Karleen Bradford’s latest novel draws upon medieval cosmology, Jungian psychology, and classic adventure-suspense to produce an intelligent and entertaining fantasy for young readers. The hero of this quest romance is 17-year-old Dahl, an orphan who has lived as a stable-boy for most of his life but harbours a secret, nobler identity. The heroine is Catryn, who is crucial to Dahl’s quest, not as the traditional damsel in distress but as his helper and psychological counterpart. Like Dahl, Catryn is an orphan with a partially concealed past, and her temperament complements his: while she needs his carefulness to temper her impetuosity, he needs her choleric energy to combat his inhibitions and fulfill his destiny. In addition to providing a feminist twist to the traditional journey of the hero, Catryn updates Dahl’s fate-centred cosmology by insisting upon his power to choose his actions.

The action in this novel is enough in itself to sustain the interest of readers. However, what really distinguishes this book is its theme – or, more precisely, the coalescence of its structure and theme. The structure is based on parallel worlds and binary sets of characters (Dahl and Catryn, and Dahl and the Usurper) representing different facets of the hero’s psyche. In keeping with tradition, the hero’s goal is individuation, but here the process is divided into two stages that develop the theme of self-acceptance. In the first stage, Dahl learns to acknowledge his fear and to act in spite of it. The second stage demands a more difficult acceptance: Dahl must embrace his shadow side, the evil that is as essential to his identity as the good. How the shadow is to be given its due in practical, behavioural terms remains unclear, but this problem is part of what makes Dragonfire thought-provoking.

Bradford, an Ontario writer with 14 children’s novels to her name, writes with vigour and exactitude. The dialogue in this novel sounds stilted at times because of syntactical anomalies that may be intended to suggest the rhythms of Middle English. However, there are more successful reminders of the time setting in the book. For instance, the vocabulary, which is remarkable for its range and quality, creates a sense of the medieval grotesque. Even if psycho-allegorical models of good and evil don’t captivate all young readers, the sensory evocation in such phrases as “a miasma of human and animal odours” and “the obscene touch of slimy fur” probably will.