

Silke herself is a smart, thoughtful character who is competent and knows her own strengths. But she also doesn’t just seem like an adult in disguise. She’s full of competing desires and tensions in a way that seemed very appropriate for someone who has been forced to grow up very quickly but who is still a child.

I loved the fact that Silke is a storyteller, who uses her ability to protect herself and the people she cares about. But that ability is also what brings her to the attention of the Crown Princess who pressures her into spying on the fairy royalty during their visit. Ultimately, Silke will have to find out if she can tell her own story or if it will always be told for her.

The story also asks some big questions about family and home. How do you define your family? How do you know what your true home looks like? But also, what would you do to protect them, and what wouldn’t you do? We see these questions play out across several sets of families within the story, including the Crown Princess and her sister, and the fairy King and Queen. But most of all, we see it in Silke, who has a complicated relationship with her brother and has lost her parents but who also isn’t ready to trust the promise of belonging that the chocolate shop and Aventurine hold out to her.

All in all, I really enjoyed this one and found it an unexpectedly deep look at some big questions of belonging, the tension between expectation and identity, and the importance of diplomacy. While as an adult I could guess that our current geo-political situation prompted some of the storytelling choices, that in no way overwhelmed the integrity of the story. There’s a third book focusing on Princess Sofia that’s coming out next year and I can’t wait!

Other reviews of this book:
The Story Sanctuary
Fantasy Literature
Foreward Reviews

Other Stephanie Burgis reviews here:
Masks and Shadows (2016)
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Previously, on By Singing Light:
Recovery Reading Mystery Round Up (2018)
Everfair by Nisi Shawl (2017)
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold (2016)
Once Upon a Rose by Laura Florand (2015)
Black Dog by Rachel Neumeier (2014)
Letters from Berlin (2013)
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (2012)
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2011)