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These dragon series of MacAlister's are becoming pretty complicated in the way they intertwine, and the plots aren't the straight-forward excursions the first dragon series was, so I might just have to provide a bit of context here rather than a summary of just this one book.

All sorts of other-worldly creatures exist alongside us in MacAlister's world, everything from witches to sprites to demons to dragons. Many look perfectly human when they wish, and all are temperamental to some degree. Some are human with gifts, but most are not.

The dragons are one such group. They have their own culture and ways of doing things, but mingle with humans in the business world and for the most part seem human. But they are drawn to gold, breathe fire even in human form, and get very possessive over their mates when they discover them - especially the wyverns, the male leaders of each wyvern. The wyverns are the groups of dragons, divided by colour and a particular trait. The first series, the Aisling Grey Guardian books, were about the Green Dragons. The second focused on the Silver Dragons, and that's where the overarching plot got more complex.

Long ago, the Black Dragons were at war with the Blue over a woman, Ysolde, who was claimed by the wyverns of both sects, Baltic and Constantine. The Black Dragons were decimated, Ysolde was murdered and the survivors formed the Silver Dragons. Members of the wyverns still argue over who caused the war, and who Ysolde rightly belonged to.

Now, we get her story, and with her, Baltic's. Baltic appears as a minor character in the Silver Dragons books, and not a nice one either. He seems, to all intents and purposes, a real enemy, able to use a mage sword that, as a dragon, he shouldn't be able to do, as well as enter the shadow world.

Ysolde turns up in the form of a woman called Tully Sullivan, who is married and has a boy, Brom. Except, she can't remember marrying Gareth, or anything. Perhaps it's due to the comas she falls into each year, during which she spins gold from straw - which Gareth makes sure she has a plentiful supply of. She ended up in the home of the wyvern to the Silver Dragons rather by accident, and is there confronted with a truth she has a hard time believing: that she is Ysolde, a dragon, once mate to Baltic (and once a mate, always a mate). Yet, she's also human. Still, her new dragon friends are convinced.

In her dreams and when she blacks out, Tully lives through her past life as Ysolde, and so we get the two parallel stories and learn the truth behind the old war, and whether she was true to Baltic or Constantine, and what happened. Yet this is just the beginning, for the First Dragon has plans for Ysolde, and she's already disappointed him once before. If only she knew what she was meant to do!

MacAlister writes with fun, flair and flippant humour, balancing darker themes with lighter scenes. I find her books - I can really only speak for the dragon books, because I haven't read any of her others - to be just the kind of frivolous fun and romance that I need at times. I don't like having to wait so long between books, though, because I tend to forget a lot of the details and flounder for a while, trying to dredge up memories that will help me understand a scene or a conversation - she doesn't do much recapping, which is actually great but I'd advise waiting till they're all out before starting, as I did with the Aisling Grey series.

Tully/Ysolde (I like the second name much better!) was an engaging narrater and heroine, and her innate love and loyalty for Baltic shows itself organically as the two meet again after hundreds of years. Baltic, that most misunderstood dragon (the classic boogey-monster used to frighten little dragon children into behaving), was very endearing. It's true that there's almost a mocking quality to the way MacAlister writes the male dragons, but then they do take themselves SO seriously, they set themselves up for looking slightly ridiculous. And childish - my they carry on like 2 year olds sometimes!

The parallel story lines worked very effectively, and it was interesting watching the personality of Tully mature into Ysolde until she really was Ysolde and began to think of herself that way again - except this time with a human son in tow! Previous central characters from the earlier books make their requisite reappearance, as does Jim, Aisling's minor demon (in the shape of a Newfoundland dog), who has a real potty mouth and makes inappropriate comments all the time.

I'm still waiting for the fourth and final book of the Silver Dragons, because as far as I remember the story of Mae was far from finished, and I really liked her.